New Brooms, a New Book & a Little More Magic in the Workshop 🧹✨📔

There has been a whole lot brewing at Brooke & The Broomstick lately!!!!!

New brooms are taking shape, my apothecary shelves are growing, I’m preparing a special entry for the Franklin County Fair…and somehow, right in the middle of all of it, I became a published author!!! 🤯🧹

The Broommaker’s Grimoire: 30 Enchanted Brooms to Color came to life while I was thinking about fun ways to chronicle the brooms I’ve made after they’ve flown to their homes

That is one of the bittersweet parts of being a broommaker. I spend hours with each broom…gathering her materials, choosing colors, weaving every strand of reed, and adding the charms, bells, flowers, and little treasures that complete her. Then, when she is finished, she flies away to begin a new story with someone else✨

That is exactly what she was made to do, but I still want to remember her

The coloring book became a way for me to keep a little piece of each broom while sharing her with others in an entirely new way. Every illustration is based on a real broom handmade in my shop in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. These are not imaginary broom designs. They are brooms I have built with my own hands using broomcorn, handwoven reed, foraged woodland handles, charms, bells, and gathered treasures.

Now, even after a broom finds her new home, she can live on in these pages…ready for someone else to color, create, and make her their own

The book includes 30 of my original broom designs, from rustic hearth brooms and hand whisks to ornate, witchy, and celestial creations. It is part coloring book, part record of my journey as a broommaker, and hopefully the beginning of many more volumes as new brooms continue flying out into the world

And there will certainly be more brooms to chronicle because the workshop has not slowed down!!!!

Fresh broomcorn, colorful reed, woodland handles, charms, bells, and flowers are already spread across my tables as the next group begins to take shape. New hearth brooms, hand whisks, and a few extra-special pieces will be coming to the shop soon. Each one is still made entirely by hand, one at a time….just me, my foot brake, my hands, and whatever bit of magic the next broom decides she needs

One of those extra-special pieces is being created for the Franklin County Fair!

This broom will not be listed in the shop. I’m making her to showcase my broommaking, weaving, and all the tiny details I’ve learned to bring together over the years. Entering one of my brooms in my own county fair feels incredibly meaningful. My work is rooted here in the Blue Ridge Mountains…in the woodlands that provide so many of my handles and gathered materials, and in the community that has supported this wonderfully strange broommaking adventure!!!

The broom shop is not the only thing growing, either!!!

Herbs and botanicals have always been part of my world. I use them in teas, herbal preparations, mushroom work, simmer pots, broom adornments, and all sorts of little creations around my home and workshop. That love has slowly grown into Brooke’s Apothecary, where I can share some of my favorite herbs along with their practical uses, traditional medicinal uses, and magical folklore.

I recently became a Starwest Botanicals affiliate, which gives me a way to link directly to many of the herbs, teas, spices, essential oils, and botanical goodies I already enjoy using and recommending. If you purchase through one of my Starwest links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you….a lovely little way to support my workshop while adding something special to your own apothecary 💜🌿🫚

When I step back and look at everything happening, it all connects

The brooms lead me into the woods to gather handles and treasures. The woods feed my love of herbs and botanicals. The finished brooms fly to their new homes and become part of the story behind the coloring book. Every new creation gives me another reason to keep learning, experimenting, and dreaming up what comes next!

A new book 📔 New brooms 🧹A growing apothecary 🌿🫚 A county fair entry 🏅

It is all part of the same wonderfully crooked path…and I’m having one hell of a time following wherever it leads 💜🧹

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