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alchemagick · 6 years

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Discussion Time: Witchy Tools

When I first started my path as a witch, I did what I think a lot of beginner witches out there do... I spent way too much money on extremely overpriced items that appeared to be necessary witchy tools and to this day haven’t used nearly half of them. I have a few theories as to why we do this, and I’m sure these are collective beliefs.

1. We’re too excited to start in on witchy things to slow down and really research the things that might be useful to us

2. We’re looking for that Aesthetic™ that only certain materials have

3. We had yet to realize that magick is literally all around us, and we have the capability of making anything magickal with the right intent

Sounding familiar? If you’re new to witchcraft or are still stuck in this vicious cycle of spending way too much on items you probably won’t use in your craft, then hopefully these tips will be useful to you.

Tips for gathering materials

🕯️ Do your research - No seriously. Before you decide you want/need an item for your practice, look into why you want it and how you’ll be using it. How does it fit into your beliefs? What will you gain from using it? Is it readily available to you? What might be used as a substitute and are you comfortable using a substitute?

🕯️ Look past the aesthetic - This is what really got me. I bought a lot of items simply because they looked witchy, only to go home and realize I already had an item similar sans witchy vibe. If you find this to be the case, I urge you to use the items you already have and make them magickal. Charge the heck out of them with energy, crystals, moonlight, sunlight, etc. Paint or color them in some way to fit your aesthetic needs.

🕯️ Search around to see if you can get it cheaper - Don’t be afraid to be thrifty. If you’re buying an item online especially, search other sites and other shops to see if you can get an item for less money. A little research can be the difference between a $50 cauldron and a $20 one.

🕯️ Utilize the world around you - Nature has so much to offer us. Not only will you be able to find tools for witchcraft by taking a walk in nature, but it’s a good way to balance yourself and soak up the earth’s lovely vibes. Leaves, sticks, rocks, nuts, bones (careful with that one), etc... You never know what you might find to use in your craft.

🕯️ Invest in making your own items - This can get a little pricey to begin with, but in the long run, homemade items (if budgeted correctly) can save you a lot of money. I invested nearly $100 on natural items like oils and such and Castile soap to make my own body/face/hair/hand soaps a little over half a year ago. In the time since, I’ve only spent $15 on another bottle of Castile soap and I’m still using up my original bottle. Investing for the win.

Places to find items for cheap

Candles/Wax Melters

🕯️ Dollar Store - They have 6 packs of emergency candles for a dollar. They last quite a while and fit into any regular-sized stick candle holder. 🕯️ Dollar Store - You can get 112 tealight candles for $7 USD. At Target you can get 100 for $6.29 USD in white or ivory. If you want different colored candles, buy the white ones, melt them down over a flat electric stove and add a drop or two of food coloring then mix the color around with a toothpick. You could also add a drop of essential oils or herbs for a magick boost. Be careful not to burn yourself! 🕯️ Dollar Store - Wax melters are a dollar, and they are super cute and fit almost anywhere. I don’t suggest getting their scented wax cubes because they are pumped full of chemicals. The only reason I would say to get one package of their wax cubes is to throw out the wax and use the container as a mold to make your own wax cubes. 🕯️ Michaels - Paraffin wax is $27.99 for 9lbs., $19.99 for 4lbs., and $6.99 for 1lbs. Obviously 9lbs is your best deal, but these are overall what I have found to be the cheapest prices around that you can buy in store without having to buy online and pay shipping. 🕯️ Michaels - This is pretty much the only place I know of to get candle wicks for a relatively good price. It is possible to get candle wicks from Amazon for super cheap, I’m just lazy and would rather go to the store and pick up my items that day.

Herbs

🕯️ Fred Meyer - For those of you that know what this is (it’s mostly a West Coast thing, part of the Kroger company so if you look up the Kroger company equivalent nearest you I’m sure they’ll have something similar to this), Fred Meyer has been a life saver for me. They have an organic/natural section where, at most locations, you can buy herbs and other food items in bulk. They will have things like dried fruits, assorted seeds and nuts, rosemary, basil, clove, etc. You can also find aloe vera gel in the natural aisles, along with things like activated charcoal and other supplements in the natural vitamins section. There’s so much down these aisles that can be used for witchcraft that it really has to be experienced in person. No description will do this section of Fred Meyer any justice. 🕯️ Your back yard - Okay, obviously you’ll have to initially buy the plant/seeds in order to grow it, but growing your own herbs is so fulfilling. Plus you’ll be able to charge those little plant babies with other forms of magick while they grow. 🕯️ Your community - Take some time getting to know your surroundings. What plants are native to your area? Which ones are safe to use in your craft? Needled trees grow in abundance in my area along with moss and other temperate plants. Consider altering your style to lean toward what is freely available to you. 🕯️ Antique stores - Some antique stores will have full lavender, stem and all, in bundles that you can buy for relatively cheap. I love going to antique stores because I can usually find other treasures like figurines or metal boxes to store items in. Recently my grandmother went to an antique store and found a whole set of witchcraft items for only $50. There was a cauldron which I knew to be priced around $25-30, a tapestry made of thick cloth that would have been at least $20, an assortment of around 20 spell candles of all different colors, a copper bowl with a triple moon engraving, a vintage tarot deck and a beautiful beaded green tarot bag that they came in. For $50. It was an amazing deal.

Crystals

🕯️ Etsy - TheCornerCrystal; I love this shop. Everything is such a great price and the shop owner is so sweet! I sent a thank you message after my purchase and within 12 hours I had heard back from them and they just had the nicest things to say. I highly recommend checking out what this shop has to offer. 🕯️ Gem shows - Here in the Seattle area there are periodic gem shows where you can find different crystals and stones at awesome prices. I’ve never personally been (yet), but I know quite a few people who only have good things to say about these events.

Miscellaneous Items

🕯️ Joann Fabrics - If you have a sewing machine at your dispense and know how to sew in a straight line, I highly suggest going to Joann Fabrics and searching through the really cheap fabrics to make your own altar cloths/tarot bags/sachets/etc. It is so fulfilling to make these items yourself and use the finished product. 🕯️ Micheals - Jewelry wire is super cheap here. You can use it to create necklace pendants out of your crystals and stones. Don’t forget to thumb up those YouTube tutorials!

#alchemy #alchemagick #witchcraft #discussion #candles #crystals #herbs #tools #shopping

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morbidesque · 6 years

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Hey, I was just wondering where you tend to buy your dog skulls? I've looked around online a tiny bit, but I'm not totally sure which places are reputable/fairly priced/ etc. (I'm in the US if it matters at all) Thnx

Hello! I hope you don’t mind me publishing this answer! It can be difficult to source dog skulls from reputable sources so hopefully this will be helpful for others too :>

Personally my main source of dog skulls are a few trusted sellers scattered about the EU that I use repeatedly. Obviously being in America makes things difficult and although they can be legally shipped to you, postage and customs charges can be a bitch to put it frankly! It just depends on how much you’d spend on postage. Seller-loyalty is also a good thing to have though and can lead to some really cheeky deals in the future.

Facebook groups are also really, really helpful and I suggest joining as many as you can. “Skull Collecting” is popular and run by @bone-lust if I remember correctly and people sell skulls on there. The groups I am in are mainly UK based but there are definitely loads for the US too

I have personally never had any luck in antique stores despite everyone saying how wonderful they are, apart form one coyote skull on a market at a Gothic festival in a seaside town but I consider it a one off!

I have heard that taxidermy forums such as taxidermy.net are good but I haven’t had any luck so far and the only offers I got were from being in the US (ironically). Ebay and etsy have been good in the past for the occasional really nice skull at good prices but recently both sites are being much stricter about the sale of dog and cat bones/skulls so they are fairly barren these days unless something is mislabelled.

As for reputable, everyone has a different set of ethics and the best thing to do is ask how the skull is sourced from the seller themselves. If the question is avoided or ignored or excuses are given it generally gives off alarm bells. Trust your gut and don’t be afraid to ask questions. And generally always avoid buying from China; the skulls pop up on eBay a lot and are cheap but the origins are definitely questionable and the skulls are in terrible condition and not worth the money!

Pricing is always hard because it can vary a lot and different people will always have different amounts that they would personally pay. I know someone who got a bull terrier skull (a massive holy grail for loads of people) for £60 on eBay, and I know someone who got a bull terrier skull for £350 from a private seller. It all massively depends and I have definitely been ripped off before I really knew what I was doing. If anyone ever has any doubts about the pricing of a dog skull you’re interested in please feel free to PM me and I can try help out and offer a second opinion because getting ripped off hurts.

Edit: also remembered that because you’re in the US skulls unlimited is always an option, but to me they seem reALLY overpriced apart from some of the craft grade stuff. I actually just went on the website and for once the dog section has a few good items of decent price at the moment!

I hope this is helpful! Let me know if there’s anything more specific I can help you with :>

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cambrasine · 7 years

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Zine Organization Guide/Tips

There’s been a huuuugee influx of friends and friendly strangers asking me about how to run a zine -- so under the cut is my spiel!

Wait, who are you? Hey! I’m Jennie. I’ve run a couple zines and am working on a couple more. I’ve participated in hmm let’s see one two three four (more?) others, too! Okay, now for the guide.. First off, though It’s incredibly rewarding, don’t underestimate how much time running a zine takes. Most projects I’ve been a part of have run over the course of 3 - 8 months. Admin stuff takes a lot of time day-to-day too - setting up a blog, forms, spreadsheets, store, answering questions you’ve answered 1000 times, assembling, packing, etc. etc. Don’t take this the wrong way - I am a zine enthusiast but just make sure you have enough time to take this on, or team up with a friend or two to multiply the fun and share the workload! :) ORGANIZATION If you open for applications / submissions then I suggest using google forms. That way everything is in one place and organized in a spreadsheet. Similarly, I suggest google sheets for keeping track of things. For example, we made a google sheet to share with all participants. Next to their username they can fill out things like their e-mail address, how they wanted to be listed in the artist directory, what they will be drawing (to avoid excessive repeats), etc. plus a little box to check off when they complete their piece. You can also make multiple tabs which is fun (For YoI zine we had a cover sheet (explanations of each tab, announcements), participant info, templates, FAQ, timeline, wip share, and bundle sign ups). It’s all in one place makes it easy for the organizer as well as participants to keep track of! For your own sanity MAKE A TEMPLATE for your participants to make their art on — At the correct size (including bleed if you’re printing full bleed), resolution (300 dpi+), and color profile (CYMK) for printing. SOME PEOPLE WILL STILL NOT DO IT CORRECTLY. Mentally prepare yourself LOL > Make sure to leave room for title page/credits/thank you - whatever! > Printing goes in multiples of four so be prepared with a back up if someone drops out and screws up your page count! > Leave cushion room around your deadlines. Build in a week after your deadline for people who need extensions because people ALWAYS need extensions! > Making a WIP/check in deadline was really helpful I think > It’s a nice thing to do to offer participants a copy as long as you can afford it. Otherwise there’s not much motivation to participate;; If it’s for profit, give them a cut. DISTRIBUTION DIGITAL As far as distribution, gumroad is a classic for digital downloads, plus they have this nifty ‘pay what you want’ option. They do take some fees though, less if you pay $10 for a month but you have to balance an equation to see if it’s worth it. Since we didn’t know when to set the release date for, we skipped this and will just be emailing the file ourselves, but I have used gumroad in the past. PHYSICAL > I would try out bigcartel - it’s totally free to have 5 items or less. Haven’t tried it myself. > Storenvy is probably best option after that. There’s a 10% fee for purchases made through the marketplace, but you can turn it off and just sell from your custom storefront. They introduced ‘’'Storenvy fees’'’ where they charge customer an extra fee now (usually .99 I think) which they withdraw from your accounts afterward > Etsy is fine, there’s the .20 listing fee but it’s not very customizable visually... I just don’t love it, ok? lmfao You can give it a go > Tictail is OK (can’t turn off marketplace / 10% fee from marketplace orders, doesn’t integrate with shipping easy easily, can’t make different item groups for shipping, etc.) PRINTING If you’ll be printing, check with local printers. Get quotes. GET A LOT OF QUOTES. Some people will not respond at all. Some will be crazy and not understand how to price books/booklets and try to price you for 1000 prints instead. You just have to look around. Side note: Hard copy proofs are great! If it’s your first time assembling a zine, I’d highly recommend you get one. Some recommended printers:

Smart Press US based. Love them!! Good quality, good customer service, usually one of the less expensive options. Solid A grade :) RA Comics Direct/Nations Print California based. Haven’t used them myself, but heard very good things. They'll mail ya a free paper sample booklet if you ask! Pixartprinting Based in Italy. Usually the cheapest option, print quality is good, but not /amazing/ No hard copy proofs. Catprint NY Based. They only do saddle stitch binding, and I’ve never used them for books but their print quality was great. You can get a paper sample booklet from them too, and they have so many freaking paper options. PrintNinja China Based. Everyone and their mother seems to love their quality. They have high minimums and very little flexibility on them (250, 500, 750, etc.) but they also have lots of cool options like foil, embossing, debossing, etc. if you’ve got the cashflow. SHIPPING (from US) USPS is pretty much always the cheapest option. Once you know the weight, you can easily calculate on the site how much it will cost to ship. For reference, a 20 page book I made weighed about 5 oz, a 60 page one weighed about 7 oz. Bubble mailers are your best friend! I like the poly ones vs the paper ones bc they’re waterproof. I like these ones a lot, the adhesive is strong!! For shipping the 20 page one, I included a piece of cardboard for rigidity. For the 60 page one, it wasn't necessary and only /one/ out of the 400+ shipped was damaged. The easiest to way to ship through USPS though is to use a service like ShippingEasy. You can do buy postage for 50 packages each month on their free plan but if you ship more than that and want to use them, you'll have to pay $x a month. With ShippingEasy you import your orders, can choose your standard shipping settings, etc. and buy postage online. That way you can do it any time of day, don't have to hand write labels, etc. I also bought these labels so that you just peel and stick them on the package - no tape necessary! If you use Etsy or Storenvy, you can set it up to automatically receive your orders. If you use Tictail, you're going to have to export them to a spreadsheet, then import them - which is a pain and is only available on paid ShippingEasy plans. There's a free month trial tho if you time it right! Also with USPS - if you can safely leave packages outside - you can schedule a pick up online and they'll come pick your packages up at your house! No lugging heavy boxes to the post office! END NOTES Every project is different. You’re bound to hit a few bumps in the road but hopefully the above will help keep those to a minimum! It’s hard work, but it feels amazing once you have the book in your hands! I’ve met lots of my amazing artist peers this way. It’s great for making connections and even a few friendships! If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask!! Good luck with everything!! <3

OTHER GUIDES: By the lovely Jeanne who co-organized the ML fashion zine and Menons la Danse with me Another and another by artists I admire By May, who ran the Ladybug Charity Zine

#zine #fan zine #zine guide #zine tips

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topicprinter · 6 years

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BackgroundASCII Prints is an emoji print/poster business. It was launched 2 years ago by Moritz and Martin. They launched on Product Hunt and did $1,200 in revenue in the first month. Upon realizing they didn't know run a marketing strategy, they moved on to other projects and they more/less shut it down.Fast forward to a couple months ago. I'm in the process of testing a hypothesis about micro private equity (see previous post). I reached out to acquire the business but we settled on a partnership. I take over all expenses and marketing in exchange for a controlling share of the business.Deciding where to startI quickly put together a Trello board filled with ideas. Here are just a few:re-engage with our mailing listsending free posters to nerd culture influencersReddit/Facebook/Pinterest Adspost to startup directories: BetaList, ProductHunt, etc.setup other stores: Amazon, Etsy, etc.Paid ads were an easy place to start. I work full time and have very little spare time. Since our posters are squarely in the nerdy/geeky home decor niche, Reddit seemed like a great place to start.ProcessI didn't want to waste time so I created the ad in probably 30 minutes. Just a screenshot of the homepage to convey the product, idea, etc.https://www.dropbox.com/s/m01fxo0w7yg1w9t/Screen%20Shot%202018-10-02%20at%208.34.16%20AM.png?dl=0I chose the following categories based on my gut. I felt like at least some portion of users in each of these categories might be a potential customer:Interior & LandscapeDesignReddit MetaVideo GamingPC GamesCollege EducationComputingProgrammingI initially set the ad to run for 30 days. Obviously I only ran it for 14 days. More on that to follow.I didn't want to spend a fortune so I capped the daily spend at $10/day and the CPM bid at $2.Then I hit Go and waited for my ad to be approved.OpsOur ad was approved and started running on 10/3 and immediately I started plugging the metrics into some very basic formulas. With ~$10 of margin, and looking at an initial CPC (Cost per click) of $0.51, doing some basic division ($10/$0.51) told me that we had to make a sale every 19 clicks on the ad. That's an overall conversion rate of ~5.3%. I'm no marketing guru but that seemed excessively high. The ad ran for 4 days uninterrupted before I decided to make some tweaks.Clicking around Reddit and viewing some other ads, I realized my ad had far too much copy and wasn't very good. Why would it be? I created it in a few minutes! I quickly swapped out the image for one that showed the product in context, mounted above a desk.https://www.dropbox.com/s/py7mt2mcr56bfjv/Screen%20Shot%202018-10-05%20at%209.26.34%20PM.png?dl=0This improved the performance of the CPC metric...I was able to drive it down to $0.42. The lower you can get this number, the more "chances" you get to make a sale. I let this version of the ad run for 7 days before I discovered the Interest breakdown option in the Reddit Ads Dashboard. From this view, I identified that the College Education category wasn't performing as well as the other categories. So, I removed it.The ad ran for another 5 days before I checked back in and noticed that the Interior & Landscape and Design categories had the poorest click through rates. By editing the ad once again and removing them, I was able to drive the CPC down to $0.38 and the CTR up to 0.517%Googling around confirmed that my CTR and CPC were pretty much in line with how other ads had performed.Just shy of two weeks into the Campaign I made the decision to cut the Ad time in half and halt it at 14 days. Why? Read on, my friend.ResultsSo what were the results from all this nerdy traffic I was directing at our store?Zilch. Zero. Nada. Not a single sale.https://www.dropbox.com/s/my6np86tzkl16po/Screen%20Shot%202018-10-24%20at%209.58.32%20PM.png?dl=0In fact, in terms of traffic, we only drove 60 users to the site from our ad.THIS is why I opted to halt my Reddit Ad experiment early.Here are the final resultshttps://www.dropbox.com/s/2fhznuegxhxg8is/Screen%20Shot%202018-10-21%20at%2010.01.19%20AM.png?dl=0Our best performing category was the Programming category with a CTR of 1.16% and a CPC of $0.17.LearningsSo what are the take-aways. I have a few but again, I'm no marketing guru. I'm just trying stuff out.First take-away. I'm a total fucking amateur. I wasn't even using the tools correctly. I should have created separate Ad Groups and Ads to A/B test a whole bunch of Ad varieties. But I was lazy and not particularly interested in getting overly sophisticated or sinking $1k into this endeavor.Second, based on my research, my ad was running similar metrics to other users. I suspect you have to spend 6+ months tweaking copy, targeting, A/B testing, etc. to really optimize your campaign. In my defense, not a single user converted to a sale. Based on my early results, I had ZERO indication that anyone was going to convert. I could have spent 6 months on this project, optimized the heck out of every dimension, double conversion rates, and still never sold a single print.Which leads me to the third, and largest, lesson: Something is off. Either we haven't quite honed in on the target audience, and/or our potential customers are not in a buying mood while browsing Reddit, and/or the ad was simply terrible, and/or our website copy is terrible. It's possible a video ad would have performed better, but again, see above: doubling the Ad CTR drives no sales if the CTR on the website is 0%.And finally, no retargeting. I've seen some much better marketers suggest that it takes 7 touch points to get someone to buy. The reality is that when people click your ad, they aren't necessarily in a buying mood. One downside to Reddit Ads is that there is no retargeting, at least not as far as I can tell. The Ad might follow the user to another subreddit but doesn't follow them outside Reddit. Had I known this ahead of time, I might have opted to try this experiment inside Facebook instead, allows you to make heavy use of retargeting.What's NextSo, where do we go from here? I'm not making any bold claims about the efficacy of Reddit Ads. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm obviously an amateur that invested very little time. But what little time I did invest, I just didn't see results that appeared to scale. That being said, we ARE going to take a look at our copy on the site and see if there are improvements to be made. Down the road it may make sense to revisit Reddit Ads and limit our targeting to our best performing category (Programming) but I suspect the better traffic will come from organic sources. At the moment, I'm more interest in Ad platforms that support retargeting.We've recently created a Pinterest account and I've started actively engaging with the community there. Five minutes of searching and I realized that our prints fall squarely into the "minimalist" camp, so that's a niche I'm starting to explore.We've also setup an Etsy store where there is a ton of organic search activity. I'm also researching setting up an Amazon store as well. All in hopes of getting our product in front of potential customers. Hopefully organic sales start trickling in.Finally, the experiment I'm most excited about is reaching back out to our 50+ person mailing list with updates on new designs, etc.Thanks for following along everyone and stay tuned for write-ups as things develop.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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