comfortable with, that will hold your Wicca supplies, and where you can work with them appropriately.
Once you have chosen your altar, then you can decide which ritual tools you wish to place on it. Of course, you CAN choose the ritual tools first, THEN find an altar that will fit them all, but in either case, you can modify the advice to suit your particular situation. See, that’s the fun part about being Eclectic….very few instances result in the accusation that you “aren’t doing it right.”
First comes the altar cloth. I always choose a cloth that is pretty, functional, AND not too difficult to get wax off of. You know you’re going to be dripping wax from time to time. It’s inevitable. That’s why I personally don’t buy very expensive altar cloths, since I know I am a clumsy witch. The altar cloth is generally used to protect the altar, and is not “necessary” but can be meaningful (depending on its symbology) or merely functional.
One of the things I always put on my altar is a statue of the Matron Goddess I am working with at the time, and, depending on the ritual I am about to perform, I may include my patron God. Well, what if you don’t HAVE a Matron or a Patron yet? That’s perfectly fine. You may always choose to exclude a statue, or to instead include a generic statue of the Spiral Goddess and/or the Spiral God. I place my statues in the top center of the altar, just because I like them there.
Next comes the candles. My personal taste is three candles, one white, one red, and one black signifying the Goddess in her maiden, mother and crone phases respectively. These I put in the top center right in front of the statues, making sure they are far enough away from the statues not to drip wax on them or to set them