Djed Pillars
Instructions and tips, by Djedetmiwesir © 2001- 2005
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This is a great project for both children and adults, and is very appropriate for the Wesir Mysteries, Since the end of the mysteries is hallmarked by the raising of the Djed. We will be celebrating the Raising of Wesir's Djed! It can be done and offered at any time of year. In Addition to being a fun decorative peice, you can also offer Djeds to Wesir, Aset, ptah, and your ancestors (akhu).

For each Djed Pillar you will need:

• 1 wooden paint stirrer
(these can be found at hardware stores . Be certain you have the Wooden stirrer's and not the plastic ones)
• 4 clean popsicle sticks
(Which means you can eat a few popsicles before starting!)
•A ruler
• A pencil
• Glue (elmers or wood)
• Watercolors, (or) Crayons, (or) poster (or) acrylic paints, (or) markers
• (brushes as needed)
• Optionaly, Googly eyes, glitter, Pile cleaners, paper, buttons or beads (or anything you desire)

Step 1.
Lay out all of your tools. Make sure that your paint stick is clean and dry and the popsicle sticks are clean and dry.

Step 2.
Look at your paint stirrer. Make sure that any writing on the stick (from its manufacturer) is face down, so it ends up on the back side of your Djed Pillar. You can paint over any words that are present later if you wish, or just ignore them. On one end of your paint stirrer there will be a notch... (that sort of makes the paint stick look like it is wearing a hat. With your pencil draw a straight line at the top and the bottom of the notch.

Step 3.
Measure from the line you drew at the top of notch towards the top of the stick, at the half way mark, Draw another line across.

And do the same under your Bottom Notch line, roughly the same distance apart as the rest of your lines are from each other.

Step 4.
With your glue, trace the lines you drew:

and lay your popsicle sticks on them as straight as you can. Allow an Hour for the glue dry a little bit before decorating. This will give your Djed Pillar four "branches" and five sections.

Once the glue is dry, your Djed should look like this:

Step 5a - Wesir-Djed

Paint the long bottom section of your Djed white, The Notched section green, use Glitter, Googly eyes and anything else you wish to adorn the Djed like a king! Paint the Popsicle sticks Black, or Dark green... and the top part of your Djed white for his crown when the paint is dry, draw facial features with a marker and Viola!

Djeds make fun supports for seedlings. Put it in a pot of dirt, and plant some seeds!

Step 5b - Decorating Ideas, for other types of Djeds.

You can color or paint the sections and branches of the Djed Pillar any color you like, Greens blacks and whites are great when making a Djed for Wesir. Blue and Gold would be appropriate colors for Ptah.

Watercolors, paints, and markers all look wonderful! Feel free to get artistic and draw designs you like, or Egyptian designs. You can look up Djeds in a book and copy what you see, or let them inspire you for Ideas!

You can make Metallic style Djeds with Metallic paints, (we sprayed our parts before assembly for super fast Djeds)

Wood stain makes Djeds with woody Grainy Goodness!

If using stain, be sure to stain your pieces first, so the glue can't absorb into the wood. This will make your stain come out more evenly.

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