OMM: DIY Harry Potter Spell Book!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Did you catch my Literary Inspired Costume post, and see an incredible Harry Potter costume? Well, we ended up talking to the shop owner, Sharla and she has a blog! We decided we had to get her to do a feature for us! Her blog is more on the crafty side, so it was just perfect to let her show us how to make a Halloween bookish decoration. Today, we are learning how to make a Harry Potter spell book! Before we learn how, heres a littler about Sharla!

Ok, a little about me and This Is Doable….I love to create!  I’m not too particular about my medium.  Scrapbooking, sewing, cooking, just being creative is my happy place.  The thing about me is, I don’t like it to be hard.  I like projects that are simple but beautiful.  If it takes me days and days or weeks and weeks then I’m not interested.  That is the premise of my blog.  Projects that are fun, easy and awesome! The whole point of my blog is to inspire creativity in ANYONE! No matter how much or how little experience you have I know there is something on my blog that will make you say, “Dude! I wanna do that!”  At least, that’s my goal.  Inspiration and motivation.  And it’s not just about me, it’s about Matt and my kids.  It’s about family.  I invite you to get to know mine.

<3, Sharla

Now, get your crafty on you book nerds! 

There is a great spell book prop floating around pinterest that I fell in love with. So, during our last girl’s night I thought,
“Oh yes, this is happening!” But when I went to the website that has the book, there was no instruction. It had a description of the book, a couple of pictures and the websites that the creator found the digital art to create the pages for the book in Photo Shop. So, I did the best I could, but my creation was a far cry from the beautiful picture that I was trying to copy.

(from Craft Gawker)

Booooooooo!

I was frustrated, I wanted to find a full tutorial along with a print out that I could just click on and print. I didn’t want to spend the day trying to put together pages in Photo Shop. Anyway, I’m lucky enough to have an incredibly artistic husband who took pity on me and agreed to help me create my pages, from scratch, hand drawn! With his help, this is what I ended up with…

RIGHT?!

So, for those of you that love the way this turned out and that don’t want to spend hours hunting and searching on the computer and putting together something in Photo Shop, you’ve come to the right place!

You will need:

• A hard cover book you don’t mind ruining. Mine was about 6 incheswide and 9 inches long and those are the dimensions for the jpeg files you can follow the link to purchase and print from the bottom of this post.
• Two sheets of scrap book paper. My hubby chose out the decorative kind with cool scrolls for effect and I loved it. Be creative, do what you like, but make sure you choose something that has a tan or sepia toned background.
• Black spray paint
• Sand paper or scissors. anything you can use to rough up the edges of your book and give it that “been-around-since-Dumbledore-was-born” look.
• Acrylic and/or water color paint. The acrylic colors my man used to paint the edges of the pages was Burnt Sienna. We also used Russet and Bambi Brown for added effect, including the cup ring at the top right corner of the right page.
• Spray Adhesive or your choice of adhesive to attach the finished pages to the book. I had some spray adhesive around which is quick and easy to use, but you could also use scrap book adhesive or tape. I would avoid any wet glue like rubber cement or Elmer’s, it will wrinkle your pages.
  • 12 inch black ribbon
  • Hot glue and gunStart by preparing the book. Remember, this is a prop, it’s not meant to be picked up and handled and flipped threw. So open the book to the middle and just know, that’s where it’s going to stay for the rest of it’s book life. Spray paint the outside cover and inside cover black (ironically, the book i used was actually titled Paint it Black).

Next distress the edges of the book’s pages using scissors, sandpaper, or what ever you want. You can use water colors, it gets the book good and wet and makes it easy to distress but then you have to wait for it to dry over night. After it dried I used a pencil to roll the corners. Then I ended up using the acrylic paint to finish it off. I felt like the acrylic gave a fuller color and looked prettier than the water colors.

Admit it, this is way easy and fun so far, right?

Now, let’s get the pages ready. We saved you the trouble of re-inventing the wheel. My totally muscly and artistic husband generously allowed me to create a PDF file that you can purchase in our Etsy store for only $5.00! Click here to purchase the 9″x6″ drawings and here to purchase the 12″x9″ drawings. They are an instant download that you can then print out on the paper of your choice. I recommend using paper that has color to help with the aged appearance. Turbo easy!

Now, grab out your Burnt Sienna paint again and use paint brushes and brush the edges to look distressed. I don’t recommend actually distressing these pages or painting over them, be gentle. They are too pretty to hurt! This is how mine looked when they were done.

You have to admit, that looks way, way better than my first try. I bet yours looks just as great.

K, the rest is simple. Spray the back of the pages with the spray adhesive and place them directly onto the pages in the book. Do a bit more curing of the corners. Use hot glue to glue the end of the ribbon onto the back spine of the book for the book mark. Stick it in a cool table easel or lay flat with creepy junk around it and you, my friend, have created an amazing addition to your Halloween decor that is a true original.Don’t have the time to make a book of your own? Visit my Etsy shop by clicking the button on the side of the page and place your order for your very own pre-made spell book!

You May Also Enjoy:

• Announcing: October’s Month of the Macabre
• It’s Witches Week! Giveaway Inside:
• Dream Halloween Costumes
• Review & Comic Con Spotlight: “Spellcaster” by Claudia Gray
• OMM: Literary Inspired Costumes!
• Special Feature: Bookish Etsy Shop!
• Kick off for Octobers Month of the Macabre
• Story Inspired Experience: Nails