Another Chapter: Soul Perchers on the Care Behind Every Creation

Another Chapter: Soul Perchers on the Care Behind Every Creation

Some artists work with canvas. Others work with marble, clay or paint. The Soul Perchers team works with legacy. Every stitch is sewn by hand. Every garment is designed with the care of a historical costumer. Most importantly, every animal is treated with profound dignity, preserving a life that deserves to be remembered.

There is a palpable tenderness at the heart of this shop. Before the velvet, antique lace and jewelled crowns, there is an unwavering belief that every animal, every soul, deserves compassion. That philosophy guides each decision the team makes, from sourcing only ethical specimens to allowing each creature to inspire its character.

Inspired by Victorian dress, the visual language of Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton, art history, fashion and fairy tales, their anthropomorphic taxidermy transforms each specimen into a character with a story of its own. Each finished piece grants an animal's story another chapter.

We sat down with the team to find out more.

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Dark Delicacies: 13 Gothic Food Brands to Fill Your Pantry

Dark Delicacies: 13 Gothic Food Brands to Fill Your Pantry

From your morning coffee to your favourite hot sauce, these gothic brands make everyday essentials a little more menacing

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

Your grocery list probably already includes coffee, tea, hot sauce or the occasional sweet treat. If you're looking to swap a few everyday staples without changing your routine, these gothic brands are a fun place to start.

Whether you're brewing your first cup of coffee, reaching for a favourite seasoning or satisfying a sweet tooth, these gothic brands bring a little personality to the everyday while supporting the small businesses that embrace a darker aesthetic.

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Shelf (After)Life: 11 Gothic Cookbooks to Collect
July Issue, House & Haunt, Gothic Entertaining Amanda Kotiesen July Issue, House & Haunt, Gothic Entertaining Amanda Kotiesen

Shelf (After)Life: 11 Gothic Cookbooks to Collect

From witchcraft and herbalism to haunted baking and literary cocktails, these beautifully curated cookbooks deserve a permanent place in your kitchen

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

An exceptional cookbook does more than tell you what to make for dinner. It teaches, inspires and occasionally sends you down an internet rabbit hole over an unfamiliar ingredient or centuries-old tradition. These are the gorgeous gothic titles we'd happily read from cover to cover—even if we never turned on the oven.

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Ritual Kitchen Recipe: The Welcome Home Vanilla Chai Loaf Spell
Recipe, July Issue, House & Haunt Amanda Kotiesen Recipe, July Issue, House & Haunt Amanda Kotiesen

Ritual Kitchen Recipe: The Welcome Home Vanilla Chai Loaf Spell

By Laura May

This vanilla chai loaf is infused with warm, cosy spices, creating a welcoming atmosphere for a home or a space in need of comfort. Baking with intention, especially when working towards creating a happy home, can help manifest peace and prosperity.

It’s the reason I found my narrowboat home, and I bake it once a year to keep my space sacred and filled with joy.

As you prepare this cake, focus on your wishes for your home, symbolising a safe, nurturing environment for all who dwell within it.

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Laura May's Recipe for Kitchen Magic
July Issue, Interview, House & Haunt Amanda Kotiesen July Issue, Interview, House & Haunt Amanda Kotiesen

Laura May's Recipe for Kitchen Magic

Inside the pages of Kitchen Magic: Over 65 Enchanting Recipes and Rituals for a Cozy, Witchy Kitchen and the stories that inspired them

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

It's easy to forget where our food comes from when most of us move through at least one meal each day on autopilot. Breakfast between emails. Lunch at our desks. Dinner in front of the television. Laura May, cookbook author and creator of @lauramayritualkitchen invites us to slow down, reconnecting with seasonality (and the harvests seasons yield) and rediscovering the folklore hidden in the ingredients we enjoy every day.

Laura shares her favourite summer kitchen witch ingredients for everything from allergy remedies and herbal teas to midsummer menus, seasonal rituals and the meals that carry us from breakfast through supper, along with the meanings behind the ingredients.

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Sip Your Way Through Summer with Paige Comrie

Sip Your Way Through Summer with Paige Comrie

From patio pours to travel-inspired bottles, @winewithpaige shares how to find the right bottle, pair it well and enjoy every last drop

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

The world of wine can feel like an exclusive club, guarded by an impenetrable velvet rope and scary bouncer. Paige Comrie is that friend who’s always on the list and waves you through like you’ve belonged all along. She welcomes you in, pours the glass and makes it all feel within reach.

Her approach doesn’t rely on jargon or ceremony. It’s grounded in curiosity, built through experience and shaped by a genuine interest in the glass and the story it carries with it. A Sauvignon Blanc can take you to New Zealand. A chilled red can shift the tone of a summer table. The right pairing can turn a simple meal into something especially memorable.

Paige introduces wine as a passport, to different worlds and regions alike, sharing how to choose a bottle without second-guessing, how to pair it in a way that makes sense, and even what to do when a spill threatens to leave a mark.

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Tales from the Crib: Three Delightfully Dark Gothic Baby Shower Themes

Tales from the Crib: Three Delightfully Dark Gothic Baby Shower Themes

Spooky themes to celebrate the arrival of your little creature of the night

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

The door opens and the room settles into focus. Inky-black bats circle overhead as if they chose the place themselves, while a drift of small ghosts lingers at shoulder height, hovering like names waiting to be called. A cauldron holds at a patient boil in the corner, as though someone stepped away mid-incantation and never rushed back. It reads unmistakably gothic, a dark sensibility carried through every touchpoint with complete conviction.

Then the conversation turns to the expectant heroine at the centre of it all. Spooky is a spectrum. Weird leans whimsical. Fangs, it turns out, can be family friendly.

We cordially invite you to consider three goth-coded interpretations, each one designed to welcome a new arrival without asking the parent-to-be to soften her aesthetic.

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Mother’s Day, the Gothic Way: Hosting Guide
April Issue, House & Haunt, Hosting, Gift Guide Amanda Kotiesen April Issue, House & Haunt, Hosting, Gift Guide Amanda Kotiesen

Mother’s Day, the Gothic Way: Hosting Guide

Three atmospheric Mother’s Day celebrations that invite a darker palette and a little bit of mischief

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

Motherhood produces many archetypes. Some wear linen and host polite patio brunches. Others keep antique silver beside tarot decks and charge their silly little rocks by moonlight.

This guide was written for the latter.

We’ve built three interpretations of the day, each one drawn from a different expression of dark feminine energy. The mood leads. The table follows. Music, menu, and gifts fall into place from there.

Brunch carries black cat energy. The afternoon drifts toward a cemetery picnic and a long spring walk. Dinner moves outdoors, set against cool evening air and early blooms, with candles marking the hour as it arrives.

Three ways to celebrate. All of them feel like her.

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On the Hunt With Chloe Hurst: Black Blooms & Botanicals
April Issue, Garden, House & Haunt, Interview Amanda Kotiesen April Issue, Garden, House & Haunt, Interview Amanda Kotiesen

On the Hunt With Chloe Hurst: Black Blooms & Botanicals

@theg0thgarden’s shares how to source and grow a goth garden at home

By: The Lace Ledger

Chloe Hurst’s garden has the kind of effect that stops you in your tracks; it’s absolutely incredible. The sheer volume of dark blooms, unusual foliage and inky texture feels almost unreal, as though someone brought to life gothic daydream and planted it at full scale.

It’s truly gorgeous. Exceptional, really. For a novice gardener, it is also slightly intimidating. The first reaction is admiration, closely followed by the suspicion that a garden like this belongs to someone with more time, more knowledge and a greenhouse full of secrets.

Chloe is refreshingly practical on that front. Below, she graciously breaks the process down step by step, walking us through bringing to life a goth garden of our own from planning the space, which plants make the best starting point, where to shop and even what fertilizer to reach for once things begin to grow.

So, we asked Chloe to start at the beginning.

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In the Garden After Dusk with @briannas_planttok
April Issue, House & Haunt, Goth Garden, Culture Amanda Kotiesen April Issue, House & Haunt, Goth Garden, Culture Amanda Kotiesen

In the Garden After Dusk with @briannas_planttok

Dark foliage, medicinal botanicals, poison garden lore and the passion behind Brianna’s homestead practice

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

All day, the garden blooms in broad, sun-filled strokes, standing proud and tall, admired by passers by and onlooking neighbours.

As the sunsets, and the air cools, the noise of the day drops away until only small sounds remain; leaves dancing in the wind, something distant calling from the trees. This is the call of the garden that resounds most authentically with Brianna. Not at daybreak, but in the hours when the garden feels most like itself: a mythical, meditative place for grounding, cultivation and self-reflection.

Here, we step into her world after dusk, where the world slows, the rhythm steadies and the garden reveals what it’s been doing all along.

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The Dark Feminine Easter Table: Three Indulgent Gothic Easter Fantasies
Culture, House & Haunt, Hosting, Entertaining Amanda Kotiesen Culture, House & Haunt, Hosting, Entertaining Amanda Kotiesen

The Dark Feminine Easter Table: Three Indulgent Gothic Easter Fantasies

Three immersive spring concepts that turn Easter into a darkly aesthetic experience

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

There was a time when Easter arrived in a wash of sugared pastels and cellophane-wrapped anticipation, when wicker baskets waited at the edge of the dining table and the air carried the faint perfume of tulips just beginning to open. We remember the softness of velvet ears stitched onto toy rabbits, the thrill of egg hunts staged across damp spring lawns, the polite chaos of chocolate smudged across small hands before brunch had even begun. There were painted shells drying on newspaper, lilies standing upright in glass vases, tables set for mid-morning feasts that felt ceremonial in their own gentle way.

That tenderness still belongs to us. The sweetness does not disappear simply because our taste has sharpened or our palette has darkened. Nostalgia is foundational, just rendered in a different font.

This guide gathers those memories carefully and lowers the lights. We’ve curated three immersive hosting concepts reinterpret the rabbits, the florals, the food, the games and the promise of spring through a dark feminine lens that feels aligned with a soft goth aesthetic. Each table calls back to childhood memory while embracing mood and depth, allowing you to honour the girl who once reached for foil-wrapped chocolate even as you curate a gathering that reflects the woman you have become.

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Soft Touches: Atmospheric Alchemy + Ambiance

Soft Touches: Atmospheric Alchemy + Ambiance

The invisible elements you don’t notice first, but always remember

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

The most evocative interiors are not defined by what they display, but, rather, by what they hold close. Soft touches live at the edge of perception, registering slowly through skin and breath in addition sight, shaping how the room feels after the visual impression settles. They are the elements that coax the body to soften and settle, guiding you into presence through texture, temperature and fragrance.

These details operate as atmospheric alchemy, translating intention into sensation while giving form a human pulse. A candle’s warm flicker shifts the rhythm of a room, fabric invites you to cuddle deeper into the couch and a familiar aroma anchors memory to a place or feeling, allowing the space to meet you emotionally. This is where a dark feminine interior becomes intimate, finished not through excess but through attentiveness, as ambience gathers meaning one subtle layer at a time.

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The Domestic Altar: Your Guide to Curating a Dark Feminine Kitchen
House & Haunt, February Issue, Interior Design Amanda Kotiesen House & Haunt, February Issue, Interior Design Amanda Kotiesen

The Domestic Altar: Your Guide to Curating a Dark Feminine Kitchen

Where nourishment, productivity and communion converge

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

The kitchen is not a backdrop but a living engine, humming quietly beneath the rhythms of daily life as we nourish our bodies, sort our thoughts and share moments with loved ones that linger longer than the meal itself. It’s a space shaped by touch, where routine becomes grounding and beauty earns its place through use.

When approached as a dark feminine domestic altar rather than a utilitarian afterthought, the kitchen reveals its power as the hive of the home, conceiving care, creativity and communion in every surface it contains.

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Relics in the Making: A Conversation With Margot Meanie, Founder of @a_familiar_spirit

Relics in the Making: A Conversation With Margot Meanie, Founder of @a_familiar_spirit

Work occupying a space where sculpture and jewellery intersect with gothic storytelling

By: The Lace Ledger

We sat down with Margot, the creative force behind @a_familiar_spirit, whose self-described Anne of Green Gables sensibility threads tenderness, dark romance and imagination into work that feels viscerally symbolic.

Throughout our conversation, Margot reflects on the thriving alternative scene stretching coast-to-coast in Canada, while likening her creative process (and creating in a macro sense) as an act of rebellion in an era increasingly shaped by automation and AI before touching on the wider constellation of dark artists who came before her and work in tandem now, connected less by trend than by a shared devotion to making that resists erasure.

Below, Margot shares her story in her own words <3.

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Aquarius Lives Here

Aquarius Lives Here

Aquarius homes reveal themselves slowly, through ideas rather than in-your-face indulgence. This is a sign ruled by air and innovation, which means comfort is conceptual before it is physical.

An Aquarius space invites you to think, observe and stay awake a little longer than planned. It’s decor for people who treat home as a incubator, favouring curiosity over trends; valuing originality over cohesion.

Nothing here exists juuuust to be pretty.

Although, it’s that too.

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Goth Girls’ Nights: A Year of Themed Gatherings for the Darkly Inclined

Goth Girls’ Nights: A Year of Themed Gatherings for the Darkly Inclined

12 unforgettable ways to spend time with friends in 2026

Quality time spent with your friendship family deserves to be treated as something special.

In a year that moves quickly, shared evenings become markers of memory rather than placeholders on a calendar.

This Goth Girls’ Night guide provides a monthly invitation to slow down, dress and entertain with intention, making each gathering feel singular and memorable rather than routine.

Consider this your blueprint for elevating ordinary moments into something especially memorable.

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How to Host a Gothic High Tea at Home
House & Haunt, Entertaining, High Tea, Hosting Guide Amanda Kotiesen House & Haunt, Entertaining, High Tea, Hosting Guide Amanda Kotiesen

How to Host a Gothic High Tea at Home

A Victorian-inspired winter ritual for dark romantics on snowbound afternoons

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

January invites a slow, sacred relationship with time.

The month encourages warmth, ritual and intention, whether gathered indoors or framed by falling snow.

The ceremony of high tea offers a refined way to mark the season, whether your alone with a book or seeking sanctuary from the weather with friends.

High tea, as we know it today, emerged a tradition in the United Kingdom during the Victorian era as both a snack between lunch and dinner and an opportunity to entertain. The ritual balanced elegance with practicality, serving structured tiers of delicious treats alongside conversation, quality time and ambiance.

In gothic households, the ritual of high tea invites opportunity to brew up a witchy concoction, enjoy storied heirlooms or beloved antiques, curate a themed menu or wear en elegant outfit; the possibilities are endless.

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Exhibits of Devotion: Fetish, Fashion and Music Around the World
Travel, Sensuality, Fashion, Style, January Issue Amanda Kotiesen Travel, Sensuality, Fashion, Style, January Issue Amanda Kotiesen

Exhibits of Devotion: Fetish, Fashion and Music Around the World

Immersive galleries and exhibits to explore cultural inheritance

By: The Lace Ledger Staff

While on the surface, fetish, fashion and music may not appear to have a much in common, they share a through-line of devotion; each category is sustained by cult followings and has visible cultural impact.

Fetish carries its lineage through material commitment and coded practice while fashion preserves its heritage through silhouette, masterful craft and reference. Music sustains first through sound … first of a generation and then by nods from the artists that came after; while you also find it in lived memory, ideals and distinct communities.

Exhibits of Devotion examines how culture persists when lineage outlasts trend. What survives and why? What can it teach us? And, how to we celebrate its lessons and legacy?

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Witch’s Brew: The Winter Tea Edit
Amanda Kotiesen Amanda Kotiesen

Witch’s Brew: The Winter Tea Edit

For as long as women have been called witches, they’ve been brewing something sacred and medicinal.

In medieval Europe, herbal infusions were used for healing, protection, divination and midwinter endurance, with foraged plants—like mugwort, rosehip, elderflower and chamomile—appearing in countless folk remedies and ritual drinks.

These early teas weren’t delicate or dainty; they were crafted with intention, blended from what grew in the hedgerows and forests then steeped into potions meant to soothe nerves, warm bodies, sharpen intuition, guard against the unknown and more. The lineage of winter tea is ancient, and the ritual is unmistakably witchy—heat, herbs, steam, a moment stolen from the cold.

In that same spirit, we sourced six tea companies across Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. whose blends honour craft and with a touch of gothic sensibility. Each brand brings its own magic—whether through dark aesthetics, small-batch artistry, botanical depth or the kind of flavour that wraps itself around a cold day.

Below, you’ll find the standout blends we think are worth brewing, sipping and maybe even incorporating into your newest winter ritual.

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