Here I’ll feature the mini shrines I make from altered tins and boxes; you can also get a custom-made shrine or portable altar of your own.

Surf on over and check out the three brand new babies I’ve listed, including this little guy:

In case you ever thought precognition would be a fun gift…

One Night in Sacramento

(Downloads as a .pdf)

SPOILERS BELOW THE IMAGE

10 Questions About Of Shadow Born

1.  Is Nico going to turn Deven into an Elf?

No, not at all.  There are things about Dev that most people don’t know (here’s a preview: he can hear trees talking), which will come to light now that he has someone to talk to about them who can understand.  But assuming he doesn’t go batcrap crazy, Dev will always be who he is – and that’s going to continue to get him into trouble with those he loves.  Part of why he’s such a basket case is that he can’t reconcile his dual identity – being a self-proclaimed “murder pimp” versus being a healer.  Book 5, in fact, spends a lot more time in his head, for better or worse.  Whether or not Nico is successful in helping him will significantly influence what’s to come for everyone.

2.  How long does Olivia have to wait to find a Consort?

Not as long as you’d think.  In fact, one of our characters has already met him – not on camera, but back in the 90s before our story began.

3.  But seriously…Elves?

It’s all based on the myth of Persephone and her sister; it’s all about balance.  If there’s a predatory species meant to feed on humans, there must be an equal and opposite force to help lift humans up.  Those are the only two supernatural races in the Shadow World; there aren’t any werewolves lurking down the corner.  (Witches, here, are just enhanced humans, not a separate race.) Both races represent very different ways of dealing with humanity, and you’ll notice which one has survived.  The story’s not going to be overrun with Elves, though, don’t worry; at the moment I only know of three – maybe four, maybe – who will make any sort of appearance, and of those only two are really important.

4.  Aside from the black eye thing and being stronger, is there anything else that will make the Thirdborn different from regular vampires?

Absolutely.  There’s one major thing we’ll get into as soon as the next book starts; it’s a consequence neither of our Pair imagined, and weren’t prepared for at all.  And they’ll have a particular role to play in the circle once it’s completed and they can start figuring out what the hell they’re supposed to be doing.

5.  Is Stella going to become a vampire?

Definitely not.  I think it’s important with all these supernatural beings running around to have a human anchor, even if her life is as bound up in all this as anyone else’s.  Stella is on a very important journey and it’s just barely gotten started.  She doesn’t want to be a vampire, has no romantic notions about life as one – partly because she’s seen what happens to Miranda and David as they try to keep their people safe.  She bears witness to the breaking of their world in a way that only a human can.  These vamps are rich and powerful and badass, but they are not angst-ridden over the loss of their humanity – they have too much work to do, and it requires a ruthless, violent lifestyle.  Even the most sparkly-eyed teenager would think twice about that, and Stella is in her early 20s – and far more mature than she looks, with her funny hair and outfits. She and I are both quite content with her as a Witch.

6.  Are you planning to kill off any more major characters?

There’s a pretty significant death coming up, and beyond that I don’t know.  I don’t have every moment planned out, to be honest; most of the time I follow the characters where they lead me, and sometimes even I’m surprised how things end up.  I was thankful that Of Shadow Born had a happy ending, more or less, because I think it’s important to know that our characters aren’t just fighting for a world full of tragedy, but for a world full of love and joy as well.  If all they had to look forward to was being picked off one by one, why bother?  But if it helps, I don’t kill people off lightly.  When it’s a good guy, I almost always cry over it at least twice: once while writing it and once when I reread it later.  Speaking of deaths:

7.  Why did you have Miranda kill Hart instead of finding a way for Cora to do it?

Cora would not have killed Hart.  I don’t think Cora would kill anyone unless someone she cared about was in mortal danger.  There’s more to Cora than we yet know, but at that time, she wasn’t ready to take that step.  Miranda, on the other hand, is a warrior, and she was able to do it in honor of the women Hart had abused and killed, without lowering herself to his level and torturing him to death or anything like that.  Miranda understood the significance of the act as well as its necessity.  Did she get a little wicked glee from it?  Hell yeah.  She’s only “human,” after all, and this was the man who enslaved and raped Cora for decades, as well as countless other girls; did the same to Amelia Hayes, putting Jeremy on the path that led to David’s death; and was instrumental not only in setting up the Awakening but having Miranda shot – an attempt to destroy her career.  He had absolutely earned a quick appointment with Shadowflame.

8.  Are things going to get weird again with David/Deven/Miranda?

If by weird you mean “is David going to fuck it all up again,” then, the answer is no.  But the dynamic of their friendship is changing – the thing to remember is, everyone in the circle is going to grow closer, but those three, along with Jonathan, are in an odd position because they were already close, and the boys already had a painful history.  The connections among all the characters have to shift and evolve and there’s no guarantee everyone will react well.  But though they’re certainly still hot for each other and love each other very much, neither really wants to go back there.  There’s just too much pain down that path, above and beyond who else would get hurt.  They want to be just friends, but will probably never be just friends – the trick is figuring out what they can be.

9.  Are things going to come to a head with the Council in the next book?

In a manner of speaking.  As in, there will be a schism, a lot of death, and a certain ice-cream loving geek we know and love will find himself doing something that has never been done in all of Signet history.

10.  Tell us more about what’s coming up in book 5!  And when is it coming out?  How many more are there going to be?

Shadowbound, book 5 of the Shadow World series, will be out at roughly the same time next year as Of Shadow Born was – end of March, I do believe.  I only have a contract up through book 5, so far, but if everything goes according to plan there will be eight books.  I think.  Maybe?

As for Shadowbound itself, I’ll give you five words:

Sunlight
Hayloft
Scion*
Wedding
Spider

* – Not the car.

The other project I’ve been at is revamping my personal recipe book. A while back I did the outside, which I’ve mentioned; now it was time to do the inside. With all the paper craft stuff I have now it seemed like a crime not to make my recipes prettier.

The result you see below; they’re not complicated, but they jazz up their content and make it a lot more fun to page through the book.  Behind each divider are page protectors containing the recipes I consider “mine” – some come from other sources, which I’ve credited wherever I can, but I’ve made all of them enough times to call them tried and true.  Behind those are photocopied recipes from books (mostly library books); behind that are recipes clipped from magazines, glued to cardstock.  I also tucked some sticky notes and page flags into the binder’s pockets so that I can make notes on recipes if I need to.

These aren’t the best pictures, but the gist is apparent.

The first thing you see when you open the book: the “breakfast” divider.

I tried to keep the fancy stuff to a minimum and stuck with a few stickers and basic backgrounds. Two things were necessary: that the recipes be readable, and that they be protected from spatters. Each sheet of cardstock, which has recipes on both sides, is in a plastic page protector.  I can replace things way more easily than you’d think.

I left space deliberately so I can add new recipes later. Wow, this angle really makes it look like the red is crazy uneven – it’s not.

I used a circle punch to make this one a weird shape. I do love punches – when I was a kid I loved to play with the hand-held hole puncher and take the paper dots it left and arrange them in patterns.  Now I can do it on a much larger scale.

A recipe from Hannah Kaminsky – I used circles punched out of a scrap of paper as simple embellishments. I like the effect.

I do love my Brownie in a Mug. Funny – the flowers look like they’re stuck to the outside of the page protector because the contrast is so wonky. Rest assured, they’re stuck to the recipe itself.

I sure do have a lot of chai-related recipes.

Materials Used:

Recollections white cardstock
Office Depot house brand plastic sheet protectors – 8 1/2×11″
Office Depot white D-ring binder
Die Cuts With a View “Pocket Full of Posies” paper stack
Bazzill cardstock – red, green, etc.
Papers and stickers from a variety of sources
EK Tools circle punches, 1/2″ and 1 1/2″

Listening to:  Aimee Mann, “Save Me.”

Eating and/or Drinking: A nice frosty Coke Zero with a bit of maraschino cherry juice.

Reading:  Why I Despise the Great Gatsby.  Right there with ya, dude. I hated this book when I read it, and have absolutely zero desire to see the movie. There are already plenty of shows and films about horrible rich people. Calling something a “classic” is not enough to convince me to go anywhere near it.

Watching:  It’s finale season! I’m kind of relieved, actually. I have completely lost my fangirl zeal for TVD, though my other shows are holding up beautifully under the strain of a full season’s storytelling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still watching TVD, I just…it makes me tired. Every time I go to write a recap I end up doing nothing but bitching, which is not what I want the recaps to be. I like to write affectionate snark – I don’t hold TV shows sacred and above analysis, but if I’m not enjoying the show, why would I spend five hours writing a recap of it?  There are of course things I still love about it, and my intention is to at the very least do a recap of The Originals (because it was so delightfully, wonderfully different) and the season finale.  Don’t worry, I’m not giving up on our show, but I’m just so over the cure and Silas and every character making the same damn speeches over and over again. I don’t give a rat’s ass about who lives or dies, because there are no longer any consequences to death; that’s why the whole thing with Elena and Matt’s “yellow crayon” scene fell flat to me despite Nina Dobrev’s once and future mad skills. It just didn’t feel like Matt dying would mean anything, because there were so many ways he could come back, and at least 3 reasons why he probably wasn’t dead to begin with.  At this point with all the Silas nonsense you don’t even know what’s actually real anyway, so how can you get invested in it? It’s hard to give a damn if there are no stakes…even when there are actual stakes. The only thing I’m really enjoying is that Katherine is back, although it amuses me hearing people talking about an “epic showdown” between her and Elena, because let’s face it, there is nothing remotely epic about Elena Gilbert.

Wearing:  My fluffy pink and black skull socks.

Making:  This weekend I finished a Shiva mini shrine – here’s a sneak peek.

Grateful for: Glossy Accents. Every crafty person has a favorite adhesive, and a lot of them are fans of this stuff. Not only does it stick things to other things, it can be coated over paper to create a sort of enameled finish that’s all shiny.  The best part, for me, is that it has such a tiny precision tip you can get it into tight spaces that something like Tacky Glue would just glob right over.

I used my own pic because I got tired of chasing sources down rabbit holes. You are absolutely welcome to steal this image. If you do, do me a favor and Photoshop out the cat hair.

The other day I got sucked into a Pin-nado and found myself wandering from one board to another on Pinterest, starting with one subject and ending up all over the place.  Rather unexpectedly I found myself browsing a lot of Pagan/Wiccan pinboards.

It’s funny.  When I started my career as a Witch I was 16, and our town didn’t have the internet yet.  By the time I got to college UT was requiring every student to have an email address, but it was still kind of a strange thing for a lot of people, myself included.

I’ll never forget when I first discovered the Pagan internet – not only were there other people who shared my beliefs on campus, they were all over the World Wide Web!  And most of them had really ugly websites!

Spinning pentacles.  Blinking titles.  Embedded midi Enya.  Those were the days.

Most everyone was on Geocities back then, and the word “blog” didn’t exist yet.  Neither did 90% of the sites we take for granted now:  YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Etsy.  Hell, MySpace wasn’t even a thing yet. There was no such thing as Grumpy Cat or even I Can Has Cheeseburger.  It wasn’t the dark ages, but the lightbulb was certainly dimmer.  Nowadays it’s neon lights as far as the eye can see.

Looking through these pinboards and Etsy shops now I see some amazing stuff – not only has the state of amateur photography improved by leaps and bounds, but so has the quality of graphics in general, and anyone can have a decent looking blog with little to no coding knowledge or design experience – maybe not a gorgeous blog, but one that’s very readable and doesn’t make people’s eyes bleed.  Not so, 15 years ago.

Oh, sure, there’s still plenty of eye-bleedingly bad art out there, but thanks to Photoshop the baseline level of “good” has risen.  And while the face-bashingly awful rhyming couplet invocations are still legion, as well as the really lame puns and anti-Christian jokes that sound more desperate for approval than funny, it does seem like the overall standard for art and writing has definitely climbed, particularly compared to the Wiccan Craze of the 90s where books were flying from the presses no matter how ghastly they were because the Craft was trendy.

I saw all sorts of altar photography – I’ve always had such a love for altar building, and I love seeing other people express their spiritual creativity that way too.  There are dozens of pinboards devoted to images of altars and shrines, both made at home and in sacred places all over the world.  We can see the worship habits of cultures on the other side of the planet just with a click.

There are tutorials for all sorts of things I had to figure out myself – lighting charcoal tablets, for one thing, which took me forever to get.  There are YouTube channels that show you how to blend incenses and oils; all sorts of pretty quotes and graphics you could hang over your altar; and the sheer number of Book of Shadows pages is staggering.  There are plenty of downloadable books, courses, infographics, and templates for all manner of topics.

The first Pagan book I ever read I bought secretly at the Renaissance Festival because there was simply no way to get them in my hometown – the only access I had to Pagandom was through fandom newsletters and zines, and if I’d ordered anything through the mail it would have been intercepted.  Now, anyone can find what they need to know online, and unless their parents watch their browser histories, there’s no risk (except the risk of finding bad information, which I am sorry to say is as prevalent now as ever – some of the Pins I found were so insanely inaccurate I had to physically pull my hands from the keyboard to keep from, well, essentially trolling with my Vast Mystical Knowledge).  It’s a whole new world.

Not only that, the quality of Pagan crafting has exploded.  We have access to so many amazing materials – thanks to the altered art communities, paper crafting, new art supplies like paints and high quality markers – and so many ever-evolving techniques (also easily found on YouTube) that it almost seems a shame to buy anything premade, which I imagine is hard on those artisans and spellcrafters who sell their work.

I’ve been away from the Pagan world for several years now – people keep asking me to attend events or make appearances based on my first two books, and I just can’t do it.  It would feel incredibly dishonest, and I’d also have to reread my own work because it’s been so long.  Aside from general spiritual malaise, I had experiences with other people and with particular spiritual entities that scarred me, and I had to get away.

But the internet provideth, I suppose.  I find myself wondering who the big authors are now, what the good blogs are, what the new and trendy ideas are – are there still people touting the “9 million Witches died in the Burning Times” nonsense or did that finally die?  Do people still do everything via Witchvox?  I’m completely out of touch with what used to be the most important aspect of my life, and it’s unsettling – it’s like finding your ex on Facebook and seeing he’s married with five kids.

I don’t miss the community, to be honest.  In my old age (snort) I’ve finally let go of the need to prove to myself that I like big groups of people, and I’ve accepted the fact that I’m an introvert, I’m not a joiner, and that’s just fine.  I prefer most of my social interactions to be online.  My experiences in Pagandom were…mixed, let’s say, an interesting balance of pretty good and dreadful, punctuated with moments of both agony and ecstasy.  I absolutely hated festivals and great big rituals – in fact, I could have done without the Sabbats altogether, or at least chucked the ones I didn’t like (Beltaine, Yule) and stuck with the ones I loved (Ostara, Mabon).

Being a Pagan with a public presence exposed me to a lot of bullshit drama and sectors of the community ranging from silly to terrifying.  Again, I felt like I had to get out there and be known – but I finally figured out that I don’t write books so I can be a public speaker.  I’m a writer to write.   My personality ensures that there are only so many people I can deal with at one time – a day or two here and there is fine, but whole 4-day-long weekends surrounded by 1000 of my horniest friends is basically hell to me.

But there are things I miss. 

I miss casting Circle, especially dancing the way our coven used to do it.  I miss opening up half a dozen jars from my apothecary cabinet and creating something to help a friend find love or protect her home.  I miss sitting in front of my altar doing the same thing for myself.

I miss hearing trees talk – I haven’t heard that in a long time, because I stopped listening.  Once I could lay my hand on a trunk and feel that drowsy, good-natured energy that moved soooooooo slooooooowly.

I miss the time when I snatched up every new Pagan book I could find.  I’ve checked out quite a few from the library in the past year, but I haven’t pored over new releases and loaded up my wish lists like I used to.  Now I do that with cookbooks, craft books (lowercase c) and memoirs.

I miss ending my email signature with a Triple Moon:  )O(

I miss the sense of import that ritual gives to both big and small things – cleaning house, starting a new job, moving to a new place, beginning or ending a relationship, baking, making homemade bath/body products.  I still make my own perfume oil, but without charging it.  I still burn incense all the time, but I don’t ever smudge the house.

I miss the sight of my black-bladed, ebony hilted athame resting on my altar.  She was my favorite ritual tool – when she was in my hand she felt alive, and I felt like a badass (especially if you add my fabulous full length, bell-sleeved ritual robe, which is the Witchy equivalent of a long black coat).  I think that athame is the fifth one I went through – I started with the cheap brass-handled number you can get for ten bucks in any catalog, and went through something with faeries on it, a wood model, and at least one more I can’t remember before going on a long and arduous hunt for just the right blade to represent my magical will.  I found her…in fact I may unearth the box where I’ve stored my ritual implements and bring her out again, even if I never use her for anything, just for that old feeling.

So along those lines, a challenge for you:  tell me your favorite Pagan blogs, Tumblrs, et cetera – and tell me which ones are the Big Popular Thing right now.  I can’t afford to buy books, but if there’s a newer one (last year or two) that rocked your socks, tell me that too.  And don’t forget e-books.

Also, if there’s a spiritual-type blog that isn’t specifically Pagan but is compatible, tell me that too.  I’m a Nomad, after all; I take on all comers.

Comments are open.  Link me up, baby!

Currently…

Listening To: My End-of-April playlist, which I compiled on YouTube for everyone’s enjoyment.  It’s partly songs I’ve been rocking out to on the radio when I drive, and partly old favorites.

Eating and/or Drinking: I can’t seem to get enough citrus these days.  Fresh oranges, limeade, lemonade, orange Italian soda…bring it on.  Just not orange with chocolate – that’s nasty.  I’m also very much enjoying using my Keurig brewer to make a cup of coffee I put in the freezer for half an hour and then pour over ice with soy milk and vanilla syrup; I know you can brew right into a glass of ice, but all that does is melt the ice and leave you with watery coffee.  Since I’m using a syrup for sweetener instead of granulated sugar I don’t have to worry about it not fully dissolving in cold liquid.

Reading: I’ve become temporarily obsessed with altered Altoids tins – I’ve made several portable altar/shrines over the years and recently rediscovered my love for them, so I’ve been browsing Pinterest boards out the wazoo.  I’ve found several fun articles listing cool ways to recycle the tins – everything from making a USB charger to a trebuchet to a tiny grill to a mini amp to a  guitar, as well as the more obvious survival and sewing kits.  Check ‘em out:

What Can You Do With an Altoids Tin?
22 “Manly” Things to Do With an Altoids Tin
How to Make Altoid Tin Traveling Altars
And We All Shrine On – my Pinterest board for shrines and altars

Wearing:  An extremely worn out and torn Harry Potter t-shirt with Harry’s wanted poster listing him as Undesirable #1.

Making:  In addition to my tin shrine research, I’ve started redoing my personal recipe binder; I love how it looks on the outside (you can see it here), but with all the paper crafting supplies I have, it seemed wrong not to make the inside pretty as well.

Grateful For:  DVR.

I blurred out the bottom section on purpose since it’s the actual journal part of the journal.  You can probably read it if you really try, but I thought it would be best if the eye didn’t immediately go there.

The background, as I said, was a bag, dyed with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (tea dye and vintage photo). The metal charm is also from the Tim Holtz product line (the man is everywhere in the crafting world, I swear); I printed out the pic on my HP, and the rest is from pages I had already torn out of the journal to accomodate its expanding girth thanks to all the extra layers of paper I’ve been adding.  Same inks used to distress those pages.  The title was stamped – just a generic stamp alphabet I got at Michael’s.  They’re really frustrating to use because you can’t line them up properly, so they’re only really good for words you don’t need perfectly straight.

The top bit is the Wikipedia description of Bipolar Disorder.

Listening to: Adam Lambert, “Better Than I Know Myself,” which I consider Deven and Jonathan’s theme song.

Eating and/or Drinking:  I can’t seem to get enough oranges lately.  They’re such hard work – I have to pick off as much of the pith as possible, and I like to strip off the membranes around each section so all I get is little exploding orange bubbles.  If only I could apply that level of patience to other areas of my life!

Reading:  6 Emotions Invented by the Internet

Watching:  The new trailer for Thor: The Dark World. Damn but this year is huge for movies! In May we’ve got Star Trek and Iron Man 3; then there’s Man of Steel, Catching Fire, The Desolation of Smaug, and of course the second Thor.  (There are other big movies coming out but I don’t care about them all that much.  Check out this list for more.)

Wearing:  My STR8 AGAINST H8 t-shirt from FCKH8.com.

Writing:  Nothing, really.  I’m hoping to fix that today.

Grateful for:  OPI Midnight in Moscow nail polish.

So far, my style is more a combination of doodling, lettering, and gluing stuff in pleasing arrangements, as I did throughout most of my Smash Book.  (You can also see examples of all of these styles on my Pinterest Journal-y Goodness board.) A lot of my pages end up looking like a cross between a scrapbook and a vision board – I’ll be showing you a new project of mine, Project Me, which utilizes that quite a lot.

For today, though, here’s a page I made last night that’s all ink and marker, using my new Prismacolor art markers (I LOVE THEM, their ink is so rich and vibrant, just like Prismacolor pencils; they’re hella expensive, but I found a set at Office Depot for half the price of an art supply store) as well as Sharpie colored pens (if you’ve never used these guys, find some – even just the plain black is a treat to write with). I’m also a big fan of Le Pen – I have small hands, so thinner writing implements are more comfortable.

I started doodling with only the thought of having the design aimed inward, like colorful chaos converging on a single point.  I wanted to put a word in there but debated on which one as I did my doodling (it took a couple of hours, but I was watching episodes of Face Off so I didn’t notice the time). By the time I was done, I knew the word that belonged there was “Trust.”  Trust was my “word of the year” last year, and I’m sorry to say I didn’t learn a bit of it; right now I’m in a very uncertain time in my life where nothing seems to be moving but everything seems to be in chaos, and even though historically the universe has had my back, I still can’t trust that.  I tried, last year, and had it thrown back in my face, and thanks to that lovely negativity bias we all have rather than fixating on the 100 times things have turned out great, my mind latched onto the 2 or 3 it hasn’t.  Trust isn’t really something we Scorpios give freely, particularly not to people – we’re students of hidden motivations and secrecy, not the seeming-straightforward optimism of believing in a benevolent universe.  So the point of the page is that even with the chaos around me, that center point of stillness requires me to trust that there is enough, that I don’t have to clutch and claw and seethe over what other people have because good things are on their way in my direction too.

At least I hope so.