money lamp

This is something I made out of a Topo Chico bottle (a Mexican brand of sparkling water) when I noticed what a lovely shade of green it was. To a lesser extent, yellow is also associated with money in Hoodoo--yellow for gold--but green is the most traditional color. Also, I like green better than yellow.

They don't have twist-off caps, but if you very gently pry off the cap in several spots, it will remain unbent enough to enable you to pop it back onto the bottle neck. I made a hole in the cap with an awl and fed my wick through it. I've given up using vegetable oil and natural wicks--they were always going out and required constant fussing with, and I just got tired of it. I bought some woven wicks and some paraffin oil on Amazon and I'm much happier with the results. (Also, paraffin oil does not go rancid.) Spring for the the ultra pure-burning stuff, it doesn't smoke or smell at all. And make sure the bottle says it's for oil candles, not just oil lamps--technically these are oil candles and not lamps.

Inside is a bunch of money-drawing goodies: a cinnamon stick, some dried allspice berries, a High John root, pyrite chunks, and lodestone gravel dressed with gold magnetic sand. They were anointed with Special Oil No. 20 (I haven't made any money-specific oils yet) and smudged in patchouli incense before being placed inside the lamp. (I had to get over my patchouli prejudice for that. It's lovely as a base in a complex oil, but by itself it smells like dirt and hippies.)

I had a really cool idea for a paperless name paper that involved carving my initials onto an array of coins that added up to my age--which means I'd have had to to add another penny on November 23rd--but alas, the neck was too narrow for coins, even dimes. So instead I wrapped some paper money around one of my business cards, and put it under the lamp.