#the fancy grimoire

[lazywitchling]

Me: [looking lovingly at my Fancy Grimoire as I decide to really buckle down and finish the last pages of it so that I can start a new volume in July for my ten year witchiversary]

Me: ……………..

Me: “ARE YOU MISSING A CORNER?! WHERE IS YOUR CORNER DECORATION?! WHERE IS IT?”

My commonplace book: [makes metallic noise as I move it]

Me: “WHAT IS IN YOUR MOUTH?!”

My commonplace book: [spits out the metal corner it apparently tore off of my Fancy Grimoire]

[lazywitchling]

An important part of writing your grimoire (handwritten) is making the first mistake and deciding what to do about that. Scribble? Cross out? Correction tape?

I apparently went with ‘scribble’. Not ideal, but there we are.

[lazywitchling]

@upthewitchypunx Working on a grimoire page and looking for a good sticker to put in the corner. I think this one will do nicely. 💜

[lazywitchling]

Hi I’m Jes, or Jester (she/her). This is an info post and navigation menu.

🍄 My Neocities site (find me here if Tumblr shits the bed; it has a blog) ☕ Tip-jar that I never update

🏷️ I have tagged this post with a few of my frequently used tags for your clicking convenience. 🗺 Under the cut is blog navigation that'll be edited as needed ⬇️ Under the cut is also info about me and my blog.

💤 My side-side blog that's just a storage bin: @witchywashi 🏳️‍🌈 TERFS and Exclusionists fuck off. 🔮 This isn't a witchcraft blog, it's the personal blog of a witch. There will be memes and silliness and politics woven throughout. 📚 I read a bunch of witchy books. I am the slowest reader ever. I can be prompted/reminded to keep reading and updating if you ask questions about what I'm reading. (#jes vs witch books) ⚗️ You can ask me about witchy stuff! Keep in mind, most of what I do is arts & crafts with some very-specific-to-me mystical stuff, with a lot of "fuck around and find out", so I'm very good at brainstorming ideas of what you can do with what you have on hand. 👻 My familiar spirit J sometimes comes up in stories. (#J) 🍀 Tentatively working with the Lady L*** though it depends on the day (#The Lady) 🏳‍🌈 I might spam rainbows in June. You'll live. 🍂 I will definitely spam hobbit stuff in September when I do my yearly LotR all-day rewatch. I will warn you ahead of time what tags you should block if you want to filter all this out. (#hobbit day, #hobbit day menu, #hobbit day 2k24, #hobbit day 2k23, etc.)

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Book Reviews Masterpost of Books I Have

[lazywitchling]

[lays back on the bed with my head hanging over the edge upside down]

So like

My #grimoire-goals when I first started the Fancy Grimoire was to have a ~pretty~ and ~aesthetique~ book like in the movies. And it certainly has become that as I've gotten better at... whatever you call it. Scrapbooking? Art journaling? idk. But I've learned those skills from working on the Fancy Grimoire, and flipping through the pages shows real progression in my skills.

But NOW the #grimoire-goals are to have the widest possible range of spells in it. What I want is for someone to say "Hey, what's a good spell for [thing]?" and I'd flip to the page in my grimoire instead of searching it online. I'd have the decorated pages, the pretty aesthetic, but also the researched topic, maybe a premade spell, a few suggestions on customizing or making a new spell as needed.

BUUUUUUUT...

[slides farther off the bed, head on floor]

See, in actually defining this goal, I realize that the problem with that is the same problem some of y'all have with fanfiction.

No, don't leave, stay with me here.

Y'know where there's a bunch of posts on this hellsite (affectionate) that are like "I don't want to write this fic, I want to already have written this fic"? Like that.

If my goal is to have everything already in my grimoire, then the goal is to have ALREADY DONE the research. If I can flip to a page in my book, it's because I've already done the work. And sure that sounds like a nice goal, but when I think about it in those terms, I do NOT want to ever reach a point where everything I know is already in the book. I don't want to stop learning and brainstorming and thinking. New problems means new witchery, new spells, new ideas, new techniques.

[kicks off the bed and flips onto the floor, facedown]

Anyway. I realized I don't have anything in my book about binding and I really need to get on that.

[lazywitchling]

What I USED to do in the Working Grimoire (aka the Not-Fancy Grimoire, aka the knockoff Moleskine notebook I got at the general store) is I'd write each "spell type" in a different colored ink. Love, friendship, self-love, and general positive-emotions spells were in pink, bindings were in dark blue, sea spells were light blue (back when I fancied myself a sea witch), curses were lime green, general spells and advice and meta were black...

So I was constantly expanding my grimoire along with my repertoire, but I could still easily find something in the book because of the color coding.

But that is a system that I did not move over to the Fancy Grimoire because it did not fit the aesthetic. Now I just scramble frantically through unorganized pages.

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED.

[lazywitchling]

Amazing thing about scrapbooking my grimoire: it looks DOPE AF, and I have all sorts of great artwork and textures and colors in it, and it’s beautiful.

Side effect: my grimoire is a CHONKY BOI now, since gluing multiple layers of paper on every page makes it bulk up in a HURRY.

[lazywitchling]

How many stitches do you do when you’re binding books? I’m putting, like, six stitches in each of my signatures, and I’m planning on binding the signatures together with three stitches, to bring them all together. Is this sufficient? How do you personally sew all of it?

(Also, I’m using a regular sewing needle and four years of Trump-induced fury to force the needle through. Should I just get a thicker needle, like a doll needle or yarn needle?)

I do six!

I do the Coptic stitch, because it’s the only one I know how to do.

But yeah, a regular needle works for the sewing, but I highly recommend pre-piercing the holes. I have an awl I got from a specialty bookbinding store, but I’ve also seen similar tools in with the paper quilling section at craft stores. It’s just like a pencil-sized tool with a stabby bit on the end. BUT you can also use a thumbtack. It’s harder to grip, but easier to acquire.

So fuel that trump-induced fury into the thumbtack, pierce holes along your signatures with RAGE. And then gently sew with your needle and thread and save yourself the arthritis 😊