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EnchantedU goes live with a new competition!

As many of you will know, we have been working on a new arm of The Village Witch called EnchantedU.  EnchantedU first began 3 years ago and we have finally launched!  We are so happy and proud of what we have achieved.

So what is EnchantedU?  If you like natural skin care then EnchantedU is right you your street as every product we make is 100% natural. That’s right, 100% natural.  No chemicals, no parabens and no other nasties!  We are completely safety assessed to legally produce, package and sell skin care, which trust me, is no small feat in itself ! We have used all of our combined knowledge from a complimentary therapist, herbalist and of course witchcraft point of view to create this range so we are very excited to see it live after 3 years of hard work.

We would love you to come over and see our new website at www.enchantedu.co.uk and of course ‘like’ us on Facebook.  We also have a great competition that has just gone live on our other website too and of course offer international/worldwide shipping.

For those who live locally, all EnchantedU products are available for sampling and testing in the shop so please come down and have a good look at what we do!

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Competition! Win a copy of Magical Housekeeping by Tess Whitehurst

Competition time here at The Village Witch!

Would you like to win a copy of Magical Housekeeping by Tess Whitehurst?  Yes?  Then all you need to do is complete this sentence:

“To me, magic is……..”

And we will choose a winner on Monday 14th May!  Your answer doesn’t have to be long or intellectual, just write from the heart what magic means to you.

Don’t forget to come along and see us on our Facebook page too as we do like to have a giggle on there

So get scribbling and just leave your answers in the comments section to this blog post.

Good luck everyone!

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Being a witch, doesn’t make you evil.

This is a very hard and very personal post to write so I apologise now if this doesn’t make sense or I ramble in places. ..

Being a witch, in public, is hard.  People have pre-conceived ideas on what you do and what type of person you must be.  I have always had a bit of ‘iffyness’ with people when I tell them I am a witch.  I either get 3 reactions:

1. Really?  Wow that must be interesting….!
2. Really? Ok…..do you worship the devil?
3. Really? Let me save your soul.

I don’t hide I am a witch.  I have a high street shop, this website and blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook page.  I am very public about who I am and what I do and I encourage people to ask me questions so they get a better understanding of what being a witch is all about.  I am very evangelical (for want of a better word!) about witchcraft.  I am passionate about our history and how I don’t want it to be lost.  But I am also, I guess, very naive in how I say things or what I say to certain people.

I am a softy.  I would much rather sit down with a slice of cake and have a natter than hex someone.  Not to say I wouldn’t use a hex if I really had to, I am a traditional witch after all, but I always think that maybe there is a better way of dealing with things.   I am a bit of a hippy parent too.  I am very strict about homework and school (both my girls go to Grammar and are doing extremely well) but once school work or homework is done, I encourage them to have a good time, to relax and chill.  They do not have set bed times, they go to bed when they are tired, this way I feel that they will naturally get sleepy when their body tells them they are and they are more likely to sleep through and sleep well if I do this, and this has always worked well, they sleep very well.  I allow them to study herbs and the basics of witchcraft and to talk about it openly, whether at home, at the shop, with friends or at school.  I encourage them to speak aloud about their feelings and as parents both myself and my hubby involve them in all decisions that involve the family.

I love girly things, cake, hugs, being happy and to have a giggle.  This doesn’t make me any less of a witch, it just makes me, me.  I cry at sad films and I laugh at silly slapstick comedies, I love cake and a cuppa, I love a hug and I love feeling happy.   People who know me well, will be nodding as they read this.  This is just me, I love being a witch, I love what I do.

Emotional, yes. I am incredibly emotional.  I see people (and life) like a child would I think.  I take everyone on face value and try to see good in all.  I trust people too easily and assume that the trust will be given back.  I respect people and assume that I will be respected back.  This has proven time and time again, not to be the case, yet I still do it.  Each time I pick myself up, dust myself down and start all over again.  I usually move on and get over it…

I totally understand that being a witch is not one of the normal things in life but I am not evil.  I do not worship the devil, I don’t even believe in the devil.  Whilst I have the power and the’ know how’ to hex and curse, I generally don’t.  In fact, I have never hexed or cursed anyone for myself.  I am just a witch.  Just someone who loves herbs, works with nature and the power within.  Just someone who genuinely cares about others and someone who would do anything to help someone if they could.  I am soft and squishy.

Our shop is going from strength to strength.  I love how it is evolving from a shop into a community place.  Saturday mornings always make me laugh.  We are only open until 12noon, so everyone turns up early, helps themselves to a chair, has a cup of tea and we just sit there  having a natter.  Saturday mornings has become chat time.  Our regular customers have now become friends and they pop in for a cuppa and a chat on Saturdays (and most other days too), and I love that.  I love how they feel comfortable enough just to sit down and start chatting.  They don’t just chat about witchy stuff, but their own personal lives, sharing ideas, dreams and sadness.  Everything is shared.  The shop is becoming a body and everyone in it, is the heart.  Beating and pumping it with their energy.  It is perfect.

Everyone is able and has the right to their own opinion on religion, on faith, on life, on parenting and their cultures…including me.  I may not always get my points across in the right way, but I am not a bad person sitting here hexing the world.

I am Sally and I am a witch, and do you know what?  It is as hard to say that in 2012 than it was back in the Salem witch trial days.  But that is who I am and I am very proud of that fact.

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Kindred Spirits and Soulmates

The meanings of the terms ‘Kindred Spirit’ and ‘Soulmate’ are entwined, so much so that the terms are interchangeable and probably mean different things to different people.

I see kindred spirits and soulmates as someone you feel like you have known for years.  Someone you have an instant connection with and someone who makes you feel safe and happy by just having them in your life.

Most people see soulmates as the person they are married to.  Based on love and romance, most people will say their spouse is their soulmate because they are ‘the one’.  But I think that soulmates are more than that, they are friends that share a strong connective bond.

Kindred spirits are normally described as those people who are similar or alike in thought and deed, and those who meet at the perfect time, when it is needed to find that person.

If this is the case then my husband is indeed both my soulmate and my kindred spirit.  I love him with all my heart, we are alike in many ways, but more than that, he is my friend.  I met him when I really needed someone to tell me ‘everything was going to be OK’ when I was only 14 (yes he is older than me! lol), he came into my life in the most strangest of circumstances but it felt like he was meant to be there at that time.  He is still my closest friend.  I love him but I also really like him as a person, which I know sounds odd, but I do know of married couples who I look at and wonder if they actually even like each other!

But as I said above, the term soulmates and kindred spirits can also be a strong bond of friendship.  That special bond that makes you smile when the other person is around.  The bond that makes you know that everything will be OK.  I am lucky to have a few friends that I feel this way about.  They know, without telling, when I am down.  They know, without telling, when I am excited about something.  They know, without telling, when I need a hug and they know, without telling when I might need some space (rarely, I hate being alone! lol).

There are two people in my life at the moment, where something very obvious is happening, though neither can see it.  When they are around each other, their faces light up.  They work (magically and any other way) beautifully together and the energy around them is amazing.  Can they see it?  No, but others can.  They, I am sure, will become really good friends and develop their bond even more and once they do, then the magic will start.   It is an amazing thing to see bloom and makes me think of how Colin and I were when we first met.  We were told that nothing would ever happen between us, because in our case there was an age gap, but we have now been married for 17 years this year.   Whilst I don’t think that this new friendship that is starting between the other two will go down this route (although if it did, that is a whole other blog post!), the bond of friendship is already there and growing, and that my friends, is simply wonderful

Who is/are your soulmate(s) and why?  Do you have any kindred spirits?

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The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

We all have times when our friends need us but for whatever reason, we can’t get to them.  It makes us feel useless because we want to be there to support them but we can’t.

If you are a witch or a spiritual type, your first instinct is to light a candle and send energy to them, it is something most of us probably do many, many times.  But I also like to do something else.

Herbs are so important to me, I love herbs, I love working with them and learning about the folklore of them, but I often think that petals and flowers are often not used enough.  A great way to use petals and small flowers is to send a loved one a message in the wind.

Simply take a handful of petals that you are drawn to (this could be by colour or by magical correspondance) and hold them in your hand.  Go outdoors and hold them up in the air and send your loved one a message and energy, then as you do, blow the petals into the air.

People forget that the simplest of spells are often the most magical.  This simple gesture of the petals blowing away really does show the energy and message you want to send, leaving your body and floating away to the recipient.

So next time someone needs a hug and you just can’t get there, why not try this easy but beautiful way to send them some love.

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind…

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Happy Yule! Yule Magic Blog Party – My Gift

When I had the idea of hosting a Yule blog party, I wanted to make it a little different to everyone elses, I wanted to be able to share a little love and light heartedness.  There is so much bad news every day in the news, I thought it would be nice to do something positive, so the idea came to share a virtual gift.

I have been thinking about the gift I wanted to give you all, all week.  I came up with some good ones, some funny ones and some serious ones, so I am actually going to give you three.  You know what I am like, I can never decide!

The Gift Of Time

Time is something that we never seem to have enough of.  Whether it is time to work, time to play, time to spend with love ones, time to just be ourselves or even time on the earth.  Today, please accept my gift of time and take 5 minutes out of the day to just ‘be’.  Doesn’t matter what you do, don’t feel guilty about taking a break from all that work or the Christmas shopping etc.  My gift is 5 minutes of pure YOU time, take it, do with it what you will.

The Gift Of Friendship

The gift of friendship has been shown to me all week.  Since we opened our shop on Saturday, I cannot believe how much my friends have supported me.   The secret to good friendship is give and take, respect and trust.  There aren’t many people in the world that you can get all those ideals from, but if you can, then you have a friend for life.  I would like to offer you the gift of friendship from me.

OK now the biggy….

The Gift Of Cake

Now, did you really think I wouldn’t be able to squeeze cake in here somehow?  But I’ll let you into a little secret, ‘cake’ means ‘I’m here’.  Cake means ‘a hug’.  Cake means ‘take a break’.  Cake means ‘I will support you’ and cake means ‘I love you’.  What am I talking about?  Quite often my reply to people in trouble is, ‘you need cake’ or ‘come round and we’ll have a cake day’.  It is my way of saying ‘everything will be OK, come round and I’ll be here for you’.    Everyone associates me with cake because of my rather rotund figure and also because of my main website.  So it has kind of stuck, but next time I am offering you a slice of cake, or asking if you want to come round for a cake day, you know I am offering you a hug and some love.

Whatever you are doing this Yuletide, have a wonderful and magical time.

Don’t forget to hop around the other Yule Magic Blog Partiers (is that even a word? lol) too!  We are all on different time zones so keep checking back to their blogs to see their posts!

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We did it and thank you!

Finally, after ‎3 months of working every evening after our full time jobs and every weekend, yesterday was our big day and we opened The Village Witch shop in our own village.  As you can see from the photo above, it looks so beautiful and we are so happy.

We had loads of people come and at one point we just couldn’t fit any more people in and people had to come back later!  We had a wonderful day, very emotional and tiring, but wonderful.

We have so many thank you’s and a huge list but there is so many people to thank that I am worried about forgetting someone lol  So to my family, my friends and my clients, thank you, from the bottom of my heart for supporting us.

And a very special thank you from me to Colin, Amy and Chloe, who without them, this dream would have never existed and I am very honoured to be sharing the dream with you.  I love all 3 of you with all my heart.

So enough of the mushy stuff!  What is our shop all about?  Well we have a huge selection of herbs, roots and resins.  Handmade blood inks, handmade hoodoo powders and handmade magical oils as well as other magical store cupboard ingredients.  We also have free WiFi for all customers and a free reading library where you can come and grab a cup of tea (and a biscuit!) and sit and read, or just come in for a chat!

The central area of the shop has a large table upon which a wishing tree stands.  Anyone is welcome to come in a tie a ribbon on its branch and make a wish.  Under the tree we have lots of gemstones and crystals.  This table also doubles up as a working table and in the evenings, twice a month, this area will become a training area for workshops.  I had this dream, many many years ago, that I wanted to have a complex of shops all having a different theme but all coming together as one.  I wanted a witchy shop, a natural skin care shop, a café, a free library and a training room.  Well, we can’t afford all that and our shop is tiny, but with some clever use of space and with lots of hard work, we have a little of everything all together under the one roof.  The natural skin care shop?  Well, that comes next year, we will be launching our 100% natural skin care range next year (completely licensed to make and sell and all safety assessments are now in!).  This will be sold in the shop as well as online.

Our online shop also opens in the new year, so those who can’t make it to the real one, can have an online one instead

It has been an exhausting weekend but a wonderful weekend.  Thank you to all those who helped make it happen, we will do our best to make you proud.

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Yule Preparations Have Started!

Yule prep has started in earnest this weekend.  We put our decorations up a couple of weekends ago, but this weekend is where we have started planning what we are going to do and when.

We had my niece, Ellie, come to stay yesterday, she is the same age as my eldest daughter Amy, they go to the same school and as well as being cousins they are incredibly close friends, it is lovely to see.  We spent the evening in the shop making some goodies for next weekend and had a really good evening.  But this morning I woke up and realised that we have been throwing so much time into the shop ready for the opening next weekend, that I hadn’t really done very much prep for Yule or Christmas.

We celebrate both in this house.  Yule is a very special day for us, we have a lot of fun, games, good food and we have a very magical time, but we also celebrate Christmas as some of our family do and we think it would be rude not to celebrate their holiday as they all make the effort to celebrate Yule with us.    We don’t celebrate the religious side of Christmas, but we do celebrate it as a day to gather with our family.

Yule, well the actual solstice, can be anywhere between the 20th and the 22nd of December but we always celebrate it on the 21st in our family, purely because it has been our tradition to celebrate it on that day, plus it makes it easier for everyone to work out a days holiday that they need to book for work!

So today, we have started the planning.  This year will be different as we will be working in the shop on Yule but we won’t let that stop us having  a special day.  We will be taking our Yule presents with us and opening them there, we will be having some Yule music playing and inviting our customers on the day  to come and share some chocolate yule log with us

I have a lot of things to be thankful for this year.  My husband who I adore, my children who I love with all my heart, my family and friends, my clients and the job that I love, the shop, everyone who follows me on Twitter and Facebook and of course this place, my blog and it’s readers. YOU!

Yule will be magical this year, not long now

This blog post is part of The Witches Yuletide Ball, hosted by On The Broomstick.

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Recipe: Festive Yuletide Orange And Cranberry Spiced Muffins

These festive muffins are great for Yule afternoon as you cozy up in front of the fire.  They are sweet, aromatic, soft and fluffy.  Even better, they are easy to make!  If you don’t like cranberries, you can replace these with blueberries or cherries, which ever you prefer.   They taste lovely with a glass of mulled wine or a mixed berry fruit punch.  They also freeze very well, so make a larger batch and freeze some in case you have unexpected guests arrive (or in case you want more yourself ).  I do love a bit of cakey goodness at Yule time!

Ingredients

100g butter (melted)
275ml plain natural yoghurt (works well with lactose free yoghurt and soya yoghurt too)
200g caster sugar
325g self raising flour
2 large eggs (beaten)
100g fresh cranberries (if you don’t like cranberries, you can replace these with blueberries or cherries!)
25ml orange juice
1 teaspoon of chopped candied orange peel
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of mixed spice (you can use less or more according to your personal taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
thinly sliced orange peel for decoration

Method

1. Preheat the oven at 180ºC / 355ºF.
2. Either grease a muffin baking tray or use a standard baking tray and pop on muffin cases.
3. This is one recipe where the method is literally just ‘throw it all together’.  In this recipe you can use the ‘all in one method’ and it works a treat, great for Yule morning when you are already busy! So, in a large bowl, mix everything together APART from the thinly sliced orange peel for decoration and start to mix thoroughly.  Don’t worry if it looks a little curdled, it will be fine.
4. Mix really well and add to muffin cases or muffin tray to about a 3rd of the way up each muffin case or tray hole.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes.   These can be eaten warm or cold, just add your thinly sliced orange peel on top for some decoration!

This post is part of the Yuletide Cupcakery Blog Party – Want some more fab festive recipes?  Then why not pop over there? Enjoy!

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We Have An Announcement!

For those who have known me for a good few years now, have known that my dream has always been to open a shop.  Not just any shop, but a shop that I could surround myself in all the things I loved.  A shop that could double up as a training centre, a meeting place and a community hub.  We were nearly at this stage 6 years ago.  We had a very successful online eBay shop and we were just about to move to a real shop but it never happened.  But, now, we have done it…

We have our very own shop, in our village, in the high street and it is beautiful!  It is a 16th century converted cottage (yes it has an oak beam in the ceiling) and it is Grade II listed.  I am getting emotional just writing this.  This is our dream, finally coming true.

On the 17th December we will open our doors for the first time.  Only a handful of people know about this as we have tried to keep this under wraps but now we are almost there we can announce it to the world.

The shop will have many witchcraft, hoodoo and other ‘special’  items in it, mostly hand made by us.  We will also be selling items from local artisans to promote the selling of handmade goods in our community.  But more than this, the shop will be a community gathering place for all Pagans as well as anyone else who wants to come in.

There are a few things that make our shop different from the rest and we will announce these as the time goes on but if anyone can remember back from our old forum days and ‘the dream’, then you will remember what we were talking about

We have physically had our shop since the end of September but it has taken this time to decorate and get things ready.  Not many people know that as well as all my witchy stuff, I am also a complimentary therapist and I also own a natural skin care company.  All of these things will be entwined into our little shop.  What is more, I will still be working with my main business which I also love, this was a priority to us that our main business carried on and with the help of our fab team, we will be continuing as normal, with no disruption to our clients.

So, well, there you go.  We have a shop, oh and yes it IS called The Village Witch!

We would love to see you on our open day (17th December) and we will be having some drinks and nibbles etc. to welcome you in too  If you would like to come to our open day, please add yourself to our Facebook event page.  If you are not on Facebook, no worries, you are still invited, we have only made a Facebook event page so that people can see where we are.

Our new shop address is 71a High Street, Milton Regis, Sittingbourne, Kent ME10 2AR (you can find a map on our contact page).

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has known and kept it secret for us and who have helped get it ready, we really couldn’t have done this without you.

Roll on the 17th December.  We are so excited!

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