Since I grew up in the era of The Craft, I am surprised I never went through a Wiccan phase. (Not that being an active Wiccan should be viewed as a "phase," but growing up a teenager in the '90s and wearing fishnets and black eyeliner for all sorts of inappropriate reasons and listening to Souixsie and Kate Bush leads me to believe I wasn't the only one with friends who went through witchy phases.)

But I have also always been interested in things like astrology, spells and very novice-level magic. I have collected crystals and put them alongside the religious trinkets I've had since childhood. I grew up Catholic in a virtually atheist household (non-religious parents but very religious grandparents). I went to Catholic school and loved every minute of it, so I'm already used to talking into the air at night before I sleep. I mean praying before bed.

In the last few years I have learned more about crystals -- cleansing them and charging them via the moon -- and I found it easy to connect with the celestial body. It was just like all the praying I had done in elementary and middle school, except now I was talking to the sky directly. This is the cool part about DIY-ritual: You can do whatever you want.

During full moons, I like to take my rose quartz and phantom quartz, along with a rock I found a the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, out into the back yard and place them in the moonlight. Then I talk to the moon, the Virgin Mary, family members who have passed away and Kristin Pfaff and Amy Winehouse (two deceased musicians who are special spirits in my book). I realize as I type this that it makes me sound crazy, but luckily I am past the point of caring what people think about me, which is why I wear Uggs.

Once my crystals are charged, I set them back on my altar. Again, DIY-ritual is all about anything goes, so altars can be anything you want them to be -- you can build them anywhere and out of anything. My altar is a Chanel box (see above) packed with all kinds of special stuff like my crystals, my Catholic Sedona rock, a photograph of my grandpa with a Budwieser and a cigarette in his hand, makeup jars from the '50s that were my grandma's, a Kewpie doll and more.

My roommate has an alter specifically for her ancestors and she feeds them lots of food. She says they like chocolate the best. Ritual is what you make it. I realized that after forgoing praying for so many years when I gave up going to church, I was really missing the ritual of church. So I created my own. DIY-church is awesome!