Handmade Holiday Gift Workshop – Brooms, Smudge Bundles, Botanical Dyeing : December 13th

Learn New Skills & Make Holiday Gifts!

Join Emileigh Zola, Mary Ellen Lough, and Kristy Bogart for a rich and meaningful day learning new earth centered skills and creating handmade gifts for the holidays.

You will have an opportunity to make:

• broom ornaments
• botanical dyed altar cloth or bandana
• smudge bundles

Location: Montmorenci Church in Candler, NC

Date/Time: Thursday, December 13th, 2025 from 9am-6pm (& break for lunch)

**Extra materials will be available for purchase if you want to use the skills you’ve learned in class to keep crafting at home!

We will be opening the class all together in a circle style format with a meditation and brief share before breaking off into smaller groups.

Mary Ellen Lough is a poet, homesteader, mother, community organizer, wildcrafter, and grows herbs and flowers for ritual and ceremony. She is the owner of Appalachian Sacred, celebrating folkcraft and women’s relationship to the land. In her own words :

Emileigh Zola has a passion for curating spaces of depth, connection, and inspiration. She is the founder of “Rhythm and Ritual”, where she empowers individuals to craft handmade brooms with mindfulness & intention.

Emileigh has been tying brooms for over a decade now and loves sharing her craft with others. She is a patient and inclusive teacher, really encouraging students to slow down and tap into their own unique creative expression.

Wild Verbena is a practice of working with locally sourced flora, leaves, seeds, medicinal wild weeds, and ethically sourced barks, resins, and bugs to infuse their magic into natural fibers. Co-created  by Kristy Bogart and Mother Earth, Wild Verbena is an earthen love letter of a moment in time, intentional devotion, and plant magic. Attempting to enchant people with the present and enchantment that surrounds us all. Natural ingredients beckon and call to share their power and are celebrated in process and ritual giving birth to one of a kind wearable medicine. Together we will dive into how to work with wild color as wearable art. You will co-create a one of a kind silk bandana/altar cloth filled with your intentions while learning a new skill to tend to in your own hearth, making beautiful holiday gifts for your loved ones and deepening your relationship with the living Earth.