Transform A Dollar Tree Book Into A Spooky Spellbook For Your Halloween Decor

If you're feeling a little magical this Halloween season, you don't want to be without a grimoire. Grimoires, for those not in the know, are spellbooks, filled with instructions for rituals, otherworldly symbols, and magical charms. Like the crafter who loves to shop the Dollar Tree during the Halloween season, spellbooks help you conjure unique DIY Halloween decor from practically nothing — a welcome development for the decorator on a budget. You may have trouble scaring up an actual spellbook. However, making a grimoire for your Halloween display from some Dollar Tree wares is not only easy to do but fun, too.

To make your grimoire, you're going to need a hardback book, which Dollar Tree carries in abundance. You can use any kind of hardback for this, though if you'd like an actual book you can write in, look for a blank book, like a journal. Some DT Crafters Square Synthetic Leather gives the exterior of the book some texture, while a pair of scissors allows you to trim the leather so that it fits the book. A little adhesive from a glue gun tethers everything faster than a love spell binds two lovebirds together.

To liven the spellbook up (literally), you'll also want to grab some TIHOOD Half Round Realistic Acrylic Eyes for Halloween Props. Although these are not Dollar Tree items, they're in the DT price range. You'll be set back less than $10 for 48 of 'em. Finally, some acrylic paint, assorted brushes, and a ballpoint pen help put the finishing touches on your handmade grimoire.

Unless the front cover of your Dollar Tree book already looks like the Wicked Witch of the West had her way with it, you'll need to dress it up to make a proper grimoire. The faux leather from Dollar Tree is what you'll tap for this. The faux leather measures 11.75 inches by 20 inches from the store, which should leave you with enough leather to cover the front and back covers as well as the spine of the book. Use the book to create a pattern on the leather material by tracing around it.

Once that's done, remove the dust jacket from the book if it came with one, and then glue the faux leather onto it, covering the front, back, and spine. Smooth the leather cover as you go to ensure that you don't end up with air bubbles. A WRAPXERPT Wallpaper Smoothing Tool Kit may help with this. Next, cut one of the eyes from your kit in half, and glue the side with the pupils onto the front cover. A red one would be a creepy touch.

After the glue dries, decorate the cover. Use the glue gun to make raised forms on the leather, like squiggly patterns to represent snakes and crisscross markings for stitches. Hot glue dries fast, so if you need to build up layers, just wait until the glue cools and then add more to the spots that need it. This is a good technique if you want to build an eyelid around the eye. Finally, paint all the raised glue areas to make them look more realistic. 

This book deserves to be one for the ages, so you may want to get creative with your front-cover embellishments. For example, instead of making snakes out of hot glue, add something like Vynorix Fake Snake Soft Rubber Snake Toys onto the front. Coil them up in the corners or run one down the spine. Or if you're the really crafty type, make 3D snakes and other elements, like raised stitches, out of the CiaraQ Small Block Polymer Clay Starter Kit for a quirky polymer clay DIY. Allow those elements to dry and then add paint for texture and visual depth. This is a fun option if you're trying to recreate a famous spellbook like the book from the movie "Hocus Pocus" or you want to give it some creepy features similar to those on the monster book from "Harry Potter."

Before you glue the big items onto the book's front cover, you can give the faux leather a bit more texture in spots by gluing on some small pieces of Memujpsun Natural Burlap Fabric Roll onto the synthetic fabric. Instead of cutting the edges straight, fray them a little to make the cover look more worn out. Once the glue under the burlap is dry, lightly brush over some spots with the paint to distress the look of the book.

Finally, this is a project that would allow you to repurpose old books. Many old books look weather-worn and have cracking spines. If you find one that already has a leather cover, much of your job is already done. Just embellish it with decorations to up the creep factor.