The Shop: Book of Shadows

I have mentioned in several previous posts that I own a shop, specifically a metaphysical bookstore. It is called Book of Shadows. Although not a craft project in the strictest sense, it is one of my creations (at least as much as the garden was). And since I seem to mention it fairly frequently, I thought you, the reader, might like to see it. So here it is, inside and out.

This first pic is an older one. It features the original marquee sign. Below, are pics with the new marque sign (and when I say new, I mean about four years old). For some reason, I never seem to take pics of things until after they are old and faded. Both signs were hand lettered and painted by myself.

All these pictures are from our current location (1100 Clarendon SW Canton, OH), where we have been for the last 12 years. For two years before that, we were at two other locations elsewhere in town, but I have no pictures of those locations.

The pentagram on the side of the building was really beautiful when it was first put up (2003). It was back-lit with white christmas tree lights at night. The lights and ivy are all gone now. They got too old and tattered. This past summer I gave it a fresh coat of white paint, so now it doesn't have gold trim around the edges either. Maybe in the spring I will restore it to its former glory.

Interesting story; This is actually the second pentagram sign to be hung. The first one was only up about a month before someone decided to tear it down. They came in the night with a cordless drill, pulled out all 13 four inch long mounting screws to take it down, smashed it into three pieces, and threw the pieces through my front window. Wasn't that nice of them? Oh, yeah, they left a hate note in the mail box too.


And now we go inside.

The front counter.

The herb jars and knife case.

The candles.

The book shelves.

The view from the front door.

The public altar.

As I mentioned before, this is where I do most of my creating. Through that black curtain, to the right of the altar, is my workroom. Maybe I'll post some pics of it in the future, but right now it's really messy.

One last odd fact about my shop; it seems to have some kind of mystical cloaking field around it. Several times a week we get people complaining about how hard it is to find the store. Some of them call us from their cars asking for directions. Many tell us that they drove by it three or four times before they found it. I've always thought that was very odd. We are in a mostly residential neighborhood, with only on street parking, and the road we are on is not a main drag, but it gets a lot of traffic. We are on the corner. There is a stop light at our corner. The building is 60 feet long and bright yellow (on the side). We have a 4ft. high and 16ft. long sign on the marquee. There is a 4ft. diameter bright white pentagram on the side of the building. How is that hard to spot?