Hello!

It has been a while since I have posted to the blog. The big news is that my Witches Tarot is now an app for your iPhone and iPad! This became available a few weeks ago by The Fool's Dog Company and they have informed me recently that they are very pleased with the sales so far. Here is a link so you can check it out! http://www.foolsdog.com/Witches/

Also the Witches Tarot in the works for an android version app to be available early next year!  (We've had lots of requests for an android version- so sit tight! It's on the way!) THIS JUST IN! You asked for it you got it! The Witches Tarot is now ALSO available for Android users as well as iPhones
Here is the link in the Google store! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foolsdog.witches

Here at home we had 2 weddings to attend in October, I taught classes in St. Louis, and tour season has just come to a close. Lately it seems that every time I turn around someone wants an interview or for me to guest blog. Which is exciting but adds to my list of things to do. Between my own family's annual party, travel, and so forth things have been pleasantly though insanely busy.

We ended up holding our party a week earlier than usual to accommodate my daughter's fall break at grad school and my author event at Turn The Page Bookstore on the 26th of October.

At our 4th Annual Halloween bash this year a couple of my friends and I decided to come as The Three Witches of Oz. Evanora, Glinda and Theodora. Here we are on the right. That's me as Evanora, Ember Grant as Glinda and Heather as Theodora. We all had a great time!Also I flew in one of my best witch-friends from Connecticut to stay with us for the party weekend. It was so much fun with Jen being here!

The night of the party was very cold. Temperatures hovered in the low 40's, and everyone stayed around the fire pits to stay warm or squeezed inside the coffin in the garage for a photo shoot. (See bottom of the page) Here is a photo from the party of my husband dressed as a gravedigger, and he was taking his job pretty seriously! (LOL)

I have only been home from the Washington DC area and the event at Turn the Page Bookstore for a couple of day. As usual it was a fabulous time! I love doing events there and its great to see Nora Roberts again, and the staff at the store always does an incredible job. This year with Nora's new book "Dark Witch" and it being so close to Halloween all of the staff were dressed like Witches! It was so cute!



Here is a group photo of all of the authors from the event at Turn The Page
Pictured are Nora Roberts, Tess Whitehurst, Victoria Dahl, Caroilyn Turgeon, and me up at the top.(There were a few Maryland local authors in the photo too.) I wish I could remember their names! I'm claiming a middle age moment.

Finally the trees in the neighborhood have started to push out their fall colors. It's colder and rainy and now it feels like Samhain. As the temps have fallen well below freezing and all of the tender annuals in my garden took a major hit and have blackened from the frost..

That's okay I will leave them alone- It adds to the creepy effect when the Trick or Treaters come a calling.
Now I need to go set up all of the Jack o'lanterns and finish the  food prep for my family as they always come over for supper and to hang out and visit on Halloween.Pumpkin pies to bake, table to set...

I wish you and yours a Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain! Happy Witches New Year!

Blessed be, Ellen

Coffin Photo Shoot Halloween Party 2013 Heather, Ember, Ellen, Jen, Sarah and Ken

Hello,
Well our 3rd annual Gothic Halloween party has come and gone and tomorrow is the sabbat of Samhain. Today I cranked out the last of the annual articles for Llewellyn and now its just me and book number 15.  Hooray! From the day after Samhain my total writing attention is devoted to the next book. Period.

I have one author event left this year and that will in November be at The Witchery, in Galveston Island Texas. www.witcheryonline.com  I will be teaching three separate classes and doing readings over a three day period. I am really looking forward to going to see Clyde and the fabulous folks in Texas.

Our 3rd annual Gothic Halloween party was our biggest one yet! My daughter and I went out the afternoon of the party and had our hair done for our costumes. So when you see the pictures of my hair to the right- I had that done. I could not pull that off myself. I was Bellatrix LeStrange and my husband Ken did a Gentleman Ghost.

This year we had some very creative costumes. From Bob Ross and a Happy Tree to  Beetlejuice, to Assassin's Creed characters, Gypsies, Zombies, Vampires and of course some very fine Witches.

My adult kids rocked out some Arkham City Characters. Namely Harley Quinn, The Riddler and Bane. Here they are. They even got their friends to come as Catwoman, Twoface, and a Lady cop. Here are my trio below.
Folks gathered around the fire pits in the garden, gobbled up food, had a few drinks and eventually starting posing in the coffin. The black lit garage turned out better than ever and yes we managed to squeeze five Witches into the coffin for a group picture below.

Tomorrow will be a quieter night. For the family and a few close friends and of course the neighborhood trick or treaters.
I wish all of you a blessed Samhain.

Happy Witches' New Year!
Ellen

Good Morning and Happy October!

I have begun decorating the house for Samhain over the weekend. I swear we have more Samhain / Halloween interior decorations than most folks do for X-mas! It took me most of the day on Sunday to put everything in place with a lot of help from my husband and daughter. And it's not even all up yet. The really intense decorations go up about a week or so before Samhain. No room is safe- not even the bathrooms, as we prepare for our annual Halloween party. I wrote about this in my new book, Seasons of Witchery. Check out the Autumn Equinox and Samhain chapters for more information.

For the past three years my husband and I have thrown a Gothic Halloween party. And every year it gets bigger and more elaborate. Last year he built a toe pincher coffin and everyone had their picture taken in it out in the garage. Here is one of the pictures from our "Photo Shoot" last year. This is Noir, me, Ember and Draco. I wish you could see the garage when it was black lit, but alas when the camera flashes you loose the black light and the creepiness.

2011 Coffin Photo Shoot.

In a couple of weeks I will get started in the garage and transform it once again into a Gothic lair.  Also, my husband built a lid for that big toe pincher coffin.

Imagine my 24 year old walking in the house back in early September and casually asking when she hears the buzz of the saw, "What's Dad doing out in the garage?" And my equally casual response of, "Oh, he's building a lid for his coffin."

She didn't even blink. 

We are planning to use more backdrops this year in the garage. This year we have black fabric and yards of grey and black tulle to drape the walls with- for the background of the coffin set up. (To cover the walls I snagged some flat black sheets on sale.) Much more economical than buying yards of black fabric and its wider!

This summer I found via Pinterest, some directions for making "candles" out of PVC pipe, hot glue, and battery operated tea lights. I couldn't wait to try it out.
This idea appealed to me for many reasons. First of all when I have a garage heavily decorated with spiderwebs, pumpkins, a coffin, a wine bar, and it's all lit with only black light... and you have lots of folks laughing, dancing and partying- the LAST thing I want to worry about is an open flame.

So I thought this was a fabulous idea. I showed the directions to the Hubs and off he went to the hardware store and came home with 6 feet of PVC pipe for about 5 bucks. Here are the pictures of the PVC Candle project in progress.
First he got out his big chop saw and cut the PVC pipe into various lengths. To start, we chose 8 inches, 5 and 3/4 inches and 3 and 1/2 inches. Then I took blue painters tape- (because I had it lying around) and made a sling across the top of the PVC pipe deep enough for a battery operated tea light to fit inside of.

Once we had that done I took my low-temp glue gun and made "drips" down the side of each PVC pipe. Totally covering the tape. This was done in layers so it would build up, and look like a real meting candle. This takes some time AND you will go through MANY glue sticks. So stock up before you begin, otherwise you will find yourself stopping to run to the arts and craft store- (Like we had to do).
For the long drips I started at the bottom and ran the hot glue up the side of the "candle". Then I would let it pool a bit at the top.              Be careful NOT to let the glue drip inside of the pipe. If you do, you may have a tough time getting the battery operated tea-light in and out of the "candle".  So keep the inside clean and clear of hot glue.

We let the hot glue harden up, and then we used acrylic craft paint in black and brushed it over the "candles". Be sure to paint inside of the pipes and if you have white battery operated tea-lights paint around the top of the tea-lights. (Be sure to wipe any paint off the "flame.) See the picture I took on the right- for the painting in progress.

Then we let the paint dry. Just below and to the left is a picture I took of the candles and tea-lights drying.

Ellen dry brushing the "drips".

 Once the candles were completely dry, I used white acrylic paint and dry brushed the "drips".
Dab the paintbrush on paper so it is almost dry- like stenciling before you start brushing the candle with it.
Starting from the bottom of the candle and then brushing up, I highlighted all of those simulated candle wax drips. This really makes it pop against the black. And it made the candles look more realistic.

Variations: I have seen PVC candles done in black with red drips or purple drips, but I really like the white against the black. To me it looks the best. Plus it looks creepy. White candles with red drips would be pretty nifty. But we wanted to stick with black.

Finally we gathered them up turned on the tea lights and took a few pictures. They looked amazing when they were all grouped together. As a matter of fact they looked so good that we went and made about a dozen more the next weekend.

Oh, and also if you look around the Halloween stores you can find black battery operated tea-lights. We snagged some of those too, and at last count I think we have about 20 or so of these PVC Halloween candles for the party.

For display purposes they do look better when you group them up in groups of 3 or 4 candles.
These PVC candles would be great for outdoor rituals as well if there was a concern for wildfires or if it was windy outside. I bet you can think of lots of uses for these. Red candles with sparkly white drips would be pretty for Yuletide as well.

Use your imagination and see what you can conjure up.
As for me... I am on the lookout for the next big Halloween decorating idea. Enjoy the month of October and Blessed be,
Ellen