Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Updating and Wishing everybody a wonderful 2011


*above is my gorgeous sister and I surrounding my silly brother on Xmas night. He just loves to be among ladies, the pirate...


Soooo... We had a wonderful Litha, let's start this way. We had our traditional picnic breakfast outside, with juices, fruits, yogurt, everything according to my little witch's request. ;)



Then he made, for the second year (it's the very beginning of a new tradition for us), a Green Man mask, to be burned on Mabon. We used a pasteboard to the base, and taped ivy leaves for the "hair", fern leaves for the "beard", and scheflera and fern leaves for the "nose", plus a huge green crayon smile. Lucas used the mask for a long time, and greeted anyone at the door wearing it, so funny!



Three days later was Christmas. It's a family tradition for me, when the whole pack is together, eating and drinking a lot, and spreading gifts around. It has always meant a lovely holiday for me, detached from the Catholic side, and after Lucas was born, it became even more special. He loves to get the Tree ready for the holiday... Since he got old enough to hold the ornaments without breaking them or getting hurt, it's his special task:



It's always wonderful and fun to watch his sweet and enthusiastic reaction when finding out with his little cousins that Santa Claus, once again, didn't fail, and left a big pile of gifts for everybody under the Tree.



I took a photo of the feast, before everything was placed on the table. Each member brings something to eat, it's beyond words, lol! My share is always the dessert: my special peach trifle. I could eat that forever...



Lucas wrote a letter to Santa, asking for a toy guitar... So, among other things, he got his gift, and simply adored it! A Mini toy Fender Stratocaster, with pre-recorded rock riffs that now is played all the time here, alas... ;)



... But I think that what he secretly loved most (well... not so secretly... lol) was the mini pool my awesome Auntie Sandra gave him. Perfect for the really warm days to come! It's hard to get him out of it! We're having some massive rains lately though, so for a while, he'll have to watch it from inside the house..



On a nutshell, the holidays were wonderful. Full of love, laughter, and great vibes. And to crown my last days of 2010, Lucas is traveling with me tomorrow morning to spend the New Year's Eve at our cousin's beach house (where I went to last year, remember?)! He decided he wanted to go to his dad's only after that, and I got more than happy for it! :) He'll stay away from me for a shorter time, compared to last year, which is really really a blessing for me. When January 5th comes, you all know I'll activate my "virtual Phone Tree" to ask you to help me creating a positive protection circle around my little witch, right? As well as a "hang in there" circle for me! ;P

I wish all my friends, from the bottom of my heart, a beautiful New Year's night, with love, light and warm vibes (and I do hope you guys are sae with all these crazy snow blizzards out there! Keep me posted!), and a 2011 when all your true dreams come true. I'll be offline from tomorrow until I return on January 2nd. Until then, take good care, and enjoy your time with family and friends! :)

Monday, December 20, 2010

Happy Yule and Litha!!




I wish all my friends at the Northern Hemisphere a beautiful Yule, filled with love and positive vibes, increased by the awesome Full Moon eclipse!

For my friens in the Southern Hemisphere like me, I wish you a great Litha! May the Sun brings the strenght and warmth we all need!

We'll celebrate it with our traditional breakfast picnic outside, with my little witch's menu: orange juice, carrot & beet jiuce, cheese muffins, bread with butter, apples and yogurt! Afterwards he'll make a new Green Man mask, like last year, to be burned in Mabon. To crown the day, we'll spend the afternoon at his best friend's. A great way to celebrate the solstice. :)

Blessed be!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Seems like a century away!



Wow, it's been aegs since I last posted! I feel so bad for not visiting everybody as I should and wanted to, I'm sorry, guys! :P I did kept in touch with many of you at Facebook (which is a life-saver when time is short to write long posts, but we want to send smoke signs), but nothing compares to the detailed posts we can share here at our blog homes! ;)

I've been really really busy lately (still am, lol!) with Yule orders, thank the gods, this holiday was awesome for my shop! While last year I had only a couple of orders, this time I had a huge bunch of them. So I was happily sewing my fingers off, as Kris used to say. I created a bunch of new goddesses and gods, soon to be posted here.

In the meantime, Lucas moved to the next grade in school (grade 3 now, can't believe it...), and I'm proud that he got A+ in all subjects! ;) He won a medal at the soccer class along eith his little friends, and now is enjoying lazy days of vacation st home (until he goes to his dad after Christmas to spend January with him... But that's for another post, I don't want to think about it now).

My nephew William, my late sister's son, who lived here at mom's for two year since her death, went to live with his dad yesterday, in another state, to start college next year. We're all sad missing him, but we know this was a necessary step in his life, and he'll be okay. Good that there's internet to keep in touch!

Christmas is almost here, and we do celebrate it as a family holiday/tradition. All my siblings come to mom's, each bringing something home-made for the feast (traditionally we have turkey wih bittersweet sauce, French toast, manioc flour toasted in butter, salpicao, rice, and other yummies...), and we exchange gifts. The young kids, who still believe in Santa (my litle witch included), can hardly wait for it! Thanks to my shop, I could buy gifts for everybody this year, it's a great feeling! :)

And ('bout time!) Summer is finally coming here! We're facing weird stormy weather on a daily basis, always in the afternoons. The days start with a bright sun shining, warm weather. Then, when it's around 5pm, seems like the skies are falling over our heads (I have to remember Asterix then, lol), thunders and lightnings crossing above. Today was the first day in weeks that this didn't happen!

We'll celebrate Litha as usual, with a home breakfast picnic to salute the sunny day. I love the warmer months here in Petropolis, never too hot to bear, with a cool breeze in the evenings.

Also, I won some awesome prizes at Mrs. B.'s Halloween party (*taking mental note to post about them asap*)!

Summoning up, it was a good, busy time off! I hope you all firgive my absence from everybody's blogs, and I do hope everything went well in the meantime. I'll be pretty busy now catching up!

Kisses and love from us! <|;)

PS: Above is my little witch one of these days, ready to school, with hair gel, cute! ;)

Friday, November 19, 2010

Be right back


Hello, everybody!

I'm sorry for my lack of posts here and for not visiting your blogs these days! I've been pretty busy working on Yule orders, so my focus is on my babies to keep them ready before the holidays.

I'll be back soon to catch up! ;) Hope you all are having good days.
Kisses from us.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Scrying Mirror's Making Of


Some friends were curious on how Maebius created the gorgeous scrying mirror he sent me. I'll use his own words:

"First, I took a simple wooden picture frame and decorated it. In the most recent New Moon I had small riutal fire made from apple and elder branches which had fallen from our trees in the yard recently.
Also, smudged the glass and frame with mugwort and cedar leaves. Charged the scrying frame with love and intent to be a sacred tool. Then I took the ashes, powdered them in a stone mortar & pestle, and mixed some more dried mugwort leaves in. This got smeared on the back of the glass with a little salt-water and allowed to dry."


As he said, a bit of extra work compared to simply painting it, but it surely brought a special feeling to it, making the mirror even more sacred and powerful for me!

Monday, November 8, 2010

New Moon thoughts



I love the New Moon. It's a time that always meant cleansing, getting rid of the old so the new can come into our lives, and making protection rituals to be sure the new will come with the best vibes possible without any bad influence. As I always did my cleansing in the whole house for years, now that I'm living at my mom's, I don't feel comfortable of doing anything like that anymore, no matter how supportive my sweet mother is. So I do whatever I want into our bedroom, in a smaller scale, which is not the same, of course. But we need to adapt ourselves to the current situations and get the best out of it, I know.
This month it was not different, and it was okay.

As it is also a great time for divination, I placed the gorgeous scrying mirror that my super-cool friend Nate, a.k.a. Maebius made for me some months ago. It's my first scrying mirror, and I'm so in love with it! It's so beautifully made with such care, empowered with the proper symbols and vibes and even smudged as it should. Maebius rocks (btw, you need to watch the video he made on his absurdly cute little son drawing a comic strip, unmissable!)! ;)

I'm training/disciplining myself not to freak out in front of this mirror. It's easy for me to get some "doors" or "windows" opened and get images and signs forming, but I simply can't control myself to keep the focus and not to be afraid of what I'll see. So far this was the second time I used the mirror, and for the second time, I could sense and actually start to see something, but the heck I could let it fully come, I just blocked it and called it a night both times. It's a big issue that I know I need to work on. As I always say, nothing happens by chance, so when Nate said he would send me the scrying mirror, I knew it wasn't a coincidence. It was like the gods decided it was time for me to stop being this chicken, and said, "okay, deal with it.". Okay, I will... In due time, I will. Just getting used to it and stocking my courage.



He also send us the 12 beautiful samples of sand you see by the mirror's side, from several places in the U.S. Lucas adored using Google Earth to see where each one were from (just between us, I love that application and the dizzy fall from the sky to the spot we want to visit!). Lucas was sweet enough and allowed me to keep them in a little glass jar at my altar, layered in the numbered order they came. So now they're proudly displayed with the magick stone from Marie Segal on the top of it. I used to have a glass bowl with stones and peebles from around the world brought by co-workers when I worked at GE, but they're all at my ex - I hope I get them back asap, so these samples are very special to me, specially coming from a really sweet friend like Maebius. It's starting over a new collection.

Oh, and I stumbled upon this cute ritual at Patti Wigington's page, that I plan to make next New Moon with my little witch, it's so simple and lovely to perform with kids! I hope the night is clear and not rainy then. Hope you guys had a prefect New Moon night as well!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Working on dandelions

Remember that we harvested some dandelions and put them to dry a couple of weeks ago? They dried very well in to my wardrobe and last night we prepared them for Moon Shine's tincture.

Well, the leaves were dry but I put them for 5 minutes into the hot oven just to make them get crumbly and easier to deal with - I don't think it was a bad thing, ;P
My little witch loved taking the bigger leaves to put into the glass jar:





I filled half the jar with Brazilian cachaça (a sugar-cane beverage), since we didn't have whisky or vodka at home as suggested by Moon Shine, but according to him, it's a good substitute:



Then I completed filling it with water, put the lid and placed it under my wardrobe - the darkest place in my room, lol! It will stay there for one month until is completely ready for use. The rest of the leaves were enthusiastically reduced to powder by Lucas and stored in a tin can for future witchy use, along with the dried roots.

Of course my little witch wanted to make a divination potion, using hot water in his cauldron and a generous pinch of the dried leaves, and he kept watching the images formed in the brew. His little mind went wild and he said he could see, in this sequence: a green man, an old man holding a sickle, a seahorse and a man holding a snake in each hand, lol! Don't ask me about it, I decided agreeing and calling it anight then! ;)

Friday, November 5, 2010

The Weekend in Black and White

Ah.. I was missing this fun! October was really a crazy month. ALthough here we're celebrating Beltane, I get so much into Halloween with my friend Kris' online party, that I have only eyes for it, lol!

Last weekend Lucas took a photo of my brother testing my brother-in-law's new camera, I loved how it turned out!


For more monochrome photos, visit the meme's main page, hosted by Dragonstar, and join the fun.

"Gimme fuel, gimme fire..."



OH Books! I love Internet and I know how wonderful this media is to bring peope closer, and the zillion informations we can get here, but if there's something I can't live without is to read a real book, to smell it, feel the pages under my fingers... It's almost erotic, lol!

So yesterday arrived the two books I ordered, at the same time, my kind of heaven!!
How good it is to look at my bedside and see them sweetly waiting for me to read, it's so comforting... I started The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog last night and already got hooked! Patricia Monaghan really knows how to keep the reader's attention, I only stopped because it was too late, but tonight I think I'll watch the dawn while reading...

Have you guys been reading something these days? I always love to know about it!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

ABC Wednesday - O for Osiris & P for Persephone

Oh well, I didn't make it last week, so here are my posts: a late O post, and this week's P!



O is for Osiris, the Egyptian God of the Underworld and vegetations, son of the goddess of the skies, Nut, and the god of the earth, Geb. He was seduced by his sister-in-law Nephthys, who pretended to be his wife/sister Isis, getting pregnant and giving birth to Anubis. His brother Seth )Nephthys' husband), blind with jealous, killed him and spread the pieces of his body on the river Nile. Isis managed to get all the pieces and bring him back to life (the flooding of the Nile represents what happened). Eventually Osiris died again and became the God of the Underworld, judging the departed souls.



P is for Persephone, one dear Greek Goddess. Daughter of Demeter and Zeus, she was the Spring Goddess. She was kidnapped by the God of the Underworld Hades (not Osiris, lol!) and became his Queen. Demeter desperately searched for her, finally finding her in the dark realms of Hades, and managed to make a deal with him. As Persephone ate a magic pomegranade offered by the Underworld God, she couldn't just leave for good. So she would stay six months with him in his kingdom, and six months with her mother up in her lands. That's why we have the dark months of Fall and Winter... ;)

For more P posts, visit the ABC page, created by Denise Nesbitt, and join the fun!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Samhain giveaway's Winner!

Sorry for the delay on posting this! Yesterday was a weird day, with migraines and family at home, so only this morning we made it.

I had fun with this video, because we made such a mess in the end, with Lucas having troubles to grab and hold the piece of paper with his too big gloves, then dropping the paper right after announcing the name and not finding it... You have to watch to know what I mean, lol! And I'm sorry that you guys have to watch it sideways, I just didn't know how to make it right! ;P

Congrats to the sweet winner, I'll ship your Wheel this week!

Samhain Giveaway from Carioca Witch on Vimeo.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween!



Wish you all a perfect time with fun and bright blessings starting on this new witchy year!

And for my friends on the Southern Hemisphere with me, a blessed Beltane!



The Wheel turns one more time, it's a pleasure to watch it turning with all of you!

Day 31 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!





Awww... And this is the last day of super-fun at Mrs. B.'s blog! I enjoyed every day of it, and I want to thank her for spending her time to bring all these wonderful artists together to so generously donate their witchycrafts for us greedy witches, lol!
I was also happy to get to know new bloggers, learn more about this magickal sabbath, and to read awesome articles every day.

Aaaaand today Mrs. B.'s giving away an absurdly amazing basket of goodies straight from Salem, from Jaz, the soul behind Octoberfarm! Omigods, I would adore to win this!!

And Weiser Books was also so generous to donate a full set of the Weiser Field Guides!!! Ooommiiiiigods!!!! WOuld it be too bad if I made a spell to win this, lol??

And don't forget the last Hautend Blog Tour, it's spookY! ;)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Day 28 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!




I don't like to remember it's almost over! sigh... SO let's party!

Today Mrs. B.'s giving away a gorgeous Vintage Witches Charm Bracelet from Laughing Vixen Lounge! I simply adore her stuff and I have the cooles Supernatural necklace (I have already told you this, but I have to repeat! lol).

Also a box of 10 sweetest photos greeting cards from Judy's Photos!

Unmissable!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Cute witcheries for a little witch

Some time ago I ordered from Mrs. B.'s Etsy shop a cute voodude that Lucas saw and fell in love with.

When I opened the parcel, besides the Halloween voodude comfortably placed in his coffin, there was also a little pink voodude that I was in love with too! The cutest pinkie voodude ever, now proudly hanging on my keychain, filled with special herbs and full of great vibes. And she threw in some Halloween goodies for my little witch as well:


Needless to say Lucas adored his new friend!


Soon the voodude was introduced to the Wizard who lives on his altar:


After a good empowering ritual Lucas wanted to perform all by himself, and after sleeping with it for some nights, he decided the voodude's place was on the altar, into the stones' bowl:

He really looks all happy in his new home, doesn't he? ;)

Day 26 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party



Today Mrs. B.'s giving away an absolutely wonderful Willow rune set from a sweet frind, Mother Moon, a beautiful Silver Moon Herbals Samhain Herbal Kit from Silver Moon Herbals and a super-cool winner's choice of silver pendant from Laughing Vixen Lounge (I have her Supernatural pendant, and I tell you... Her stuff is the best.)!

Take your chance, guys, it's the last week! ;)

Monday, October 25, 2010

Day 25 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!




Oh... This is the last week! sigh...

Today Mrs. B.'s is giving away the awesome (and much wanted!) Buckland's Book of Gypsy Magic from Weiser Books, a super cute Très Petit apron from Apron Addiction, and a lovely & original designed Heart and Soul Necklace from Nitebyrd's Nest.

Plus the always creative Haunted Blog tour and Guest Blogger of the day. Check them out!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Recipes!


I seldom post recipes, isn't it? Everything I make at home (when I manage to be in the kitchen before mom, that's it!) is very simple and can't be compared to my friends' fabulous meals!

But yesterday at the bbq we went, our host friend prepared an absurdly delicious white beans with saffron & coconut milk, whose recipe I had to steal and share with you guys. At first, I though I wouldn't like it because coconut milk is so sweet to have something to do with beans. My mistake! It gives a subtle exotic touch making it taste like heavens. So here it is:

Prepare 1 kg of white beans as usual, stewing it with onion and garlic after cooked (that's how we make beans here, I assume is the same for you guys!). After cooked, add a litle bottle of coconut milk (200 ml) and a table spoon of saffron to it, stirring well, cooking for more 5 minutes. Right before serving, add a tomato cut into cubes in the mix, and voilà! The best white beans ever!

For dessert, she also made Ambrosia, a yummy and simple recipe that can make you howl to the moon (like the Olympian gods must have done when eating it, lol):

Put 5 liters of milk in a big pan. Add 3 cups of sugar, always stirring until boiling. Put on low heat and let it slowly dry for more or less two hours. When the mix starts to thicken and get a light brown color, add 5 sticks of cinnamon. Pour the mix on a large bowl and take it to the fridge, until time to serve.

Enjoy! And if any of you guys try these, let me know if you liked them! ;)

Day 24 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!



Oh... I can't believe there's only one wek left for the month to be over, and so the fun! sigh

While we can, let's party!

Today we can try to win The Big Book of Soul: The Ultimate Guide to the African American Spirit by Stephanie Rose Bird, from Weiser Books, a Wire Wrapped Amethyst Point Pendulum from Shades of Midnight, and a 3 Postcard pack - 'Suspended' Painting - with Envelopes from Jasmine Worth!

Little witch's lucky charm



Lucas has soccer classes at school every Thursday after class. It's one of the funniest times of the week, with us moms and dads cheering for our little ones as if they were at a national championship, and they playing with their hearts. Lucas loves his classes! While in the begining he was a bit afraid of fighting for the ball and getting hurt, lately he developed a self-confidence that pleasantly surprised us all. He runs the whole field, fairly fights for his chances and gets involved in every situation - no, he's not a young Romario, I know his limitations, but he fully enjoy his games! It's even more fun to watch him now;

Some days ago he also decided adding an extra magickal help to his good performance, and made a cute luck charm, inspired by the Smeared and Smudged cool tutorial shared at Mrs. B.'s Haunted Tour:



This is how he thought a soccer luck charm should look. I took it with me on his last soccer class and he played very well again! He knows it was not due to the charm, but to his own effort, but of course, a little bit had to do with magick, why not? ;)

Having fun with some good friends

We had a great Saturday. The day started all windy, but the sun decided to show up at least. Mom, Lucas and I went to a couple of friends' house for a Brazilian barbecue by the pool. The last time we went there was in the begining of the year, time is flying! They usually visit us more often on our own barbecues and family gatherings, so it's rare to be there. This time was wonderful!

Lucas had a blast with their grandkids playing at the pool...






The barbecue was so yummy... I don't eat red meat, but devored the sausages, spicy and at the perfect taste! To accompany, we had white beans with saffron and coconut milk (absurdly delicious), rice and salad.



For dessert, homemade ambrosia... Cloud 9!



After lunch, the kids played some more at our friends' beautiful garden, it' was really cool to sit on their veranda watching them play while chatting:




Our friends are so sweet and fun to be with. It was awesome to spend some time with them again. Until the next barbecue, here or there!! :)

... And a sweet award



Talking about Mother Moon... She was so sweet to give me this lovely award. Thank you, dear, I feel humble to accept this from you, loved you thought of me among your other great friends! :)

Well, to the rules:
1. Link the award to the person to whom sent you the gift. (check)
2. Link to the blog of the person who created the award - Hazra of Advanced Booking. (check)
3. At Advanced Booking enter your name into Mr. Linky so there is a complete list of all the recipients. (check)
4. Pass the award on to at least 7 more people whom you feel are prolific bloggers. This is the hardest part for me. I always find it so hard to choose a few friends when everyone is so worthy these awards! As the award creator says I must pass it on at least 7 blogger friends... everybody from my "Blogs I love" list on the navigation bar above deserves this beautiful award. So if you feel like grabbing it, please do it!

Another awesome Halloween giveaway!



One of the sweetest souls I've met whose blog I simply love, Moon Mother on top of everything is giving away an incredible basket full of adorable Halloween goodies! You just can't miss it! ;)

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Day 23 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!




Talk about being late again! lol! We had a fun busy day at a friends' house, so only now I could see what's going on at mrs. B.'s party!

She's giving away today Somnambulant Skulls, a cute mixed media piece, on a 5x7 canvas from Somnambulant, and also The Way of the Horned God, a book for boys teens by Dancing Rabbit, from O Books!

And today there are two Blog Haunted Tours and the GHuest Blogger!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Day 22 at Mrs. B.'s Halloween Party!


Wow, I'm late today! Errands to do, crafts to make... :)

Today Mrs. B. is giving away an awesome Hekate Art Card from Wishcraft Charms. I have two art cards from this wonderful artist, and I love them! Hecate would be a great addition to my collection... ;)

Also, a delicious Polyjuice Potion Glycerin Soap from ADK Aromatherapy (US residents only, sigh...)

And of course, the always fabulous Blog Haunted Tour and Guest Blogger to read!

Thursday, October 21, 2010