Spook up your shelves with a Harry Potter inspired magical text book made from cheap journals!
Whether you’re excited about Halloween or just want to track some Fantastic Beasts you’ve found, this spell book is full of tricks! They’re easy to craft and you don’t need to tear up your good novels.
Spooky Spell Book Covers
These are book COVERS that fold over a blank journal or any other book and can quickly removed when you’re no longer feeling quite so witchy.
I admit, I have a soft spot for journals, and have somehow ended up with quite a collection. I pick them up for a photo props and sometimes I actually write notes in them. A few are sitting around the house completely blank because I don’t want to spoil their beautiful pages. (That’s not too weird is it?)
If you want to make your spell cover more…BINDING… you can glue or tape the covers in place.
Tips from a Teacher to Make Text Books Last!
But today I’m going to show you a slip cover technique I learned from my mom, a retired teacher who knows how to make a textbook last for yeeeaaarrrs.
These book covers can be made from just about any large piece of paper. The original text book covers were made from paper grocery bags–which can be distressed and colored to look like leather. I found some black gift bags over at Target’s party aisle that we’re using today. This does limit the size of book you can cover, but it saves you the extra step of painting or coloring in the paper. Plus most journals will fit!
Note: hardbound books work best for this project, but feel free to experiment!
How to Make a Paper Spell Book Cover
First open up the gift bag and remove the handles–but save them for later! You might want to use them for decorating your spell book later. This is a good time to add extra folds and crinkles to your paper to add an aged look to the finished book.
Flatten out the bag and place your book on top. Use a pencil to mark the top and bottom of the book. Remove the book and fold on these top and bottom lines. (You can trim the bag if you feel like there’s too much paper.)
Put the book back on the center of the folded paper. The ends of the paper cover will form pockets for the journal’s cover. Insert the book cover into the pockets, then crease all the folds. You can use tape to hold the cover on if you feel its needed.
Now for the fun part! Decorate the covered journal to resemble your favorite spell or potion book.
We used hot glitter glue to “draw” the books new magical title on to the cover and glued the gift bag handles on to add dimension to the cover. We also got a little crazy painting Elmer’s glitter glue all over some of the covers.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There’s no wrong way to decorate your new spell book! And the best thing? If you make a mistake, it’s just paper.
