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Commission and collaboration from December with Pergamena Leather. Dice boxes crafted for a long standing Dungeons and Dragons campaign, styled after books!

Made with a gorgeous chocolate brown calfskin, lined with mossy green cow hide, and sided up with this beautiful Petrichor @cavepaper, the boxes made for the campaign party included gold foil hot stamping on the spine and a map of their campaign on the inner cover. A sixth was made plain but using some lovely natural flax Cave Paper and kept in a similar style. All have a ribbon closure to ensure the dice are nestled safe and sound in their homes. I’m the background of this photograph is another Pergamena wild hide…more on that soon!

This was such a rewarding project to work on, and an absolute treasure to know these dice boxes are in good company.

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Janet Fitch, from her novel titled "White Oleander," originally published in 1999

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Swooning over this Sangorski and Sutcliffe binding http://paperdragonbooks.blogspot.com/2010/08/s-and-s-treaures.html

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Beneath her is a towering stack of champagne coupes

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Is it really so wrong for a husband to want to see his wife without her ribbon? What if I’m wrong and it would be fine to let him take it off? Just for a moment?

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There was an interesting thread on Bluesky dissecting Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's relationship

TL:DR - It seems like Gaiman has been exaggerating the level of closeness between them for YEARS

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Some gorgeous bits of calligraphy and illumination from the Boston Public Library special collections.

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Dance Fever, my blend based on Florence and the Machine’s album of the same name is also live with the Winterdark Revival. It is a black tea base with candied ginger, rosebuds, osmanthus, and vanilla.

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“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.” - Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

Inspired by the harsh landscape of this beautiful retelling, the companion tea blend of Catherynne M. Valente’s Deathless is made with an earthy black tea base sweetened with beet that also turns the hue of the brewed blend to a bloody red. Lapsang souchong echoes the war torn landscape of the story and creeping darkness amidst the pages while caraway offers us something of the tastes of Russian black bread and the citrus offers a nod to Russian tea blends. Enjoy alone or sweetened with sugar or honey.

Deathless is the final reveal for the 15 tea blends that have just landed in the shop for the Winterdark Revival! I am so delighted to have crafted a companion blend for this book and that Catherynne was interested in seeing this come to life!

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Happy Trans Day of Visibility

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Time for some pining. New collaboration announcement and tea blend coming 1.18

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thinking about how much crowley and aziraphale have been getting slammed for their poor communication and on the one hand... absolutely, i agree 100%. they have so much work to do in that department, they are always missing each other when it comes to seeing what they each want from the other and expressing it clearly. but on the other hand... like... encompassing six thousand years into a conversation? six thousand years of knowing each other. six thousand years of gravitating toward one another

like... the bit that really gets me, in crowley's confession, is - "...and we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. i mean, the last few years, not really" - this implication that like... at least on crowley's part... since they saved the world together he's allowed himself to be more open in how he feels about aziraphale. that in his mind he's already long since chosen Their Side, they've chosen their side in their behavior towards each other, and they've talked about... our car, our shop, but even before that...

we see in the minisodes, the way they already act. they're a pair that shows rather than tells all the time and it's so abundantly clear that everyone around them can see it, is constantly asking about it, assuming it, reading it on them like they're an open book - with everyone but each other.

but like how do you put into clumsy human words how much love you feel for someone who stood next to you while you created the stars? who helped you create them? how do you say openly how you feel to the one person who understands you and your nature better than anyone else, who indulges your every whim because they want to see you happy while everyone else says you were built wrong, you're too indulgent, you're too soft but you're perfect for him, specifically, because you stood at the beginning of the universe together?

like how are they supposed to talk about that? especially when it's so forbidden to talk about that?

there are so few words that truly feel like they properly encompass what love truly and genuinely means? what loving someone TRULY means? how it's giving up your onliness and entrusting yourself into the hands of another, now you're not just you, now you're you but the world is brighter and sharper and more beautiful because of another? how we're all stuck on a spinning rock in the middle of space in the middle of the universe in the middle of the galaxy in the middle of eternity just little grains of sand and then there's another little grain of sand in the scheme of things, but it's the most important one ever created because of how happy it makes you?

but multiply that by six thousand years

so like of course you fucking cry and you stare at each other with tears in your eyes like you're absolutely ESSENTIAL to one another. but like how do you make it work in words when you don't know if there are even words for the prospect of existing without one another? and you have this absolutely incandescent and fragile thing between you that everyone understands to exist, you understand it to exist too, and sometimes it is scary as fuck to admit that you need someone. it is terrifying and uncomfortable and vulnerable and we're just people who live maybe 100 years on this earth? a blink of an eye compared to six thousand years of shared existence?

like...? truthfully i don't think i could talk about it easily either because oh my god that's fucking terrifying. that six thousand years of your comfortable and beloved shared existence could go up in smoke with one misplaced word. like no fucking WONDER he can't get the words out. and no fucking wonder, it's easier to couch things in terms like group and team and everything when you're on the verge of falling apart into a million pieces because the other half of your soul wants to leave you behind. it's easier to say come with me, work with me, be my second in command, than to admit he's first in your heart and mind every second of every day since you saw him bringing light at the beginning of the universe???

just... you know? they need a fucking break. they need a vacation. they need a cottage in the south fucking downs

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The OGA Tea Guild has re-opened! The theme for August is The Storyteller’s Treasury and a collaboration with Marlowe Lune!

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Crowley and Aziraphale companion tea blends by Old Growth Alchemy. To soothe your broken heart from the season 2 end 🥲

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Neil Gaiman will pay for what he's done

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📚🎻🌷”The Storyteller’s Treasury”

✨Introducing: A new collaborative project between Marlowe Lune and Old Growth Alchemy!

✨The Storyteller's Treasury is a celebration of beloved fairy tales and the feeling of slipping into a land once upon a time. In this ongoing project, @oldgrowthalchemy and @marlowelune will guide you on an enchanting (and delicious) journey into the lore that continues to resonate through the centuries, and it begins with: The Storyteller themself.

✨The artwork above for “The Storyteller’s Treasury” will be August’s Postcard of the Month for the Merry Blackbird Postcard Society! Crow Collector and Raven Dandies will receive a 5x7 postcard of this piece!

✨Old Growth Alchemy has brewed up a companion tea to accompany you on many a long night by the storyteller's fire listening to tales spun from your favorite books of old. The Storyteller will be available exclusively through their monthly tea club, the Old Growth Alchemy Tea Guild, as August's member blend. The Guild opens on August 1 and closes August 5 to new members, so follow along to be alerted when the membership is open once more! A mystery blend in the theme of fairy tales will also be available to select tiers, so stay tuned for more to come.

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Crowley: An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards

New tea blend now available from Old Growth Alchemy.