When witches convene, laughter ensues

Do you love a good story? I mean who doesn’t?

Here goes, last summer I participated in an evening market in downtown Raleigh, NC and it was hot and sweltering but I made a lifelong customer and friend through Marissa, she was shopping with her family and happened upon my booth. We immediately connected.

Fast forward to present day and Marissa reaches out to me in September to see if I’d be interested in coming to her home to show my jewelry and read tarot to her friends for a Witches Party! Of course I said yes. And let me tell you, it was so much fun. Marissa is an excellent host, her home is beautiful and her friends are a pure delight. And my Mom even joined me (secretly she didn’t want me driving home late at night).

It was a beautiful experience to read tarot and share our stories. It felt invigorating to me to read and investigate further into the issues her friends needed more clarity.

Here are some of the photos we snapped of the party. I love all the fantastic and inventive costumes the attendees wore.

Halloween spirit in full effect! Marissa has such a big heart and it was such an honor to share my jewelry in her home.

The wisdom tarot holds comes back to you. You shuffle the cards and your energy is infused. Reading the cards we’re taken on a journey through images and symbols.

Tarot readings will be offered throughout the holiday season, book one with me before the end of the year.

I believe in this day and age, we are welcoming witch energy more openly. We are recognizing that there is a little witch in all of us. We are naturally intuitive healers, all of us. The witch reminds us of that, to embrace our inherent healing and magical powers.

I hope you had an amazing Halloween/samhain season. It was a fun and busy one for me!

If you’d like to schedule your own tarot reading or a personal Eilisain Jewelry party, email me at info@eilisainjewelry.com

The Samhain Collection

Initially I wanted to create a spider collection, I transitioned to making it more whole to cover this auspicious time of year. I believe all of us find Halloween so beguiling and comforting because as much as life is a beautiful thing, death will be our reprieve. Thus I decided to create a collection that celebrates one of my favorite pagan sabbaths, Samhain.

Samhain is the Celtic/Pagan holiday celebrates the harvesting season, when mother earth releases her leaves, when we gather honor our ancestors with gifts, prayers and festivities.

So just as snake showed up into my life quite seamlessly, spider is doing the same. Earlier this summer I came across a gorgeous little orb weaver. She’s so pretty with her lil points and black and white colors.

Besides being quite beautiful, spider is an excellent reminder that we are the weavers of our own destiny. And the amazing interconnectedness of humanity and that what each of us does in our lifetime can affet many others.

As you might guess, creatin a spider jewel would be done by hand NOT by casting an actual spider although I’m sure it could be done.

And to challenge myself I decided to create my own spider. It was not easy and I’m still perfecting it. I wanted to create a spider that has longer legs but wouldn’t get in the way of you wearing it.

When I was reading up on spiders I was not surprised to learn that spiders are just as scared of us as we are of them! Yes spiders are scared of giant human beings. And spiders are quite fragile, they can actually break if you drop them from high up. Thus let us have respect and honor for such small yet might creatures.

Perhaps death is scared of us? I know it’s a silly concept to think of, or that human life is just as fragile, complex and if we aren’t too careful - we can break it.

The Samhain Collection will have you amazed and surprised at how necessary it is for our human existance to celebrate, revere and honor death and the departed.. I will be dropping this collection, officially on Wednesday October 20th, the New Moon in Aries.

Get Ready, 'Cause the Holidays are Coming!

So we’ve already got our Halloween decorations out and we’re sipping pumpkin spiced latte - we’re all ready for the weather to cool off so we can bust out the long sleeve pajamas.

Along with that we’re marking our calendars because there are some amazing craft shows coming up. The longer I participate in local handmade shows the more I love shopping for my loved ones at the shows. And I’m participating in several new shows this season.

LIke CraftedVA in Norfolk, Virginia, it’ll be held at O’Connor Craft Brewery on Saturday, October 12th.

I’m also doing the femme empowered Girl Tribe show in Charlotte, NC December 14th &15th.

There are so many great vendors at these shows, ones that are local to the south. These shows are kid friendly and are just a fun outing for the whole family. Did you know when you spend money on locally made products 110% goes back into your community? It’s a win-win situation!

I hope to see you at any of these events - be on the lookout (those on my email list) you’ll be getting a postcard in the mail. And if you aren’t on my list, sign up today!

Queen of Autumn

If you've followed me over the years you know that I truly enjoy working with other artists and partnering with other creatives in my community.  I've long been an admirer of Madalyn McLeod's illustrations.  We were both in the art and design program at East Carolina University years ago and I've been following her journey as a budding artists and finally I reached out to her to create a fantastic autumn gift package.

And it was so timely that I recently created a new ring from a tree branch (and perhaps more tree pieces to come).  Thus I'm excited to release....on Samhain my our Autumn gift package! When you purchase the Dryad ring, a sterling silver ring with two orange topaz gemstones (2mm) which is $185 you get a signed print copy of the Queen of Autumn by Madalyn McLeod!

The Dryad ring came about from a special commission for two very good friends of mine who recently got married, they wanted rings that were nature inspired and to be honest, I've mostly stayed away from pieces that are cast from twigs, nuts or branches because I felt they were too 'done'.  As in, popular however I've come around to the fact that whenever I create new pieces, they will always have my signature stamp and aesthetic.  So I felt drawn to create more branch inspired pieces, plus I've been so consumed with growing my own herbs and truly connecting with herbalism and growing things. 

They pair SO so perfectly, plus this is a great collectable piece and one that works well for your gallery wall or a gift for the holidays. 

Mark your calendars - this beautiful combination will be released in one week, on Samhain - All Hallows Eve - Halloween. 

Thank you for reading....stay posted friends!

I could so see the Queen of Autumn wearing the Dryad ring, the orange topaz is perfect with her dress. 

Dia de Los Muertos Exhibition - Love In The time Of Cholera Theme

When you think about the year and how the months of May and October mirror twilight - that in between time of magic, the point where light and dark meet - it is so absolutely beautiful.  You also begin to see how both these times of year celebrate life and death.  May is the conception and October is the finality of life.   So here we are at October, where we look into the dark and honor the lives of those past.  Dia de los Muertos has always been one of my favorite days because it celebrates the way the Spanish honor the dead and celebrate in the only way Spanish people do - with vibrancy, music, food and reverence.  I was invited to submit a one of a kind piece for the annual exhibition at Equinox Gallery in San Antonio and I was really excited with this invitation because it'd been awhile since I'd created a statement piece. 

Of course I had to go back to one of my skulls, specifically the cat skull my mother gave me awhile back.  And I used the bird bones as the necklace part as well as the cat jaw bone to adorn the necklace.  I really wanted this piece to evoke awe and wonder at bones themselves and how they celebrate the dead by giving new life as adornment.  I also used labradorite as the third eye piece, seeing into the soul and having far-sightedness into the future.  

It really is an honor to submit this piece to the exhibition and if you are in the San Antonio area I hope you visit Equinox and see the exhibition and wonderful events they are hosting for this special celebration. 

All Souls Day and Samhain

Happy Samhain! It is still considered 'Halloween' by many Celts and Pagans.  As the day officially began when the sun sets.  There is a sense of intensity of life and the passage of death.  One of the aspects I most appreciate about the Celtic belief system is the way they honor death and believe it is part of the cycle we all must go through.  Death is one stage in our grand journey, and was more celebrated than mourned.  As it meant the soul was moving to a stage where they no longer worry about hunger, sickness or the other ills of life. 

Perhaps that is why death and the Otherworld hold such a fascination to me.  I'm a true believer in the afterlife, in karma and many other parallel worlds that exist while we are in this plane of existence.  I also feel it is why certain objects can possess the energy of the departed. When I studied cultural anthropology, the thread of commonality through several large civilizations in guiding their dead through through the afterlife with weapons and jewelry as well as clay earthenware is profound. 

I've often said that when I pass to the next world, I want to be put on a boat and set sail aflame as the Vikings once did.  Death is not easy for those who are left living but if we change our perception of what it means, perhaps we can let go off our loved ones more easily.

Song of the Weekend

It's been awhile since I posted a song on the ole' blog.  

For me nothing conjures up better theme songs than Halloween, there are so many great spooky, eery and haunted songs for this time of year!

Several years ago, one of my good friends Jett Harrell created several discs with Halloween theme and he really went with it, and of course this is one of the songs on the disc.  The tempo, the lyrics and theme are perfect for this weekend - roughly one week before HALLOWEEN!!!  I present Bauhaus "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

As many of you know, I used to DJ for the college radio station at ECU and I really loved it.  About 5 years ago, I was all about discovering weird and good music, I've lost my edge but that doesn't mean I don't love a jewel of a song. 

Being a child of the 80's I also have a soft spot for electronic, grunge and really all types of music.  So stay tuned because this will be a continuing theme as I'll share more gem finds (get the jewelry references?) over the next couple months.

My Favorite Fall Rituals

I'm quite certain that many people love the fall because it's our entrance to our favorite holidays and our love of deep rooted rituals. 

The air is cooler, the leaves change to magnificent colors (if you're on the east coast) and we have the closing to the official end of the year - Samhain, the pagan holiday and truly what is now Halloween. 

The cauldron of brunswick stew.  My husbands families tradition of marking the fall season.

With that said I wanted to share with you some of my favorite Fall rituals.  Some are cliche and others are what I personally do to mark this season:

1.  Watch all of these movies, possibly several times: Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, Beetlejuice, Coraline, Pan's Labyrinth, Legend, Nightmare before Christmas, Willow, Witches, Clue, The Lost Boys, Interview with a Vampire and of course the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Can you tell I love fantasy movies?

2.  Decorate my entire house inside and out with not only Halloween themed decorations but Autumn colored items and fabrics.  I add additional candles to the living room, bedroom, kitchen...um everywhere!

3.  Make squash soup, spaghetti squash 'pasta', pumpkin cookies, pumpkin everything! It's the season of hearty meals. 

A housewarming gift to consecrate our new home, some of which I will use to mark Lammas/Lughnasadh.

4.  Perform a sabbath ritual, provide offerings and prayers to my gods as well as my ancestors.  Many religions perform seasonal rituals and it has been this way for ages; especially for people that live in agricultural communities.  From burning of the crops to provide fertilization of the next season to offering gifts to ancestors at churches. 

5.  And finally, holding a bonfire and roasting s'mores.  when my husband and I finally purchased a fire pit I was SO excited to sit outside by the fire and warm my hands and drink a beer or mulled wine. 

I hope you celebrate the season in your own way and enjoy the changes and joy of how our earth regenerates; could you imagine if it didn't?

'Ghouls' Just Wanna Have Fun

Is there ever a more appropriate time to bust out talon and crow claw jewelry?! Than the Autumn/Halloween season!

I've already got my decorations out and I'm unpacking my most sinister and daring jewelry as well.  Though many of you wear Eilisain Jewelry year round, some of you love to really deck it out this time of year.  It seems more and more people are reveling in the joy of the dark and magical aspects of autumn.  I do think it's because we keep it stashed throughout the year and there is something about the colors and fun of Halloween. 

So I wanted to share with you some of the best combinations I've seen bloggers and the media share of Eilisain Jewelry and their 'ghoulish' inspired posts.

Creamstyle blog post of a Maleficent inspired outfit featuring the Hunted Crow Claw Ring in sterling silver with amethyst.

The Resurrection Beetle Ring featured in a Ghost editorial spread.

Now, these outfit inspirations should really get YOU in the spooky mood - add a bit of ferocity and magic to your outfit - SHOP our jewelry today!

The Hunted Crow Claw Ring in sterling silver AND on SALE $175.

The Hunted II Double Owl Talon Arch Ring in bronze, $90.