First Step: Find an old distressed leather book (when I opened the first page of the red book, 1944 was hand written in the top right corner). I took an exacto knife to the leather to make it look like claw marks.
Step 2: Use black spray paint to cover the majority of the leather ( I left some of the natural leather exposed to give it more dimension)
Step 3: I applied acrylic paint in brick and terra cotta with a sponge making sure not to fully cover the black base coat (I rubbed cinnamon into the book because I thought it might help with the antique look but it made more of a mess then anything).
Step 4: I cut a piece of burlap or (heavy cloth) into a rectangular shape and rubbed cinnamon into various sections of the cloth. Then let the cloth sit in a tea bath for a few minutes to give it a more aged look.
- After the cloth dried, the edges frayed naturally which was a pleasant surprise!
- Use a stamp to spell out the title of your book.
- On the book on the left, I took a miniature picture frame found in the doll house aisle of Hobby Lobby and sprayed it black (sponged the same book colors over top the black frame). Inside the frame I placed my sister's family vampire picture from last Halloween.
- On the right book, I used the same foil embossed stickers (sprayed black then sponged the book colors on top) from the Dollar Store that I used on the last Halloween Spell Books. Place a googly eye in the middle of the sticker.
Step 5: Open your "Book of Shadows" and let the scrap-booking begin. Volume 1 and Volume 2 of my Book of Shadows represent my Sister's 1st and 2nd annual Halloween Party.
Each "scrap book page" consisted of first gluing 5-6 book pages together for stability. I created page tabs with masking tape to easily turn the pages.