Ancient & Powerful Grimoire

If you like this project, please vote for it on the Wizarding Contest :)

Grimoires fascinate me since I was a kid. As a fan of witches, wizards and magick in general I felt I needed my own spell book! So I decided to make one myself from scratch. It's a bit small, but I like it this way because I can carry it everywhere! Beware, mortals! You'll never know when I may put a spell on you! :)

MATERIALS:

- Toilet paper roll

- Paper sheets

- Some thick wallpaper

- Glue

- Thread and needle

- Coffee (yes, really!)

DECORATION:

- Hot glue gun + glue sticks

- Acrylic paint

- Red and black thread

- A piece of ribbon

- Parchment paper

- Printed images or drawings

- Skull charm

- A pice of silver thread

TOOLS:

- Ruler

- Sewing needle

- A Gimlet or a needle

- Hot glue gun

- Brush

To make the pages, you need some paper sheets and a ruler. You need to mesure the toilet paper roll to know the pages' size. Then, draw some rectangles to this size. These will be the book's pages. Mine measured 7,4x8cm.

To "age" the paper, I used some coffee. So make some coffee and then soak the pages on it. Let them dry and place them under some weight so they don't get crumpled when dry.

Take a toilet paper roll and fold it in half (see picture). With a cutter or scissors cut one of the edges and leave it under a heavy book or similar for a while.

Take the "aged" pages. Place them one on top of each other and then fold them in half.

Insert all the pages into the toilet paper roll and hold them with clothespins or something similar.

Now sew the pages onto the roll tube. To do it, you need to mark the pages by placing even spaced dots (see image). I suggest you take a ruler, measure the whole page length and divide it into several parts (as many as you see fit). Then take a gimlet or something pointy to make holes where you've marked

Take a needle and a thread and sew the pages using the holes you've made as a guide.

I always start stitching between the hardcover and the pages (you can see it on the first picture).

When you close the book, you'll notice a few pages stick out of the cover. Cut them so they all have the same resulting width.

Now the book itself is ready. You'll need to prepare the covers who will "hide" the toilet paper roll.

Wallpaper (yes, the very same paper some use to decorate walls) is perfect to make book covers. I found some in a second hand shop and it's very useful. To prepare the hardcovers, you need to mesure the size of the book you've made and then cut a piece of wallpaper. I suggest you to cut it a little bit bigger than needed so it fits well when you close the book.

Then you can paint it.

I imagined a book made of snake skin. So I used some green acrylic paint.

I wanted my book to look like it was made of pieces of snake skin sewn together. To achieve this effect, I simply sew over the wallpaper to make it look as though it was made of several pieces.

Make some stitches with a thread and a needle. You can see the kind of stitch I made in the pictures.

To enhance this look, I added a black thread under the red stitches. To do so, you need to knot a piece of thread behind the paper and pass it through the stitches you've made with a needle. I suggest to use a double thread.

To make the black thread thicker and more compact, you need to pass another black thread under the red stitches. This time, twist the thread all around the first two threads. I used a double thread again.

You can see the result In the pictures.

If you want, you can add a ribbon to close the book. Glue some ribbon onto the covers before decorating them with a "snake" finish (see details on the pictures).

Now, with some universal glue, glue the hardcover onto the book you made. Put the grimoire under some weight and let it dry.

I decided to add a "bookmark". To do that I took a piece of silver thread and a skull charm. You simply need to pass the thread through the skull. Then glue the thread onto the inner side of the book cover (I prefer to do it onto the right side one).

Then to hide the toilet paper roll and to decorate the book, I printed some images and I glued them on the inner part of the covers.

Finally, I wanted to add an eye on the cover. I made the eye by myself: I didn't use a charm. To make the eye, you need a piece of parchment paper and a hot glue gun. On the parchment paper make some eye-shaped pieces with the hot glue gun. Once they dry, you can paint them with acrylic paint and let them dry.

Glue the eye on the grimoire cover and you're done!

If you like this project, please vote for it on the Wizarding Contest :)