Must Be the Season of the Witch: Part I - the gathering

There is no describing how much wondrous fun we had at our witchy women gathering! (or should I say womyn to honor the new-agey 90s vibe of "the craft") Every element that I could have dreamed up for my dream-night actually happened!

Here I am getting ready; at the last minute I decided to wear my hand-dyed purple Gunne Sax dress along with a pouch containing rose quartz, an amber necklace that was a wedding gift from Jocelyn, and a dyed blue scarab beetle.

Oh, and Emily and I both went barefoot.

Here we are, Em and I, so damn ready for this night!

We've planned it for weeks.

It was all her idea, having loved Practical Magic since she was a preteen, so much that she actually watches it more than once a week to this day.

No joke.

Here's the gathering place (my living room of course) all set up and ready for magical crafts and coziness.  

And a close up of our "altar," I suppose you could call it.

Darin made so much fun of us for having Practical Magic sitting there.

And then we made him leave.

Super excited as our first guest arrives!

The adorable and ever-saucy Chelsea Peterson! (she has a swell little blog here)

Next to arrive was the gorgeous Becky (Carter) Mingle of Velvet Leaf fame:

And then this pair of bewitchingly haunting crones (aka Lesley and Ryann)

The illustrious and inimitable Mallory Tomei:

Couple of irrestible darlings, Rachel and Maya:

The glowing Jocelyn, with tiny Juniper inside her rapidly growing belly!

And last but not least, my own sis Addie in a witchy dress we've shared since high school and which our boyfriends always hated!

In total, ELEVEN girls (women, priestesses, goddesses!) all together getting busy working our magic, or to use one of the dorky phrases we ran across in our books that night, mojo magick. 

Check out this craft circle!!

This is why it is fun to have a party with just your girlfriends.

Each lady got super into it, carefully designing and writing and decorating pages for our communal spellbook. SO ENDEARING AND FUN!

See how happy I am?!

Part III of this Witchy series of postings will show off the results of our endeavors: the SPELLBOOK. Did we ever come up with a name for it girls? Traditionally they are called Book of Shadows but we thought about calling ours "Holy Wine" in reference to the Joni Mitchell song "Case of You" which we all sang aloud together when it came on the playlist.

In the midst of all this, Lesley disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bubbling and frothing REAL CAULDRON!!

A chunk of dry ice in a bowl of vodka cranberry punch was THE PERFECT ADDITION to our night! (besides what could be better than a beautifully pink drink at a girly fest?)

There is so much more to tell that it is seriously overwhelming! But for now, I'll leave you with a few more random shots of the night's festivities, and watch for Part II: Absinthe Dreams...coming soon!