Spooky Spell Book - tutorial...

This was one of those projects that I started off thinking we could get done in a couple of hours but we ermmm got a bit carried away and it took the best part of a week. Although it took us a while to finish it I think it is important for kids to work on longer lasting projects and to see it through to the end, so much these days has an emphasis of just getting things done and finished as soon as possible. So here you are, how to make your own spell book...

You will need a thick piece of card, we used a packing box that something had been delivered in so it already had the spine folded, if you are starting with a piece of plain card then score the middle, make the spine about 2cm / 1" wide. You will also need some plain paper. We used the Ikea paper that comes on a roll, cut the paper so it is a bit smaller than the card.

Make a strong cup of tea or coffee and one for yourself if you like. Screw the paper up then flatten it out so it is nicely creased.

 Paint the paper with tea or coffee, we weren't sure which would look better, after experimenting with each sheet, blobbing the tea bag up and down on the paper then giving it a wash of coffee gave the best results, remember to turn the paper over and do the other side. I forgot to take a photo of the next step, but whilst the paper is still wet, tear the edges to get that nice ragged effect, the paper will tear better one way than the other. Leave to dry.

Now to work on the cover. Take some kitchen foil and squish it into long worm shapes then shape these to make the letters for the front of the book.

Stick the letters in place with glue, add a few fancy swirls or other decorations. Allow to dry.

Using wallpaper paste (we used the shoji glue watered down) cover the front of the book with white kitchen towels, make sure all the letters are well covered. Allow to dry.

We painted it with acyclic paints and to get the old brown look we mixed two shades of brown and black in the palette to didn't mix the paints together completely, take care around the letters and make sure you have them all completely covered with paint. You need to paint the rest of the book too, we did the inside as well.

Once the paint was dry we got the gold pearl paint and put a tiny bit on the sponge the just touched it along the raised parts of the letters, I showed Ebi-kun how to do it with the first letter and he did the rest - just remember less is more!

As I imagine this is going to used quite a bit in role playing I decided to give it a coat of varnish too. Ebi-kun gets a bit heavy handed with the varnish so I did that bit.

We then spent lots of time writing the spells, most of them we wrote together, first we would think of a theme for the spell and write that as the last line and then go to the start to make up the spell, I don't think we will any prizes for our poetry but there were a lot of giggles along the way. Once the spells were written I sewed the paged through the spine using embroidery thread.

 Finished off the pages with some stamps, glitter pen and stickers.

We are both really impressed on how this turned out and it was worth taking the extra time to make it, now we have to make a cauldron.....

 

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