Crafting A Strophalos Plaque

I went looking online to try to find a nice altar tile or wall plaque that has Hekate’s Wheel, the Strophalos, on it. Not only was it very difficult to find any that are good for delivery to Australia – but the prices were pretty full on. It’s possible I was looking in the wrong places.

I saw on Pinterest that someone had used a circle of wood and burned the strophalos into it. Very nice, and though I couldn’t do the same, having no wood burning tools right now – I do have carving tools.

I just needed a piece of wood. I didn’t care what type of wood – perhaps I should care, but getting it done is what was important. I found myself staring at the toilet paper roll storage holders in my bathroom, with their perfectly round bases…

No. That’s no good, for numerous reasons, not least we need those for storing the toilet paper!

In Australia it’s quite normal to frequently shop in “thrift stores” or as we call them opp (short for opportunity) shops. In my town the main ones are St Vincent de Paul and Lifeline. It was in Lifeline that found my circle of wood for $2.

Perfect. And that colour, it’s a beautiful red colour that is perfect for me. But it has one little problem, I am sure you can see it.
It has a ceramic tile on top of it, stuck to it.

I figured, I would try to remove the tile and use the wood for my needs. And maybe use the tile for something as well, a pentagram tile maybe. If I happened to break the tile, or just not be able to remove it? Well, it’s only $2 so the risk is worth it.

So I went at it with a screwdriver – I am adaptable like that. Pop, off it came. The only issue was, it had been stuck on with a smaller cork base. Cork, stuck to the bottom of the tile and to the wood. Sigh.

Well, I would figure it out, I was sure.

The next step, of course, was carving out the wheel itself. Not an easy task when you are not artistic. My cheat? I printed out a strophalos from my computer, cut around the edges of it and traced the outer wheel part.

Then I had to use my own judgement. I carefully, with much erasing, drew a second wheel about half a centimetre from the first one – the carving is wider than it looks. Indeed if you look at the photo, it is actually sitting on my legs! It takes up almost all of my thighs! It’s not a tiny piece of wood.

Next I drew out the circles, also double lined, and the flowery star wheel thingy in the middle (does that have a name?). It is not perfect, of course, as I said, I am not an artist, Then I carved it all out. As well, as you can see, I carved out Hekates name in Greek.

Now, with the left over mess from the cork, along with some random scratches in the wood, it obviously couldn’t be left at just that. Which is unfortunate, as I think it could have been perfect as it was, if the wood had been clean beforehand.

Ah well. Paint it is then. I was going to use red for the design, with a black background – but my red paint just didn’t cut it. So I opted for silver instead.

I only painted the inside circle of the wood, leaving the outer rim in its old red tone. I think it works nicely. A deep red border, black inside and silver strophalos and name.

As I have already mentioned it is quite large, so it’s probably going to be a wall plaque. But for now it is sitting on my altar – I will add a hook to the back for hanging it up another day.

And there we have it. My own crafted strophalos wall plaque. I haven’t worked on the leftover tile – which is intact – yet. It obviously will just be painted, but for now I am unsure if I want to make another strophalos, this time an altar tile, or a pentagram or something else.

You don’t always have to spend a lot of money to get your altar decked out. Sometimes a little bit of work, and it wasn’t even hard work, goes a long way. $2 for a piece of wood and then use some of my kids craft paints, and I have what I need.