The Witch’s Workshop: A Guide to Crafting Your Own Magical Tools

• Author: Melissa Madara
• Genre: Arts & Crafts
• Publication Date: May 14, 2024
• Publisher: Watkins Publishing

Thank you to NetGalley and Watkins Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

From the author of The Witch’s Feast, this is the first fully illustrated, comprehensive introduction to the handicrafts of witchcraft. Through over 60 craft projects, learn all the techniques you need to create your personalized magical toolkit.

Empower yourself as a self-sufficient witch, and become a master of the natural arts!

This in-depth guide, accompanied by step-by-step images, will show you all the craft and design skills you need to make your own, personalized and fully adaptable magical toolkit.

Melissa Madara, magical expert, herbalist and witch, shares 60+ unique projects and techniques, many of which revive spells from the history of witches past. Approachable for beginners and stimulating for established practitioners, the crafts are clearly explained through luscious photographs, detailed research, useful charts, and easy-to-follow instructions. Once you are directly in touch with the power of these crafts, understanding deeply the processes and the associations of magical ingredients, you can be inspired to create all your own unique formulations. Chapters

Incense, including kyphi temple incense, which once billowed from the temples of ancient Egypt, to house blessing incense for cleansing any new home.Inks, including dragon’s blood ink and botanical drawing charcoals.Oils, such as flying ointment or the world’s first known chemist Tapputi’s royal salve.Natural dyes for creating stunning eco-printed ritual gowns or a spring equinox altar tablecloth.Papers, like Japanese knotweed paper or autumn equinox corn husk paper.Powders essential for rituals and spells such as scrying powder and banishing salt.Candles of all shapes and types, including poured, dipped and molded.

With all of this knowledge, you can create altars, rituals and spells that are highly specific, personal and in touch with your natural environment.

I’m always looking for cool-sounding nonfiction reads in the witchy genre. I have to admit, the cover of this book caught my eye first. It’s beautiful and I especially liked the emphasis on vivid, bright green natural items. Plus, the idea of crafting my own magical tools and items sounded very intriguing to me.

This is easily one of the most comprehensive books that I’ve read thus far, as far as magical items goes. It’s obvious that the author has a working knowledge of each of these items, since there are plenty of helpful tips and tricks included with each ‘recipe’ or set of instructions to prevent potential snags that commonly occur. In addition, every single recipe (yeah, I’m just going to go with that since it’s easier) has a stunning, full-color photograph to go with it, so that readers know what the finished item should (ideally) look like. 

Madara takes some time at the beginning of the book to discuss the concept of green magic, how to use this book, ways to source botanicals ethically, and tools that will commonly be used throughout the book. It’s divided into chapters based on the specific tools, including incense, natural dyes, inks, papers, candles, oils, and powders. The beginning of each chapter discusses history, techniques, and tools that are used, and then we get to see a combination of some more famous recipes from history and some modern recipes that are incredibly useful.

Overall, this is a fantastic book for both new and experienced practitioners of the craft. There are so many interesting recipes and crafts in here that I want to try that I gave up bookmarking the pages because there were just too many bookmarks. The only thing that’s stopping me from trying out so many of these recipes is that most of them require either ingredients or materials that aren’t on hand or the kind of thing I can just pick up at the local supermarket. Other than that, it was also intriguing to read just to learn more about how these items are made—I use things like ink and paper daily, and love using candles and incense, but haven’t put much thought into how these items are made. I loved learning about all of this, and will absolutely be trying out some of these crafts.

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