New: Prayer Beads and Rosaries

Something new to share: I’ve always made my prayer beads with knots and cord, a practice I love, but there’s something about the weight and movement of metal, stone, and glass that eventually led me to working with chain.

So I’ve been practicing this summer and finally have a small collection to share. Each set of prayer beads is created in devotion to a female saint and offers multiple configurations: within the small group of charms at one end is a clasp that can be clipped onto split rings at the center or opposite end, creating a decade rosary or continuous loop.

I started this series with Mary Magdalene and, along with St. Dymphna (shown in the video), also made sets for St. Thérèse, St. Anne, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady Queen of Heaven, and Our Lady Guadalupe.

The first collection will be available this Friday, August 14th at 2 pm ET, along with a few folk Mary statuettes and a small batch of Riverbank Saints. (I was extremely fortunate to connect with @rustbeltink, an awesome local shop, for my zine printing. They very generously included color copies this round, which will also be available Friday.)

For this release, in honor of their 3-year vanniversary, 100% of profits from all items listed “in offering” will be sent to @the.auto.body.shop, a Pittsburgh-based mobile resource supporting bodily autonomy and community care.

I planted zinnia seeds for the first time this summer and they’re currently in bloom and beautiful. I especially love the color of the flowers I added to this week’s altar bouquet, which reminds me of linen (I also included basil, sage, and thyme). A few natives are also finally blooming: coneflower (Rudbeckia) and blue lobelia, and we added virgin's bower to a trellis in my Mary garden. We’ve loved having so many bees and butterflies.