Your altar is your altar… I’ll add a picture of what mine looks like at the end. I always keep my favorite crystals, fireproof dish/bowl (cauldron, copper bowl), I mostly use black, white & red candles but keep white in an overabundance because it can be substituted for any color. An incense burner of some kind. I have statues of my deities & a shelf where I keep their designated items.
However, when I first started I found a deep purple/maroonish hand towel that was my altar cloth, a couple of glass candle holders, birthday candles, a wooden box, my husband made my first athame & a hanging incense holder for me. I would use what I had in my kitchen or around the house for my first items.
Now my altar looks like this:
I will be changing the cloth this month, I got that one for around Samhain/Winter Solstice. But now Spring is on the way, so new cloth & some reorganization. I am going to find a couple of pictures of my deities to print & hangover their shelf & put smaller ones on my mirror.
This has a lot of pictures of different members’ altars & I think maybe an original picture of my 1st altar but I know there’s a couple of mine so you can see them change over time.