Hello, I'm new here.

I'm also new to the runes in general but after a surprisingly relevant online rune reading a few days ago (and I thought it was going to be some inscrutable nonsense) I became particularly fascinated with them and now I'm burning with desire to make my own set. There are no shops selling any such items where I live and I thought making your own set would be far more interesting anyway. So, for this purpose, I bought 25 pieces of transparent rock crystal. The shapes are not entirely identical but I like them this way. Tell me please, how should I go about carving them? What do you use to carve crystals? I asked the guy selling crystals, he said one should only use drilling tools with corundum or diamond tips, is this true? And concerning painting the symbols, what kind of paint would be best? It seems many people use acryllic paint judging from what I read. I'm not so sure about using blood, looks like quite a lot would be needed. Maybe mixing a little with the paint would be the way to go.

I was reading online a little about this, there is quite a lot of information.  If using paint on your crystals though you want to make sure that it is a kind that won't flake or rub off.  Several websites say what kind they use and that it isn't supposed to do that, so maybe you can find out what kind there.

I also made my own, but I am afraid they were more rustic. I just picked up rounded pebbles from the beach, which are a dark grey color. Then I painted the runes with bright red acrylic paint... Or was it black? I never carved them, though. I thought carving was mostly for wooden pieces?

The trouble is they lay forgotten inside their homemade bag, because I find Tarot more expressive or easier to read for me. Anyway, there must be lots of information out there: I had never heard about blood for the painting  

I use drills and rotary tools on my silverwork jewellery, it takes a bit of getting used to and you need a good safety set up especially with good ventilation, masks and eye protection. Some crystals are extremely hard to make a dent in lol and you will need diamond tips for any quartz, but they are easy enough to get hold of now. But you will need to practice, the drill tip can skate across the surface fast and has a mind of its own when you first start out. Otherwise , you could try plain old nail varnish lol ;)

Me I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to making runes, but still have to go with what is available to me.  If I had the wood I would have made them from wood, if I had the river pebbles I would have made them from river pebbles, but all that is available to me is clay and as it is of the Earth that a tree would stand in then that is the next best thing.



There are two carved sets of 24 runes and I think one blank set that I intend to paint the runes on.  I am giving away the first set and then selling the rest on my own site.  I just like working with earthy things, I know crystals are earthy too but they have such a different energy to runes that I just can't even go near a set they make me aggitated.

MG