Grimoire's Sneak Peek

Our work room renovation is nearing completion! We all know we will love the new look and can't wait to get back to work creating new products. Lady Fray will tell you all about it in her premiere post.

Madame Z has picked the February Stone of the Month. Like last year, she again decided to spotlight a 'love stone', this time it is Rose Quartz. Legend has it Eros brought rose quartz to Earth hoping to arouse love and desire among the people. This heart chakra stone is truly awesome and you can learn all about it from her next post.

Message from the CEO

Welcome to 2015! Thank you to all who purchased from us in 2014! Because of you we were once again able to donate 10% of our earnings to 2 central Michigan homeless shelters; City Rescue Mission in Saginaw, and Good Samaritan in Bay City.

This past year we welcomed a new employee, Lady Fray. She will be making her debut on this blog later this month. We are currently in the middle of remodeling our work rooms and at the moment are not creating new items. The hope is to be back to work by the beginning of February. Lady Fray will tell everyone all about it in her premiere post.

Due to our increased inventory of Christmas and Yule ornaments in the ravenheartdesigns.etsy.com shop, the fourth quarter proved to be very busy. In addition, our ravensmysticmoon.etsy.com shop was given an exciting opportunity to bring some additional exposure to their products. We are all excited to be involved with Sacred Beginnings and will post more about that at a later date.

Looking ahead to the coming year, our plan is to continue to increase the holiday items listed at Raven Heart Designs, adding embroidered ornaments/decorations into the mix. We also plan to continue to add other embroidered items such as bibs and towels.

Over at Raven's Mystic Moon, our main goal is to continue to provide meditation/prayer beads and healing stone earrings. It took a little while, but the 3-in-1 earring sets we introduced several months ago are almost sold out and in need of an inventory replenishment. Our stock of meditation/prayer beads is also down and in need of an increase. We would like to add a few more embroidered items to that shop in the near future, too. Adding some embroidered items with inspirational quotes is an idea we have kicked around for awhile and feel now might be the right time.

Our long range plans still involve a shop on Zibbet.com and possibly some other sites, and we would love to participate in craft shows. The timeline for those projects will depend on how long it takes to replenish our inventories and any unexpected opportunities that may come along.

Best wishes to all in the coming year!
Jezebel

Madame Z's Corner: Garnet

Madame Z provides monthly posts featuring a different healing stone each month. She gathers her info from many different sources including the books: The Pocket Book of Stones; The Way of the Green Witch; Healing Crystals and Gemstones; The Essential Guide to Crystals, Minerals, and Stones; and Grimoire for a Green Witch; the websites: That Crystal Site; Wings of Spirit; and Healing Crystals for You; as well as relying on personal experience. Healing stones are not a substitute for medical treatment. Anyone with serious medical or emotional issues should consult with a health care professional. When purchasing a healing stone, it is best to buy the stone you are drawn to. Healing stones should be cleansed and charged periodically. We cleanse our personal stones at least once a month, and sometimes more often if we feel they need it. Cleansing can be accomplished by holding the stone in a stream of water. A natural stream is best, but since most of us do not have access to one, filtered water is a good substitute. Some stones should not be placed in water. These stones can be placed in dirt or smudged with white sage. To recharge the stones, place in a sunny window or in moonlight for a few hours.

Our spotlight stone for January is Garnet. Garnet is the most well known birthstone for January, although there are a few others such as serpent stone and red zircon. When most of us think of garnet we picture a red stone, like the stones in the earrings above. However, it also can be found in other colors; green, orange, and black, for some examples. The majority of this post will focus on the properties of the red variety.

In Hinduism and Buddhism garnet is thought to bring wisdom and enlightenment. It is also believed to arouse Kundalini energy. Garnet is considered a stone of motivation, helping to dispel procrastination. It is thought to have a stimulating effect on the libido and to bring passion, vitality, and love to life. This amazing stone is believed to release negative energy in passionate people, but should be avoided when agitated or angry. Garnet is thought to ease emotional healing of guilt and shame, and to provide psychic protection.

Magickally, garnet is believed to balance energies and is associated with courage, rebirth/renewal, and creativity.

Physically, garnet is thought to bring warmth to the wearer, to strengthen the heart, and to aid in circulation. It is considered beneficial for the lungs and in the treatment of anemia, too.

The red variety of garnet is associated with the root chakra.


Black garnet is considered a grounding stone. It is believed to attune one to the elemental forces and is associated with the root and Earthstar chakras.

The green variety of garnet is associated with the heart and solar plexus chakras. It is thought to bring a feeling of inner peace and contentment.

Garnet should be cleansed with warm, filtered water, and charged with sunlight.

We experience red garnet as a very invigorating stone. It brings a feeling of happiness and vitality. Those extremely sensitive to energies may find garnet too stimulating to wear for long periods of time. While most will have no problem with garnet or any other stone, our human staff member, who is very sensitive to energies, has reported sleep disturbances from prolonged exposure to red garnet's energy.

We have no personal experience with the other varieties of garnet.

Grimoire's Sneak Peek #2 - Secret Santa

Last month, us feline members of the staff decided to do a Secret Santa exchange for the Holidays. Everyone thought it would be a great idea to support our fellow ETSY sellers by purchasing the gifts from other shops on the site.

We all love the catnip joints (legal in all 50 states!) that the real Santa left for us on Christmas Eve. I understand he picked those up from StarkRavingCat.

 

Madame Z's Secret Santa gave her this awesome catnip fortune cookie. It came from SEWPhabulousPetToys.

 

Also from SEWPhabulousPetToys was this truly Phabulous gingerbread man that I received from my secret gift giver.

 

Lady Fray's gift was a catnip mouse from CritterProject. 100% of their profits go to the care of shelter cats and dogs. The mouse even came with an extra catnip pouch to refill it with later on. I (oops, I mean her Secret Santa) decided to keep that for himself.

 

Finally, the gift we all agreed was the greatest, the Yule log our esteemed CEO Jezebel received. I don't know what's in it, but man is that good stuff!!

 

Her gift came from the shop SmallWondersArt.

 

So, as you can see we all had a great Holiday here at the Ravens'!

Hope all of you had an awesome Holiday, too! And have an even more awesome New Year!!

 

 

 

Grimoire's Seak Peek

Welcome to 2015! We are in the process of remodeling our work rooms and will not be creating new products for a few weeks. Both ETSY shops will still continue to have their finished products available for purchase during this time. We hope to be up and running at full capacity as soon as possible.

In the meantime, our January spotlight stone will be Garnet. We picked this stone because it is a January birthstone. Madame Z's post may be a little late this month, as mine was, but items featuring this warm and vibrant stone can now be purchased at a savings of 10% at ravensmysticmoon.etsy.com. Our other shop, ravenheartdesigns.etsy.com, does not carry any garnet adorned items. Use coupon code: jangar15 to receive your 10% discount on the item of your choice over there.

Thank you to all who visited our shops, blog, and facebook pages in 2014! Thanks to all of our wonderful customers, we were able to once again donate 10% to two local homeless shelters- City Rescue Mission in Saginaw, Mi; and Good Samaritan in Bay City, Mi! We appreciate your assistance in meeting our goals!