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Book of Spells



Welcome everyone to another installment in the 
Altered Pages and Art Anthology cross promo month. 
The Altered Pages Design Team is also taking part in the 
Smeared and Smudged
31 Days of Halloween blog hop.  
I hope you have been able to take a look at all the 
fun we have been having. 


Be careful...I might need to use my 
Book of Spells on you....


I started my project with a vintage law book and 
a few goodies from my Halloween decor supply. 
I have a number of them laid out here as
I was not quite sure which I would be using.


I began by laying down a very thick layer of hot glue in a messy pattern onto the book. 
I then embedded the plastic skull figure. 



Next, I used the hot glue to make a spider web and adhered the spider with more hot glue. 



The next step was to coat the entire book with gesso. 
I will be painting the whole book out and the paint would not adhere to the hot glue, 
so gesso is a must here. 



Next, came a coat of black matte finish craft paint. 
And, then some luscious Art Anthology to add some highlights.  

   


While the paint layers were drying I stamped some spooky images, cut out a ghoulish collage image and took to the printer to create the "title" for the spine of the book. 

   

You can see above that I used a couple brown and rust colored ink pads to "age" 
the paper for the title for the spine.  I then added a coat of amber colored 
craft medium to all pieces to age them and to add a bit of weight. 

Next, I added the collage and stamped images to the front cover.


And, the title to the spine. 


You can see the Imperial Art Anthology on the spider and the Vegas Gold on the texture created with the hot glue.  I dry brushed that on and in same areas (the web) just used my finger to apply the paint. 
   


I hope you enjoyed my Book of Spells!  Thanks for stopping by!  Make sure to comment on the blog to be entered in the drawing for fun prizes sponsored by Altered Pages and Art Anthology!

Supplies used;
Art Anthology Dimensional Paint - in Imperial (spider) and Vegas Gold (highlight texture and spider web)
Glue gun and lots of glue
Black matte finish craft paint
Black ink 
Brown ink  
Plastic skull and spider


Comments

  1. The skeletons really look like they are buried in the book, the glue gives awesome texture and thanks for the tip of paint not sticking to hot glue (as I was about to make that very mistake) now to find some gesso....

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    Replies
    1. Sarah, If you don't have gesso laying around another type of primer would work. I hope you try it! Thanks for your kind words! :-) Steph

      Delete
  2. Love your Book of Spells! I love the textures and all the embellies! Wonderful vintage creep! Super inspiring.
    Happy Friday!~kim

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  3. Thanks for sharing how you created your spell book! The hot glue is genius! I have those same skelly and spiders but would never have thought to use them this way! Very inspiring and awesome project! Looks exactly like an aged old spell book found in a haunted house!!!

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  4. Fantastic!! I love that it's hot glue, gesso and paint - thanks for sharing the technique, I think I could totally try this now! Love how yours turned out! mo x

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  5. Ohhhhh! I'm going to have to try the hot glue technique! Love the texture and design!!!

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  6. What a fabulous book! thanks so much for the wonderful tut. Will definitely try this. It's gorgeous! xxD

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  7. Thank you guys for the lovely comments. You should totally try this. Other than your hand getting a bit sore from squeezing that glue gun about a million times it is fun and fairly simple. Happy Friday to you all. xoxo Steph S.

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  8. OMG, Steph! This is awesome! Love the glue gun texture and final colorations! What a fun and fabulous book cover. Love love love it!

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  9. What a great tutorial. thanks for the extra tips, saving me from making mistakes on my own.
    I know this will be on my to try list.

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  10. Awesome book! Does it include a spell to eliminate Mondays out of the work week?
    Thanks so much for the details, my attempts at a book have continued to fail. This book has inspired me to try again.

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  11. Fabulous altered book cover. Thanks for showing us the steps.

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  12. What a great cover--love all the texture, and what a gorgeous, do-able technique!

    :)

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  13. Way too cool book!! Thanks so much for sharing the tutorial! I love how you used that hot glue!!

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  14. yay now I have another tut on how to cover a book with dimension. hot glue and gesso I can handle. thanks for the help

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  15. What a great book cover project.

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  16. Great Project, great use for an old book and the texture is awesome! Love this!

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  17. Awesome! This is soooooo cool.

    Marilyn

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  18. Wow, this is just fab. Will use this technique, thanks for sharing your amazing talent!

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  19. A spooktacular book of spells! Love all the dimension and that crawling skellie is so creepy and the images are eerie!

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  20. So glad people are inspired to try it! That's our goal, offer the items and the INSPIRATION for great art fun! EXCELLENT job Steph!

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  21. This is fabulous. Thank you for details of the process! Must try!!

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  22. What fun! Love your spooky spell book :)
    TFS!

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  23. Wonderful! This looks like something that would have been a prop in a Harry Potter movie!

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  24. Oh I don't know what I like better, the spider and Web or the Skelton that looks like it is crawling out of the book!

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  25. Awesome book off spells! I love that you used hot glue to make all that fabulous texture.

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  26. Superb! This is so cool! And I love all the how-to photos.

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  27. this is awesome! Thanks for the tip on paint and hot glue.

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  28. So nice to see how one does this to an altered book of spells! Great way to use up those little rubber halloweenie goodies! Thank you so much for all your hard work and dedication this month!

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