Friday’s New Listings

(please click on the pics to be taken directly to the listings)

Handcarved Crochet Hooks (Several Gauges)

Handcarved Reed Pen Sets

Arabian Nights Necklaces (Blue And Purple/Silver)

 

 

 

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Reed Pens Review!

Dearest friend Kallista Silverheart, whom is an expert on Egyptian magic and a calligrapher, was our product tester for the reed pens – she wrote this amazing review of them! Thanks so much Kallista, you made our day!

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New Items Listed

Please click on the images to be taken to the Etsy listings!

Reed Pens – Handcarved Set Of Two – For Your Sigils, Book Of Shadows, Spell Writing

Set of two calligraphy reeds, chosen randomly from the four sets we have available. The reeds were widlharvested by us at a ravine in Anaga, Tenerife, and dried and carved by Fernando. Each set contains two reeds, one thinner and one fatter, wrapped in satin ribbon with a lovely moon charm – a perfect gift for yourself, or for someone you love. On the pic below you can see a test made with my own set, which was the prototype. I used thinned acrylic paint instead of ink, and worked just as well as you can see. I had never used them before, and I am in no way a calligrapher – if they were easy for me at first try, I’m sure you will do wonders with them!

The reed pens are perfect for your best Book Of Shadows pages, and the hard fiber of reeds allows you to write on other materials like vellum, leather, and of course all kind of papers. If after much use the point gets a little blunt, you only need to wait until it’s dry and sharpen it a bit with an exacto knife.

Vintage Altar Items
Our Lady Of Mount Carmel


Our Lady Of Candelaria

Saint James Altar Bell

Listed separately – small lot of vintage religious items that we got in payment for spiritual work for a customer. The items were part of her inheritance from her mother, and have been kept in pristine condition. None of the items needed any repairs beyond giving them a good cleaning.

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The Month Of The Dead – Day 20

A really beautiful autumn day, sunny and filled with Atlantic winds. Lots of work scheduled for today, but there’s always enough time to enjoy the afternoon in the garden before going back to work. Last night I updated our Imagekind Print Shop will all the new paintings, and made this little collage with framing examples – I love to see my work framed, because it is one of those things we can never, ever afford.

And here are the paintings, finished and ready to be listed – as usual, let me know if you’re interested in them :D. Both are acrylics on canvas, and measure 15 x 23 cms – that’s 5.8 x 8.9 inches.
Autumn Still Life

Pomegranate Offering

Also, the custom carving was finished, and it’s ready to be shipped with tomorrow’s orders – it’s been a really productive week!

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The Month Of The Dead – Day 15

Today we took the day off, both from the shop and from the furniture moving :D. I finished the Brujería embroidered ornament – if anyone is interested in purchasing it, just let me know before I list it next week! The backing is from a gorgeous vintage fabric that I’m using only for favourite projects, and of course everything was handstitched from start to finish. I absolutely love it, so I won’t mind keeping it if nobody buys it. There will be more witchy stitching this winter, as I have quite a few inspiring ideas in stock!
ORNAMENT SOLD!

Fernando is working on a new phallic carving for one of our patrons:

It’s still really, really hot here, so gardening was left for dusk. After pruning/transplanting/watering and cleaning, we give ourselves every day one hour of Do Absolutely Nothing But Being. I honestly think that’s the secret of the permanent blooming state of our little garden. I have said this before, but you can’t imagine how dry this area of the island is, and how far away from any kind of nature we live. Houses here do not have nice gardens around, or even a backyard; we all live wall to wall, and since this is an area of poor families, the government considers we have no right to nice parks and green areas and every public space is simply covered in concrete.

Sorry for the rant – I was talking about communing with plants, a subject that has fascinated me for many years, and I think one of my strongest points as a Witch. I am sure I have told before about a magazine called Lo Inexplicado that my mother used to buy when I was maybe 8 – there I read for the first time about scientific experiments about the way plants communicate and react to outside stimulus, and that was the beginning of a life-long relationship with herbs. Since my parents live in a flat and my mother is the kind of person that can kill a cactus, I didn’t get to have much real life experience with herbs until I was in my late teens and started buying herbs at the local farmer market and wildharvesting – and I couldn’t start my own garden until ten years ago when we moved to this house, which was the first real house (not a flat) that I ever lived in.

We speak to our plants, play music to them and meditate with them. We place amulets around them, and bury stones that have some kind of special meaning on the pots. Our dogs and cats eat them freely, but instinctively know not to destroy them, and no surprise – the garden is permanently open to them and they never, ever, play with them or kill them. You should see our 50 pound Siberian Husky, gently pulling off basil or spearmint leaves to eat. As they communicate with us, they communicate with animals. There is truly no secret, just listening – but listening is a word that not many people fully understand, as I have come to realize with time.

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The Month Of The Dead – Day 11

Today, there was spellwork to be done for one of our patrons.

The carving for our friend was finished, dyed and waxed with our organic beexwax – full phallic glory! Measures 5-6 inches and is made with willow wood, naturally shed by the tree and picked at Anaga. We are open to custom orders – price depending on type of wood, size, ornamentation and other details of course.

I was a bit tired of crocheting, so I started a new embroidery piece – I love those antique cross stitch samplers so I’m giving counted thread cross stitch a try. This is made on tea-dyed vintage cotton as I didn’t have any crosstitch fabric and honestly I don’t like it much; I’m improvising a design choosing bits of charts I had on an embroidery book. In case you don’t know, “Brujería” means Witchcraft in Spanish. This will be framed and hung on our office/living room.

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Rune Consecration Ritual – Pictures

Yesterday we consecrated Fernando’s new runes. The images of the ritual itself are private and we won’t show them, but here are quite a few pics of the altars and offerings we made to inspire you :).

Odin’s altar, with the runes in front of him, resting over vintage furs that were a gift from a friend and adorned with one of the huge cups we found in the trash ( you can see them here).

On the right side, the phallus Fernando carved for Frey, sitting on a brass bowl we also made using discarded components from several lamps.

Eleggua, of course, got a beautiful carnation bouquet and a very special candle, which is actually a gift from a customer – I know I have said it a million times, but The Hoodoo Shop’s customers are simply AWESOME!



The offerings – beer bread (with ham, cheese, olives and herbs), stuffed dates, serrano ham paté, fruits, olives, goat cheese, mulled cider, wine, beer, flowers.

Update for today:The Marie Laveau prints have been listed!

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Bones, Incense Pellets And Salvaged Furniture

All the bones found at the mountain were cleaned and will be drying under our unforgiving sun for a few days, before starting an amulet-making storm for the shop :)

The incense pellets Fernando made are already listed and being sold and reserved as hotcakes! We have name it The Wanderer in honour of our favourite image of Odin, that of the trickster God that appears at your doorstep like a beggar, only to test you generosity. It reminds me so much of a story about Obatala, where he does the same to teach Obi (the coconut) some humility. Some images that inspired us were:

The last pic until Monday – another dumpster find, brought back to life after lots of love, sandpaper and varnish. We both loved the grey, sun washed colour of the wood. We are considering using it as a display for our local customers, but in between it will hold the altar we have on our bedroom, dedicated of course to love and family. I always forget to take “before” pics of the items we make, but not this time!

Before – lopsided because of damaged leg, carved frames loose and broken and general state of dryness.

After – legs repaired by reconstructing broken piece, frames reglued and repaired and varnished.

Have a wonderful weekend Witches! I’m off to prepare Friday’s orders for the post office and then I’m enjoying the rest of the day in the garden, crocheting the day away!

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1:12 Scale Weekend :)

We has reserved the weekend for Imbolc’s outdoor activities, but the rain has not stopped so we decided to take the free time to work on the dollhouse. Using more parts from the discarded house we got, we built a third wall for the diorama and worked on turning the bakery project we had unfinished onto a little shop for the girls’ garden. Here are some pics:

The wooden floor in front of the little shop will have a small vegetable garden and another space for a few chickens – this will be a slow work as I don’t have much practice in making miniature plants and it is something I’ve wanted to learn for a while. It’s not too clear because the light was too strong, but the outside wall of the house has been aged and distressed – I’ll take better pics next time. I really don’t like the over-polished look that most dollhouses have: though we don’t want to imitate reality to the last detail, most dollhouses look like a wedding cake to me; and well, my house doesn’t look like that – it has scratched walls, cat and dog damage and the result of being almost 100 years old. Making this house I have discovered how much I love imperfection.

On the inside of the new wall, a black and gold trim was painted over the burgundy wall paint that matches the other side of the room.

Little-girl-doll, still unnamed, got her hair finished and a beautiful brass necklace.

This roombox was originally a bakery that never got finished – too much pink for me LOL… the roofing was made with our wildharvested reeds, aged and distressed, of course, and the whole piece got a paint makeover to make it match the mood of the rest of the elements. Now it’s ready to be filled with goodness, and will need another doll to take care of it (hint: grandma and grandpa are on the way).

These pots were made over a year ago – they finally got finished.

The bottles, which were purchased blank, got labels and painted caps.

The pots, also an old purchase, got a coat of good ol’ grubbiness to match the upcoming wood stove. In front of them you can see several thread bobbins I made for the doll’s sewing space.

The window was also trimmed with reed wood. Here you can see better the distressing of the wall.

That is it for now. The week has begun with a lot of work already scheduled, so the dollhousing will have to be stolen from sleep hours LOL… yes, I am in love. This process is being so magical, and anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows how much I love dollmaking, and devoting my whole time to it is still my goal, even though I’m sure the witchcraft shop still has a long life ahead. I am very glad that we chose to take the dollhouse out of its boxes and start working on it again – I truly feel this will be an important piece in the puzzle of the future.

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New Listings Today

Wormwood Smudge Sticks

Smudge sticks are one of the easiest and more effective forms of cleaning the energy of a place or a person. Smudging cleans the aura, purifies energy and banish negativity. Just light an end until you see the ember (as in a cigar), blow over the flame and it’s ready to go! If you move it, the air circulation will keep it smoking, so you can – for example – go from room to room or pass it around a person. When you leave it on a plate/ashtray, it will slowly die. It can be reused until finished – and these smudges have been made to go a long way, being around 5 inches long about 1 inch wide. That’s around 10 full house cleansings or more (dependng how big is your house of course!). These sticks are unique for two reasons: one, that the wormwood variety, Artemisia Thuscula, is unique to the Canary Islands and doesn’t grow anywhere else in the world, and two, because it was wildharvested at my in-laws organic crops, without any harm for Mother Nature and only pruning the excess growth, thus assuring the wellness and balance of the plants.

Mother Goddess – OOAK Handcarved And Handpainted Altar Statue

Absolutely unique Mother Goddess statue for your altar, made with a piece of Mango tree root – don’t worry, this tree was just relocated and we picked several pieces of root that were left behind; we don’t like to hurt trees and we only use pruning/discarded wood on our pieces. Our designing process is very intuitive; Fernando cuts and prepares the wood, and then I meditate with every piece and look for the Spirit inside it. I then create a design, he makes the carving and I make the painting and any other finishing details needed. It is a true labour of Love as it goes back to each other through all the process.

Daughters Of The Moon Dolls (Sold Separately)

I have been customizing discarded dolls for almost a decade, and during that journey I fell deeply in love with the idea of turning something unwanted into a small jewel, that will receive love and care again from another owner. Last year, I purchased a lot of second hand dolls online, and a dozen of these small dolls was part of it. They’re similar to Barbie’s Skipper but unmarked, and have been the embodiment of other dolls I have made for the shop. These dolls have received a complete new face makeup, dressing and hairdressing, and a handmade stand for exhibition. Each one wears a beautiful dress, suede sandals with brass ornaments, underwear and a gorgeous beaded hairdo with a shimmering hair net. Despite the dolls being 11 cms only (that’s around 4 inches), every detail has been carefully worked and several parts have been hand sewn. This doll can be perfectly place among 1:12 miniatures, and be the star of your magickal/witchy dollhouse. There are three dolls available, in similar styling but each one is a completely unique piece and it won’t be repeated. Each doll is sold separately.

The Hoodoo Shop

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