Today I would like to share my Halloween mantle decor for this year and talk about the books I made for the vignette. This will be a picture laden post 🙂

I really love Halloween and with my son getting older, I wanted to lose the cutesy Halloween decorations in favor of something a bit spookier.  I used several of my husband’s old college textbooks as well as a couple I picked up from Goodwill.   I made 7 books total, but today’s post is just about my favorite 3.

The first is my absolute fav of the bunch.  This old Accounting book was first distressed a bit.  Then with the help of my handy, dandy hot glue gun, I added the ridges on the binding and the spider web on the front.  After the glue cooled, I spray painted the whole thing.  The title on the spine was cut on my Silhouette from silver vinyl and coated with Mod Podge.  I hot glued a plastic spider on the web for the pièce de résistance.

Next up is a book on the History of Witchcraft.  Again the book was distressed a bit, the edges of the pages inked with Distress Inks to age them.  The title was cut on my Silhouette, but then painted gold.  When I removed the letters, the paint on the surrounding vinyl started to flake onto the cover.  I really liked the look of the flakes so I added them to the cover and Mod Podge’d the whole book. Serendipity!  I wish I had used matte Mod Podge to see the shine of the flakes better, but I’m still happy with how it turned out.

And last but not least is the book on Poisons.  This one was fun to do!  I used one of my husband’s belts that had seen better days, but out the rough parts and used the good parts to seal this dangerous book 😉  Once again the hot glue gun was employed to attach the pieces, but I left it so that you could actually undo the belt and open the book.  The title was cut on the Silhouette… love that font… and crossbones from the Dollar Store was hot glued to the spine.  I thought that was the perfect touch for a book on poisons, don’t you think?!?

I had a blast making these books.  Some of you may think I’m crazy… or maybe a real witch just posing as a crafter…  but I assure you I’m just a good mom trying to squeeze out a few extra years of special Halloween memories for my son.  Besides… if you think this is crazy, wait until I show you my apothecary jars!!!  *scary witch cackling*  😉