Blog Article

Creating Your Grimoire

One of the biggest hurdles when beginning any creative endeavor is the blank page. There’s nothing quite like gazing upon all that spotless white paper and panicking, worried that you’re going to mess it all up.

My advice.

Take a deep breath and remember that creating your grimoire is not only a work in progress, but it’s also fun! There are no rules, you get to make it whatever you want it to be.

Hopefully you’ve figured out what type of grimoire you’re wanting (see yesterdays post to help narrow it down) and now it’s time to begin to constructing. If you’re feeling a little stuck there are some questions to ask yourself that can help you uncover what it is that you’re wanting to create.

What Kind Of Book Should You Use?

The type of book you use is going to depend on what you want out of a grimoire. Write out a list of what you want and need or answer these questions to get a better idea of what sort of book you’ll want to get.

Do you want it to be beautiful?

Beauty is subjective, so take some time to define what a beautiful grimoire looks like to you. This is a very important part of choosing a grimoire. If you don’t love it, you won’t use it! Do you like leather-bound books? Books with minimalistic covers? Colorful books? Books that have leaves and flowers pressed into the cover? Decide what you want your book to look like and aim to buy or make a grimoire that suits your tastes.

Will it be portable or stay at home?

The size and style of your book will be dependent on it’s use. If you want a large sized medley style grimoire you’ll need a much different style book than if you’re creating a journal style travel grimoire. Getting clear on the function of the book is important, if you need a book that is both portable and able to contain all the information you might want to put in it, then consider splitting your grimoire into several books, each with a set purpose. For example, you could have one book for spells, one for reference information, and one for recipes and potions. This would allow you to transport only the book you need while giving you ample room to work.

What Mediums Will You Use?

The type of medium you wish to use is incredibly important, and is reflected in the paper you choose. I like to use multimedia or watercolor paper for my grimoire since I use paints, pressed plants, and images in my grimoire. If you’re just looking for pages to write on, you might not need anything that heavy. Another important consideration with paper is whether you’ll want lined or blank sheets of paper. The next question to ask yourself is, what mediums are you comfortable with? Deciding you want a watercolor illustrated grimoire won’t get you far if you’ve never painted with watercolors. Take stock of the mediums you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to be an expert, but it shouldn’t feel like a daunting task to pick up your grimoire materials and try to make a page that looks nice. Think outside of the box here. Illustrations in watercolor, ink, or fine art markers might look lovely, but if you enjoy collaging, calligraphy, photography, or scrapbooking, those can also create a beautiful and unique grimoire.

How Will You Organize Your Grimoire?

Organizing your grimoire can be tricky and it depends on the sort of grimoire you’re creating. Some grimoires, like the journal style, are simple. They’re created chronologically, so all you have to do is turn to the next blank page. Others, like books of herbal information, spell books, and medley grimoires, can be more of a challenge. What sections will you need to create? How many pages should you allot for each section?

If you’re just getting started and don’t know how you want to organize your grimoire, perhaps go for something like a binder so you can rearrange the pages as much as you need.

Get Your Materials and Start Creating.

You should have a pretty good idea of what you’ll need to get to create your grimoire. The best advice I can give you now is to JUST GET STARTED! Don’t put off starting your grimoire until some far distant future. Even if you’re not ready to create your super fancy, gorgeously illustrated heirloom grimoire, you can still get started chronicling your witchcraft journey in a more functional use grimoire. If nothing else, you can get a simple notebook and keep a journal-style grimoire just to keep track of information. It may not be beautiful or well organized, but at least you’ve got everything written down so that when you ARE ready to start your big project grimoire, you’ll have tons of spells, rituals, recipes, and other stuff to fill it with.

Something else to consider is going digital with your grimoire.

This won’t appeal to every witch, but for those who travel a lot, are minimalist, or simply prefer to have access to all of their material whenever they choose, a digital grimoire can be perfect. Plenty of excellent programs exist to make structuring and organizing a digital grimoire easy. My favorite digital option is Pinterest, I have all sorts of magically themed boards that are full of both collected and created pins. I’ve also seen fantastic grimoires created in Evernote and OneNote.

Like a physical grimoire, the options are endless and you get to create something that works for you.