I haven't been posting here as much, you should check out
Mastros & Zealot: Witches for Hire on
facebook if you want to follow along with more of my day to day magic, or take a look at our
website to see our professional offerings. In any case, today I wanted to write some about a super easy, very traditional type of house protection magic, the door cross. Here's a photo of my front door, with its new crosses:
The first step is to prepare cascarilla powder, which is simply powdered white eggs shells. (brown eggs won't work for this) I always save my shells in the container as I use the eggs, which means I'm pretty much always grinding up a dozen at a time, but you can make smaller batches. No, the shells don't smell as you save them, (1) because it's refrigerated, and (2) because the little bit of raw egg inside the shell dries up too fast. For this project, you'll probably need about 4 egg shells. Rinse the eggshells, and then put them in the oven for about 15 minutes (to completely sterilize any membrane left inside them. I grind mine in a coffee grinder, but you can use a mortar and pestle if you don't have a grinder. I recommend crushing them small by hand before putting them in the grinder. Grind them as fine as you can. If you want, you can add baking powder and water to make a dough, and dry that to make a sort of chalk. But, for this, all you need is the ground egg-shells.
Once the powder is made, you'll want to mix some of the cascarilla and a little bit of plain table salt into some white paint. The type of paint isn't too important. I used cheap acrylic craft paint, the kind that costs $1 a bottle. My front door is under a porch and has a glass storm door. If yours is exposed to the weather, you probably want to use exterior latex paint. The proportions also aren't terribly important. You want enough cascarilla & salt to make sure all the paint is "infused", but not enough to mess up the texture of the paint too much.
Awaken the paint mixture in the usual fashion, calling out to its constituents to do their work.
Next, you'll want to make a stamp. I used a kitchen sponge (the kind that are soft when dry). I freehanded the cross with a sharpie, and then cut it out with scissors. I wanted mine to look "primitive", so I didn't bother with doing too good of a job with it. You could, obviously, make a much better stamp, or even use a professionally made one, if you wanted, but I like the way mine came out. Stamp crosses onto each corner of the door. Personally, I think white crosses on a red door are best, but I admit that's largely an aesthetic decision. Red, blue, black, or white crosses on a white door would also be fine. I also put three crosses by the knob and the deadbolt, but it depends on how your door is laid out.
