I don't think I'd use that.
Consider, as an extreme example, the warden swords.  They're a power 6 effect, and are usable with no particular preparation by a wizard with even a low lore skill.
For a slightly less extreme example, suppose your lore is two - you can spend three enchanted item slots to have a cloak that provides block:4 or armor:2 and activates as a free action when someone attacks you; this is normal rules and nothing special or unique like the warden swords.

Both of those are actually more evocation effects.  Thaumaturgy is not common in an item.  Thaumaturgy implies some prep time normally even if it's just a few minutes.  I was just saying that a good rule might be no prep time for a thaumaturgy effect in an item less than/equal to your lore. 

Found this and i thought I would share...

http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/index.php

I find this really handy for coming up with chants or trigger words for spells. Look down the list there are some unusual and handy languages to use

Old English
Old Frisian
Cornish
Sanskrit
Latin
Hebrew
Gothic
Old Norse
Zulu
etc

Thanks for posting this, it's very helpful! 

I have a character with close ties to the fae but I'm having difficulty deciding on a language to cast my spells in.  If you had to pick a language close to the language of the fae, what would it be?  Since the word Sidhe and some of the myths around it seem to be Gaelic, I think I'm leaning in that direction for my character.  Thoughts?

That was my next question... I think so.

Bonus questions: At what point do you declare you're activating the item? Can I wait for the GM to roll the hit and decide I want to suddenly block it? Can I wait for the assessment of damage and then retcon in an Armor:2? Or do I declare before?

I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to have an idea of the target number which would mean that if it's greater than your block you should be able to just say it's armor. 

I thought that Good +3 was the default, but dlw32's post made me go back and read the thaumaturgy maneuver section again. It actually reads differently from the Evocation maneuver section.

It reads to me like placing aspects on scenes have the same difficulty as a simple action. Doesn't default to Good. Also, placing aspects on targets depends completely on their defending skill which could be lower than Good.  So placing aspects on willing targets is much easier as they can choose not to defend. Looks like on p296 the dreamless sleep spell backs that up. Probably 1 or 2 shifts for the aspect and the rest on duration.

So now it seems like it could go either way.  Is it really fair if I choose not to resist something that you still need to beat a target number?  what would make the dreamless sleep spell different? 

So basically I guess I can't really effectively cast it to stick around for a whole day without a good amount of prep work and potentially fate points.  if my character has a lore of 4 and a thaumaturgy bonus of +2, I can channel up to 6 shifts without prep.  It seems like the spell as it is would be 3 base +5 duration = 8 total.  If I leave it at 6 it would last only a few hours.  I guess if I have a sufficient amount of time I could cast this before a decent combat but otherwise it's not very practical.

I'm not looking to cast this in combat ever!  Thanks for clarifying that though.  I just thought it might be a nice benefit to my party to give them a little free taggable aspect.  I'd be ok if the spell took a minimum of 5 minutes because in a group of 6 that's still only 30 minutes to give the benefit.  I just wanted to be sure it was within the spirit of the game and not an abuse...

This makes sense to me but what if the circle was cast/completed and given a whole round so there was no penalty?  Could this spell be cast repeatedly on each member of the party with the same circle?  Would there be an additional amount of prep work each spell?  I've thought a lot about using this to help the group i'm in since my character isn't' much of a caster, kinda a background character.  I'd only need to gather up 3 shifts of power for each casting/target and it could potentially last an entire day.  What do you think?

Well as it's equal to or less than your lore, you can get straight to casting it without any additional preparation.

Casting is a little controversial on the forum actually. Some would rule that as you have everything on you; and as it only has a low cost; you could probably cast it like evocation. Others will say that you'd still need a basic casting area laid out before you can cast it which might require either a full exchange or a supplemental action to set up.

If I were your GM, I'd let you cast it during a conflict in one round if you set up the circle as a supplemental action, or in two rounds if you used a previous exchange for setting up (and that'd create a taggable aspect to use when casting, pretty much guaranteeing success).

I don't understand what you mean with the taggable aspect portion.  By taking the time to create the circle, it can give you a free aspect you can use to gather power?  that seems pretty powerful to me.

To answer the original question, the default complexity for applying a maneuver, resisted or not, is three shifts.  For duration, I'd say it would be fair that the aspect lasts 15-30 minutes after the first tag, but the person that has it can put off tagging it for about a day after it is cast.  For longer lasting aspects, just increase the complexity by one for each increment on the time chart you want to increase the length of the aspect. 

I'd think a temporary aspect would go away right after it was used.  How can that spell last all day for the default complexity of 3 shifts?  In other words it would cost the default 3 to get the default duration of up to a day? 

Thanks so much everybody!