Let's turn cheap charity shop finds into awesomely spooky spell books!

This video is part of a global collaboration which I am delighted to take part in. Please check out the other videos in this playlist!
   • Halloween 2024 - International Crafty YouT...  

Thank you to Tracey at Mini Scenes GB for organising this collab.

For my collab video I turn three hard-back Z-list celeb biography books into stunningly spooky spell books. When creating something like this I never work with fiction, children's story books or anything that could bring value to somebody. I always choose z-list celebrity biographies in the three for a pound section of my local charity shop.

Materials used:
3 hardback books from the charity shop
Strong tea, coffee, and a mix of spices to discolour the pages
Craft foam sheets. I carved one into a wood grain effect with my Dremel, the other pieces I used to make book closures and corner pieces
Hot glue gun
I also created some celestial, leaf shaped and mini potion bottle pieces from resin but you can make those with hot glue if you don't work with resin
PVA glue watered down with a bit of water
Kitchen roll or other tissue
Acrylic paint. Everything gets painted black first then it gets dry brushed with a variety of metallic colours. I used two sizes of stiff bristled paint brust plus an offcut from a bath sponge
Pieces of old jewellery from the charity shop as a final touch to the book closures

This is a really inexpensive project but it gives wow results! The new books look amazing on my dresser that has been filled with my home made apothecary jars and potion bottles for the Halloween season.

I just wanted to give a shout out to Hobby Ology for the idea of staining the book pages and to Rachel Maksy for the brilliant cosplay hack of using a Dremel to create woodgrain effect on craft foam.

Music in this video is royalty free music from Pixabay - www.pixabay.com

Video recorded on a Fairphone 4.