Spell book Project

Now that the headless photography project is done except for the installation, I can move onto finishing the next project. I found this idea a couple weeks ago, and have been adding to it bit by bit. Creating a spell book is an old idea, and it's something I've always wanted to do, but this one was cool enough that I wanted to try it this year.

I recreated the poison apple page, but then got a little...enthusiastic. I had never really explored deviantart.com (where the original crafter got their graphics) and there are so many cool drawings graphics that are perfect for a Halloween spell book. So as it stands, I now have...ahem...21 pages for the spell book. Yeah...

So the plan for this project has been updated to become a more functional book. I managed to grab one book at the library sale of a kids book that is a hard cover. Size wise it's large enough to accommodate the 8x11 papers, but I'm a little stumped on the best way to construct it.


One possibility is to glue the pages onto the existing pages. This has the benefit of using the preexisting book construction. The downside is possibly having the previous pages show through, and potentially ruining the overall effect. The book was also not built to hold that many pages and might warp in this respect.
Another possibility is to strip the book of its original pages, leaving only the basic spine intact. I could sew my pages together (I've done this before on a previous project, so I know it's a possibility), then glue the outside pages down onto the spine, and perhaps glueing down the spine of the pages as well. The downside to this method is that the spine could potentially warp. Though I could fold the pages down fairly severely...and as a Halloween prop, it's not necessarily a bad thing that the pages puff up a bit.

I could also keep searching for another book. The original project took a much larger book so that they could warp and decorate the edges of the book with water/paint. I do like the look of this quite a bit. Maybe the thing I need to consider is how I really want this displayed. If it's just propped up to show one page, that might be one thing, but if I want it just laying about ready to be opened, that's another.
Oye. Now I'm torn. I did the witch's kitchen last year, but it was quite a lot of work. I do still have all the things I used last year. I could recreate it but with the spellbook. I suppose I just have a mild aversion to doing the same thing over and over. Well, but there are several things I would do differently. So I guess I could see it as improving on a first draft. Hmmm...more updates on this later...