Mabon Ritual

Mabon is also my birthday so it's a doubly special holiday for me, helped by the fact that I love the dark side of the year. The day was beautiful in every way making it a perfect day to linger around the altar after ritual was done.In this picture, if you look really hard you will see Gypsy, my Mabon cat, looking on.

I like to use fresh materials on my altars so it was great that I was able to harvest my mini pumpkin in time. My other little ones are still growing. The candle is beeswax that I bought at the Saturday Market in Portland, The mead is called Howling Moon, the round piece is the Green Man in Fall, the cloth is like the one I have for sale in the store and the Wheel of Fortune Deck is from my brand new tarot deck called The Green Witch Tarot.

For my birthday I got myself this beautiful Wheel of the Year to hang in my office.

I also found this beautiful copper Wheel of the Year Pendant. My 58th birthday brought with it a year of many difficult changes and some very nice ones that we manifested.
The theme of the ever changing wheel is something I have chosen to continue to embrace this coming year to see how I can direct some changes in my life. How exciting!

Mabon is a great time to reflect on how you can bring balance into your life which meshes with the coming of Samhain, a time when you can release the burdens of the year to leave room for new things to grow. Blessed Be!

Crafty Cooking On The Fly

These busy days I  have been having leave little time for complicated dinners. We have settled into a nice routine of what we call "happy hour " every night. Its' been a nice way for us to relax and reconnect before we settle down to dinner. I have been serving up nibblets to have with our drinks, and have gotten quite fond of finding new recipes to try. Appetizers can be easy to fix and can be easily incorporated into being part of dinner. The other night I decided to make pasta with sauce (the jar sauce) but wanted to jazz it up a bit, so I added spinach to the sauce. Earlier in the day I had made the dip for this wonderful appetizer dish I found from King Arthur's Flour Company. It's baked zucchini sticks with a sweet onion dip. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2011/07/28/baked-zucchini-sticks-and-sweet-onion-dip-that-bloomin-zucchini/ It was not  only easy and delicious to make, but clean-up was easy too since I lined my baking pan with a silicon liner. I love using silicone liners because they are reusable and mine are purple!!! We ended up having a veggie rich easy dinner that was very satisfying and provided us with leftovers. Yum!

Mabon Madness!

As Mabon approaches, so does my excitement. The garden is nearly harvested with the exception of some late growing pumpkins and gourds and my mantle in the family room has been festoond with ornamental corn, pumpkins and gourds. Autumn is just around the corner and I can hardly wait! The dark half of the year has always been my favorite. Perhaps it is because I was born on Mabon, perhaps it is the beauty of the earth as she slowly settles down to sleep, or maybe it's the food and drink of the season. Actually, it is all of that!

 I have been busy in the Crafty Cauldron Room sewing up some fun tarot/altar cloths for the upcoming Fall season. Stop by the store and check out the new cloths I have for Mabon! One of my favorites is this machine embroidered cloth which I can use as both a tarot cloth and an altar cloth for Mabon. I can also how nice this cloth would look on my dining room table with a freshly baked pumpkin pie sitting in the center of it. How do you plan on celebrating Mabon?

Crafting Fun

This coming weekend I am going to be hosting a bridal shower for one of my friends. It's funny to think that this is the first time I have been a bridesmaid! I'm having a lot of fun planning an Indian theme shower. The two other bridesmaids are very crafty as well so this shower promises to be something very unique and beautiful.
 For my part, I started by making the shower invitations.  I thought it would be unique and fun to use fabric in the card so I chose a fabric that I thought had the feel of India. From there I cut out the main image from the fabric to be the base of the card and let my imagination take over.

My assembly line

The continuing process

The inside is finally complete

Ready to Mail!

  With the remaining fabric I made a beautiful table runner that I can use for the main table at the shower. I also machine embroidered some napkins that coordinate with the fabric of the table runner and a set of four coasters. For a finishing touch I found some napkin rings that match. Once the shower is over, I will add the table runner to the other items I made, which will then become a fun wedding gift for the couple and a remembrance of her bridal shower for years to come.