Runes 301 - Making Your Own Runes - Chestnuts

Chestnut Runes

This may be one of the most creative Rune sets I've seen in a long time.  They are made of chestnuts. My friend, Amanda, made them after she was nudged by Odin to create this unique set... from seeds.

"Using tree seeds seems to fit, since Odin hung from a tree for nine nights to gain the secrets of the Runes," she explains.

Of course, chestnuts are not easy to carve into.  Unlike the ash key Runes I shared last month, once dried, chestnuts are quite hard, like dried beans.  In fact, after trying to use a dremmel to carve the Runes into the chestnuts to no avail, Amanda switched to painting the Runes onto them and found that gold, copper, and silver looked the best and most natural against the rich brown color of the seeds.

To many of us, myself included, the box or pouch  that holds our Runes is just as important as the runes themselves.  The 'pouch' for this set is no exception.  Amanda says, "I wanted to create a pouch to hold them that resembled a nest."

Chestnut Runes nestled in their nest.

As you can see from the picture to the right, she clearly succeeded.

Amanda plans to make other unique Rune sets too, using mediums such as shells and antlers.  She also has plans to make a chestnut set using the Ogham alphabet.

She is in the process of setting up an account on Etsy for her Rune sets and the other work she does through her craft business 9 Nights Forge & Loom.  When the site goes live, I will share links on my pages on Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+, so you can check out her work.

Until then, if you have a set of Runes you'd like to share, please put them in a comment on this post or contact me directly and I will do my best to share them in a future blog post.