10 Days and counting...

I had wanted to start posting more but getting ready for my trip has really taken all of my time!  10 days and counting until I fly off to Sicily for a month.

I have my Euro cash, my bills paid, lodging and other arrangements made.  I have to pack and get a phone when I arrive.  I am pretty sure that I've taken care of most everything.

Each day, I'm doing 1/2 - 1 hour of Rosetta Stone. It's really a great course. If you're thinking of learning a language, it's worth the money especially when you compare it to the price of more traditional courses for language.

Stregacrafts is up and running.  since I hand create most items that we carry,  but we're not going to be taking any new orders until I return. Note - I was just informed that I accidentally crashed the site. It's off line as of this writing my Mike is going to fix it as soon as he gets back from lunch.  Sorry!

OneStopOccultshop is up and running. We'll still be taking orders through the site. I've arranged it so our suppliers will drop ship orders directly to our customers and I'll be staying in touch with them while I'm gone.

Streghe.us is up and running and we've got some surprises planned. I'm working with a friend to convert the site to a WordPress UI including forums. The goal is to make it a real community site focused around resources and intelligent (and respectful) discussion regarding Pagan religious Witchcraft with origins in Italy/Sicily, Europe, & the USA.

http://www.vinnierusso.com/TarotReadings is up and running. Although I am still taking phone readings until I leave, I am not able to do any in-person readings at this time.  While gone in September, I will not be available for phone or in-person readings.  When I return in October, I will be available for both and will be sure to post a notice.

The Sheaves of Demeter Coven is busy as well. In addition to the Chthonioi-Alexandrian and Italic material, we're currently doing 4 - 6 weeks of elemental workings. Each week is devoted to meditations on a particular element and how that element appears and interacts in our daily lives. The goal is both become familiar with the more traditional associations with the elements as well as forge our own personal associations with them and recognize when and how they appear in our daily lives.  By recognizing their appearance and interaction, we can better use our knowledge of them to steer our course more positively.

If you're thinking of doing some of your own elemental work, I highly recommend The Way of Four by Deborah Lipp. It's an excellent book written by an amazing Witch.

OK, back to work.

Ciao a tutti,

Vincenzo

StregaCrafts/Arsenic.com to donate auction items for the Society of Elder Faiths Coffeehouse

Ciao a tutti,


The Society of Elder Faiths is having their annual Coffeehouse on Saturday, November 17th.  As an active member of the Pagan community and as a (board-) member of the SEF, I think that it's very important that we support our local organizations. Any organization is only as strong and vibrant as the members who participate and support it so let's do this!

StregaCrafts/Arsenic.com is going to donate 3 gift-baskets for the auction.

I'll be making gift baskets of our new Rituali Saponi (pictures at the link)!

Our all natural soaps are custom made for us and come in a bar of approximately 5 oz.

• We carefully choose ingredients and colors to me magically correct and then charge and dedicated each one to its specific magical purpose. 
• Basic ingredients for all cold processed handmade soap are as follows: Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Soybean Oil, Hemp Oil , Organic Shea Butter , Water, Lye*, and Natural Fragrance. 
• Our soap contains: NO Preservatives! NO Animal Products! NO Petroleum Products! NO Parabens! NO Lauryl Sulfate! 
• Colors may vary in shade/tone as our soaps are made made and blended.

Gift Basket #1 -

• Diana - Dedicated to Diana/Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon, and Queen of the Faeries. Color: This 5 oz bar is a white (yellow/white) in color. Scent: Clean scent of sandalwood and trees and misty moonlight. Ritual uses: Perfect for all ritual uses such as purifying baths to prepare for magic and ritual. Also used for wishes, healing, exorcism, spirituality, hidden Mysteries, intuition and insight, and to honor the Queen of Faeries.
• Apollo - Dedicated to Phoebus Apollo, variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, music, poetry, and more. Color: This 5 oz bar is a light brown/orange and yellow blend. Scent: Medium scent of fresh berries and sunlight. Ritual uses: Energy, skill (athletic and artistic), vibrancy, healing, music, divination, luck, money.
• Hermes - Dedicated to Hermes, God of Merchants, messengers, and travelers. He is also a Psychopomp and patron of those who work with their mind. Color: This 5 oz bar is burnt orange/yellow.  Scent: Orange and cinnamon. Ritual uses: Communication, commerce, creativity, clear thought, cleverness, dispel glamour, the descending Muse, travel, divination.

Gift Basket #2 -

• Demeter - Dedicated to Demeter/Ceres, the Goddess of Abundance, Fertility, and Harvest. Color: This 5 oz bar is a golden brown. Scent: Medium scent of rich oatmeal. Ritual uses: Fertility, agriculture, nature, prosperity, health, motherly interests, abundance, growth, new ventures.
• Persephone - Dedicated to Persephone/Proserpina, the Queen of the Dead and Eternal Spring. Color: This is a 5 oz red striped bar. Scent: Pomegranate and cherry. Ritual uses: Evoke eternal spring, beginnings and endings (death and rebirth), the Underworld, comfort to the dead and those left behind, the Mysteries, prosperity and abundance.
• Hades - Dedicated to Hades/Pluto, God of the Dead and King of the Wealth of the Hidden Earth. Color: This 5 oz bar is charcoal colored. Scent: A blend of aloes and earthly garden fragrances. Ritual uses: Riches and prosperity, the Afterlife, endings and death, work with the Dead and the Underworld, purification, psychic powers.

Gift Basket #3 -

• Zeus - Dedicated to Zeus/Jupiter, Father of the Gods and Wisdom. Color: This 5 oz bar is yellow with green/blue swirls. Scent: Crisp mountain air and hints of purifying sage. Ritual uses: Conquering all things, wisdom, judgment, law and the courts, immortality, protection.
• Hera - Dedicated to Hera/Juno, mother of the Gods and Patron of the Family and domestic life. Color: This 5 oz bar is a an off-white/purple color. Scent: Fresh lilac with a hint of wisteria. Ritual uses: Motherhood, marriage, spiritual alignment, wisdom, blessings, centering, balance, peace, healing, happiness, release, purification, garden magic, immortality.
• Hestia - Dedicated to Hestia/Vesta, the Goddess of the Hearth and eternal flame. Color: This 5 oz bar is lavendar in color with lavendar buds. Scent: Lavendar and ylang-ylang. Ritual uses: Hearth, home, health, protection, family, domesticity, right order.

I hope to see you there!


Benedizioni,


---Vincenzo

News for our customers!

News for our customers -

Mike and I have been extremely busy redesigning our business model, improving the technical specs of our various website projects, and giving the sites a "makeover". Our goal is to have the redesigns up and running by the beginning of October. I can't guarantee that it will be up for October 1st, but it should be live sometime during the first week of October.

Currently we have Arsenic & Old Lace for our main commerce site, tarot readings, and resources. Unfortunately, at a commerce focused site, the Tarot Readings and Resource Section tended to get lost. To add to that, we have StregaCrafts as our "boutique shop", what seems like dozens (!) of "homepages" on various Pagan Community and forum sites, and finally, Vinnie's blog (of occasionally interesting things) at blogspot.com.

Until now, we've felt like we were spread all over the place with no real connection between our various projects: go to blogspot for Vinnie's blog, go to X Community Site for discussions, go to Arsenic & Old Lace for occult supplies, go to StregaCrafts for custom products, go a subsection of Arsenic & Old Lace for resources (book reviews, blogs, etc.), go to yet another subsection of Arsenic & Old Lace for Tarot Readings, etc.

Rather than have one or two really "busy" sites, we're breaking things down into several discrete and less busy sites that will be dedicated to specific purposes:

Arsenic & Old Lace (http://www.arsenic.com) will become our main "portal" site to all of our other activities and products with a "universal menu bar" to help folks navigate our offerings. From here, folks will be able to find links to whatever we're working on.

http://www.OneStopOccultShop.com will become our main Occult and Witchcraft commerce site carrying over 7500 products of major brands like Anna Riva, AzureGreen, 1618Gold, etc.

http://www.StregaCrafts.com will be for our hand-made crafts and custom magic products;

http://www.VinnieRusso.com will focus on Vinnie and his Tarot Consulting;

and http://www.Streghe.US will be dedicated to resources, book reviews, blogs, and article with future plans to integrate forums and members' pages. If you have suggestions for content, or would like to contribute content, then please let us know!

This will be a long-term, ongoing project and we're open to your suggestions!

Ciao,

---Vincenzo

What's up for December?

Happy December, everyone!

We've been very busy trying to get ready for the holidays. Since most of our customers tend to shop with us all year round rather than just at the holidays, we've been trying to figure out how to provide them with something new during this season. (Have I recently mentioned just what an amazing programmer Mike is?)

Mike came up with a fantastic idea. We had been talking about putting some sort of a wish list for our customers who wanted an item but were yet ready to make the purchase. Aside from the technical problem of figuring out how to program a wish list into an existing website, we didn't want people to have to set up a profile at our website just to let your friends know what items they would like for the holidays. I pulled a few customers about a wish list and many of them said that they already had an Amazon Wish List and would love to be able to put products from our site on their Amazon list for the friends and family to see.

Now, I know that Amazon does provide plug-ins for some browsers but folks tend to be picky about what plug-ins they install on your computer. Mike did a little bit of research into the Amazon "add to Wish List" button. With some technical tweaking he was able to integrate the technology for the Amazon Wish List button directly into our individual product pages.

Each one of our product pages has two buttons on it: our normal “add to cart” button, and new a new “Amazon Wish List” button! If you already have an Amazon Wish List, all you need to do is click on the new Amazon Wish List button and you'll get a small public by prompting you to add the product to your wish list. The best part is that if you have more than one Amazon Wish List, you can even select which list the product will go to!

If that's not enough, might even rewrote our inventory tracking system so we can keep even closer watch on our stock levels.

As always, if there's something that you are looking for but can’t find on the website, just let me know. Speaking of which, you may be wondering where our StregaCrafts products (potions, incense, and anointing oils) and Dryad Designs jewelry and statuary have gone. We've moved both lines of products (StregaCrafts & Dryad Designs) to our newest website HTTP://www.stregacrafts.com. Come on over and give it a look. We'd love your feedback.

That's all we have for now. I've got to get myself ready to dash off to a weekend workshop with Alessandra Belloni.

Ciao bello!

Vincenzo

New ventures

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've written a blog.  It's not that I haven't been inspired to say something (Gods know!).  It's that I've been very, very busy.

For the past several months, Mike and I have been working to get a new retail website up and running.  The focus of the site is/will be Witchcraft derived from the Mediterranean cultures and religious traditions.  Our new venture is called Strega Crafts and we'll be going live in October.  Our goal is a full site publish for the Monday, October 3, 2011.

We'll be offering handmade items and accessories and we'll be starting with my own incense, anointing oils, and potions.  We are in the works to get hand crafted chalices, jewelry and statuary, and strega-rosaries. 

Any other items that you would like to see us offer?

Benedizioni,

---Vinnie