BOO(ks)!

I’m going to say something shocking. Brace yourselves: I am obsessed with Halloween. I know, I hide it well what with the framed Ouija board, Bloody Mary mirror, and birthday ghost tour. The dog days of summer may be upon us (95 degrees in the Valley today--wtf, Los Angeles?!) but I am already prepping for the most wonderful holiday of all. My first project is a DIY spellbook prop. I confess that whenever I am in a bookstore I always check out the occult/metaphysical section. Especially in used bookstores or antique stores. It is one of my dearest hopes that I will find an old spell book or occult manual. Look, I’m not trying to call up the end of the world, but it would be cool to have a book that would let me is all I’m saying. Alas, I’ve had no real luck with my ancient tome (even though I do have a pretty great collection of metaphysical books). So I had to create my own. It won’t end the world, but it will look cute on my coffee table.

Shout out to Mommy’s Menu Blog for being the inspiration for this project!

Supplies:

*Old book

My library is currently in the middle of a giant weeding project, so I was able to score some of our discards for my project. If you are not so fortunate try thrift stores or library book sales. You should be able to pick up some old books relatively cheap. I chose to use a bigger reference book for maximum dramatic effect, but that isn’t a necessity.

*Black spray paint

*Glitter

I used red because red reads as spooky to me, but the choice of colour is really up to you

*Spell, incantation, or other spooky thing

*Mod Podge

C’mon. You know that 85% of my crafting life involves mod podge.

*Spider webs and creepy crawlies

The craft stores and dollar stores are already starting to put out their Halloween stuff, so these shouldn’t be too hard to find, even in August.

Step One

The first thing we’re going to do is fold the pages for the book to make it look older and more dog eared. This will also serve to make the book look thicker and give it more volume. This will give an added drama to our spell book.

Start by finding the center of your book and mark it. From there, begin folding and crinkling the pages from the front/back of the book toward the center page you marked.

I don’t have to tell you that as a librarian, this hurt me. Deeply. Even though the book I was using was hopelessly out of date and destined for the recycle bin it was still hard to dog ear it. I comforted myself by turning on a horror movie and drinking some wine. You know, the holistic method.

After you’re finished desecrating...er...dog earing your book it should look something like this:

Step Two:

Now that you’ve got your pages all crinkly and folded, it’s time to add the mod podge. You want the pages to stick together (people shouldn’t be able to look through the book and realise the whole ancient spell thing is a ruse) so the best thing to do is coat every fifth (or so. I wasn’t counting) page with mod podge so the other pages are glued. Then apply a layer of mod podge to the edges of the pages so they form a whole unit.

It’s now a book pretty much in name only.

Step Three

Time go spray paint your book! As always, be sure to use your spray paint in a well ventilated area. I go up to my roof to do my painting.

If you don’t happen to have a view of the Observatory, just being outside will work.

Start by placing your book face down and spray painting the covers. You want to obscure the title (and, in my case, barcode). It doesn’t have to be perfect, as the cover isn’t the part people will be seeing anyway.

Let your book dry overnight and then move on to step four.

Step Four

Spray paint the front of the book, including the pages. I wasn’t super exact with my painting. We’re trying to give the book an aged, spooky look. Age makes things imperfect, right? (Boy oh boy does it.)

Once you feel like you’ve gotten your book to look appropriately creepy, set it aside and let it dry. Then move on to step five!

Step Five

Select your spells. While I call it a spell book, but you can really make it anything you want. I googled “spells” and got a wealth of results. Since my tastes tend toward the macabre, I used a page from an exorcism ritual and a spell to keep psychic vampires away. You may prefer something more whimsical or gentle or just something that doesn’t call to mind demons. You do you.

After you’ve selected and printed your spell(s) it’s time to age them up a bit. We’ve gone to all that work making our book look antique, it wouldn’t do to have the spells looking brand new. How do we achieve this?

We use fire.

Okay, maybe not exactly like that. I used a lighter to burn the corners of the pages to give them an older look.

Disclaimer: look, be careful when you’re working with fire. I feel like I shouldn’t even have to say that, but I don’t trust anything anymore. Seriously, BE CAREFUL. Fire is dangerous. Fire can hurt you. Fire burns things. Use caution.

Step Six
More mod podge! Once you have your spells appropriately (and SAFELY) burned, it’s time to glue them into your book, like so:

While you’ve got the mod podge out, go ahead and add another light layer on the edges and tops of the pages. Sprinkle it with glitter before it dries to give your spell book some sparkle.

Step Seven

Get creative with your cobwebs and creepy crawlies. I can never make spiderwebs look good (they always just look like cotton to me) so I went with a “less is more” philosophy. You may be a rockstar and separating fake spiderwebs so you can make the whole thing look like the Tales from the Crypt set. Actually...that sounds really cool. If you can do that, please send me a picture!

And there you have it! Our first Halloween craft is in the (body) bag.

Fun, right? And more unique than something you might pick up at a craft store. Are you looking forward to Halloween? I hope so, because there are more Halloween crafts coming your way!