While You Wait For New Listings, A Picture Post

While resting, I handsewn two cushions, and they were the perfect excuse to photograph the luscious philodendrum.

Spent a few very relaxing hours in the roof garden, photographing Herminia and Flavia, my Basaak dolls – the outfits are, of course, handsewn/crocheted by me, while practising on patterns and sizes.

Fernando found the monkey toy on the street, and the girls quickly adopted him – like mother, like daughters!

The garden itself is always a gift. The Marvel Of Peru plants are giving us seeds daily.

The bloodflower ha also started seeding, and is attracting bees a mile around. Very soon we will have new seeds for sale!

Got my yearly order of embroidery thread – this makes me happier than a pot of gold!

And, of course, the Lucky Dumpster Find of the week – a mirror with a shelf, which we hung on the patio along with some pretties. The moon was a birthday gift I got when I was 12, and the painting on the left was a gift I made to Fernando on his birthday a few years ago, a reproduction of a painting by Anna Lea Merrit that you can see here.
On the shelf, the idol of  Tara (left) , a reproduction of a Guanche goddess from the island of Gran Canaria, and a waka from Peru, made by an artisan+shaman. A friend gave it to me and I restored it.

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Evolution

(spoon carved by Fernando, sold)

Growth And Identity

Business wise, this has been a very important year for us. The plans of what we want our business to be, and how to get there, have been under constant discussion since last Christmas; since then, we have been keeping a much closer eye on price/profit ratios, making sales statistics, looking for more supply sources, and all the things a business must do in order to avoid stagnation and keep growing. At the same time, we have also kept a much closer eye on what makes us happier as crafters, and to what we see ourselves doing in the next twenty years. Believe me, balancing both is not easy at all, specially when paying bills always seems to be the most urgent need.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, there are three things that I think you must have already noticed:

a) that we love anything that’s handmade, and learning/practising disappearing crafts is our specialty – Fernando carves by hand without the use of electrical tools, and spins on his own handmade spindles; I sew by hand, crochet by hand, paint by hand.

b) that magic, life and work are the same things for us, and run together seamlessly;

c) that our land and our heritage is Sacred for us, and we rever it deeply.

These three points are, in our opinion, what defines us as artisans and as people – and we want our business to represent that more strongly – who we are, what we are, where we come from and who has inspired us to do what we do. You will say we already do that – yes, but we want to do it more. So much more. We want every single thing we create to reflect how we live, what matters to us, and above all, our own culture and heritage as Canarians, which is wider and more complex than what it may seem.

(handpainted wood ornaments, all sold)

Immediate Changes

We have decided to discontinue several of our product lines, and invest more on others – all oils, waters, floor washes, powders and other supplies will be discontinued. All the prints and holy cards, which we have just restocked for the last time, will be discontinued too, and changed for others. For that, we are making a huge 50% off sale at the shop, starting tomorrow morning, until we have sold out the inventory we have, which can take months because we have plenty of supplies (so don’t worry, you won’t miss your chance. We are doing this with enough time and supplies for everyone to stock on products before they are gone).

Other products, like herbs, will be discontinued shortly because we intend to re-package them or sell them in different ways. Once that is done, they will be back up.

I will continue to offer Tarot, Candle Work and Spell Work services just as before; there will be no changes to that. We will continue to sell at the same Etsy address, and will blog on the same blog address – we want the less hassle for our customers that is possible! We may change the name of the business (this is undecided yet), but all addresses will stay the same.

This whole process will take a couple of days to be finished, so please be a little patient because I have to edit almost 150 listings!

At the same time, we will start adding the new items as we make them, just as usual – and what will you see more of? Original ATCs, wood carvings, paintings, embroidered and crocheted items, dolls, and all the finest examples of our skills. Oh! and several new categories – but that will be a surprise for now! The pics I have chosen to illustrate the post may give you an idea of our direction.

Another change is that we have closed the website. There isn’t much activity on it, it’s really costly, and it only means more work for me. So, those of you who purchase the Tarot and Spellwork services through the website to help us pay a few less fees (thank you so much!), can do it from Etsy from now on, or simply by emailing me for a Paypal invoice.

(Tarot bag, sold)

Epilogue

We are artists, not a factory. Expecting our work to be static, and revolve always around the same ideas, is simply ridiculous, because we need to change and grow to keep the fire of creating alive. We are not tied to anyone’s expectations, and when we started this business, we did it without knowing almost anything of what an online business was/is, or how we wanted it to be – we did what we knew best, how we knew best. These changes represent only another plateau on our development; we invite you to follow us along our path.

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The Garden Wakes Up…

… from one of the longest and hottest summers we’ve ever had. We are very busy plant-wise these weeks, planting new seeds for the winter, repotting the plants that made it through the summer, and adding our home-made compost (mostly vegetable scraps) to the wildharvested soil to give our green babies new, empowering food.

Blood Flower – Asclepias Curassavica. Not medicinal, but a wonderful butterfly/bee attractor, something very important for roof gardens that are not near green areas like ours.

We have two squatter pumpkin plants this year, and both are flowering beautifully and growing really fast. Squatter as in “throw vegetable scraps into compost bin, get unwanted pumpkin seedling invasion once the compost is mixed with the potting soil”.

Four O’clocks /Marvel Of Peru – Mirabilis Jalapa. We planted two of the seeds that we got from last year’s plant, and hopefully soon we’ll have more seeds to share. They have grown really wild this year, despite the heat!

Peppermint – Mentha Piperita. This was just a miniature cutting from a friend last week!

I’ve been wanting to show a better pic of Marlon for weeks, but as the puppy he is he never sits quiet long enough to get anything better than a blurry black mass. Here I caught him in a rare pensive moon – not really, he was sniffing the neighbour’s barbaque!

And my favourite pic of them all, despite the blurryness. The very last bit of daylight, the warmth from the house’s light against the cornflower blue of the sky and the white walls, and the freshness of a just watered garden.

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The Beginning Of The Gardening Season

Here, on the same latitude as the Saharan desert, gardening is mostly a fall+winter activity. The arrival of September, despite still having very strong temperatures, is the starting point of our planting season. The first step before planting is giving a thorough end-of-summer pruning to the herbs that need it, cleansing and repositioning pots as the sun changes its course with the shift of the season, and discarding all the pots with the yearly plants that have finished their life cycle. All those are tasks we barely do during the summer, because honestly, keeping plants alive on constant 50C degrees is more than enough work.

(In the pic, our very magical rue plant, exhausted after giving us tons of seed this summer, and just pruned for a well-deserved autumn rest)

One of the few plants that has thrived despite the hellish summer we’ve had is the Madeira Vine (Anredera Cordifolia), which after two years of being planted is flowering for the first time.

This plant’s roots arrived on a bag of soil we got from a friend’s garden, and as soon as we started planting seeds on that soil the vine started sprouting everywhere, suffocating seedlings constantly. Since she (because I’m sure this one’s a she) was so eager to grow, I took a big piece of root I found on the soil and told her:
“Ok, I am going to plant you, give you a huge pot and take care of you – but please stop growing everywhere!”
And so I did – and, believe it or not, it worked. In two years, the vine has grown beautifully, resisting every kind of weather, and we have have maybe five unwanted sprouts of the plant in other pots, which have been quickly eliminated. And now it’s flowering, in the hottest summer ever recorded in our history. I can’t wait to harvest all those beautiful and fragrant flowers and start experimenting with them – I think Ochum will love them.

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Another Etsy Seller Stealing Our Images!

This morning, I woke up to a message from a dear customer, informing us that Etsy seller MissFortunes is using one of my pictures on her Tarot reading listing, obviously without my permission. I have already contacted her asking for the pic to be removed before reporting her to Etsy, because I think it’s fair to give her a chance to do things right, and honestly I wouldn’t get any satisfaction if Etsy closed her shop – but as she has the right to a chance, I have the right to inform you of the fact that this could be a scam seller. She has other products in her shop, so obviously she has a camera – why didn’t she just took a pic of her own deck and her own readings?

EDITED – seller has removed the listing.

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Last Post Before The Holidays

Just a quick post to remind you that from Friday 29 (tomorrow) until July 9, I will be enjoying a little break. The shop will stay open and orders will be attended, and dates for readings/candlework/spells are available for when I’m back – just convo me through Etsy or email me at magickshop(at)gmail.com and I’ll get back at you as usual.

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Trickster Week

It’s been one of those weeks where the Trickster gods are having extra fun, because we’ve had all sort of crazy things happening around here. Caring for a stomach-sick 50 pound, aging dog that poops all over the house, having the electric system of the house AND the water heater blow up suddenly, and being under the strongest and longest heat wave that’s been recorded in the century, all on top of the regular work we usually do, has left us exhausted.

On the other hand, good things have been happening too – because you know, Tricksters take with one hand and give with the other. Our best friend has finally found a job, we found a new fine arts shop that will save us a ton of money by bringing us items that we had to buy online, got some awesome news from a customer (it feels so good to know people’s obstacles are finally being removed), and some of the readings and spells I’ve made this week have brought hope and peace of mind to wonderful individuals that needed to reconnect with their Divine energy.

If anything, this is a lesson on sense of humour. Dogs get sick, but they heal; appliances die, but they can be repaired; heat waves take your sleep away, but suddenly a fresh wind from the Atlantic starts moving it and you are able to sleep a full night again. If life gets in the way, we must be thankful that we have life, let her get in the way, welcome her and offer her a cup of coffee. We are actually blessed to have an electric system, a water heater and a giant puppy that has been a loving friend and a guardian for more than 10 years. Not everyone is so lucky.

I think the best therapy against letting this small drama become big drama is to stop, take a deep breath, have a good laugh and just do something that simply brings you joy. I don’t support the “ignore the bad things” attitude because, well, bad things are there to teach you something and should not be ignored, but you shouldn’t allow those bad things steal your joy either. And what gives me joy? My dolls of course :). I already made a new post on my doll blog about yesterday’s work, and I intend to stay in the studio until Monday, working on my dollhouse and taking care of my giant puppy while Fernando fixes the water heater.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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New Post At My Doll Blog

In which I receive a new doll for my collection, thanks to a fairy in the US! Click HERE to read it.

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As Promised…

…today I will delight you with some images of last year’s Tenerife Carnival, and a brief introduction about it.

The Tenerife Carnival starts at the end of January and lasts for a month, not on the exact same days every year. This year, from Friday 17th to Monday 20th of February are the dates when (literally) millions of tourists will join us in the city of Santa Cruz, and on a much smaller scale in other cities, to celebrate on the streets during a whole 4 day weekend of pure Bachanalia. Costumes are a must, no matter if big or small, simple or complex, and of course there’s lots of partying, alcohol and general debauchery.

I love it. No, I LOVE IT. I come from a family of seamstresses and January was always a busy month at home – as soon as Christmas was over, costumes were designed and my two grandmothers and my mother would spend weeks sewing costumes for the Gonzalez side of the family, who have the Carnival inserted on their blood. Since this events are mostly for adults, me and my sister would get nice costumes for the school Carnival day, and maybe for our hometown parade, which was way smaller than the ones in Santa Cruz. On the night of Monday, everyone was dressed, make up and wigs were applied, cocktails were combined and off they went to party all night, while my mother and my two grandmothers fell into a exhaustion-induced coma. I never saw them once in costume as I grew up.

As an adult, I find the crowds a bit too much to enjoy, but recently the City Hall has been working on a lot of day events during that week, so we may be joining them this year, if we have the time to create some new costumes. But even if we don’t participate on the big events, the Carnival is simply all around. People in costume are a common sight everywhere as hardly there isn’t one Canarian that is not involved with the Carnival in one way or another. There are the murgas, which are comical groups that create songs to criticize the government and society; the comparsas, amazing dancing groups very much in the style of Brazil’s carnival; and the three acts for choosing the Queens of the Carnival – a child queen, a young woman queen and a senior queen.

Member of a children’s murga.

Comparsa dancers.

Pictures of the amazing costumes of the queens below – yes, each one of those is only one costume, carried by one person! Around 25 of the biggest businesses on the island pay a small fortune to provide for these costumes, and they are usually made by a hoard of crafters that start working as soon as October the previous year.

And then, there’s the Drag Carnival Queen, my all-time favourite event, which (sadly for me) happens on the island of Gran Canaria – but more of that on a future post…

Important Note: these images are not mine – they were found HERE and HERE – they are shown for educational purposes only.

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The Crazy Things That Happen To This Witch

I just talked to the nicest CNN New York journalist on the phone. He wanted me to blog for them – but didn’t notice that I don’t live in the States, and that I am spanish, so don’t worry, I will just keep blogging here :D. I will just enjoy the moment of recognition, and use it to create some extra lucky charms and spells today. Thanks so much Mr. Journalist, you really made my day.

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