Sunday 28 August 2016

Review: Witchcrafted Printable Book of Shadows


If I say that I am over the moon about a downloadable and printable Book of Shadows, please don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting anyone should buy or sell an actual copy of the Wiccan Book of Shadows online - and I have not bought one myself. Such things are naughty and frowned upon in Wiccan circles.

No, what I have been enchanted with is a collection of pages with blank space for you to write up your own Book of Shadows in your own hand - something traditionally done by candlelight. Around the edges of the printable pages are beautiful black and white illustrations that you can use as they are or colour in, as you can see I have attempted to do in the picture at the top of this post. (If you want to see some much better attempts at colouring in go to the website link at the bottom of this post)

The printable Book of Shadows is called Witchcrafted and is the creation of Amber Seber. It costs $15 for the 487-page PDF file. All the pages are different so you have hundreds of different templates to choose from, and each design comes in either lined or unlined versions.

As well as being able to colour in your BoS pages to personalise them, Amber's website suggests all sorts of other things you can do. Even the paper you print them on can be tailored to suit the size, colour and style of book you want.

My print outs photographed on this post were just done using regular white A4 paper, but you get a much better result if you use good quality letter paper. You could even try handcrafted paper or parchment, which is Amber's favourite. Amber's website offers tips and advice on colouring - including the best paints and pencils to use. She suggests you can use metallic markers too, which look like gold or silver leaf when dry.

The Witchcrafted pdf also has lots of other things you can use to embellish your book. There is extra artwork you can add, but my favourites are templates for little envelopes that you can fold into shape and stick into your Book of Shadows to contain things like dried flowers, herbs, notes you have written or pictures you have drawn.

You can find out more about Witchcrafted, including how to order a copy, here: https://witchcrafted.wordpress.com/


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