Booooooook!

From the movie

This was a prop that I had been wanting to do, or at least some version of--the spellbook from Hocus Pocus that is arguably essential to the Winnifred costume.  I was pricing some paper mache books to use as a base (I wanted something lighter than a regular book), but they were all very small...or very expensive.  As I was debating, my eyes fell on a scrap of cardboard left over from the cauldron and I wondered how hard it would be to just make my own book base.  Yeah, turns out--not that hard at all.  A little cardboard cutting up and some hot glue and about an hour later, I had an excellent book base.  I had wanted it to be sizable, so I was able to make it as large and as thick as I wanted.  For the spine, I ended up scoring a piece of cardboard lightly and curving it so that it stretched a bit but didn't break.

Next, I looked up a couple of youtube videos for what others had done to achieve the leatherbound look.  Various methods popped up, but the one I liked the most was this one that used paper towels and mod podge.  So I went about adding pieces of paper towel with lots of mod podge and trying to rough it up a bit to get a wrinkled, textured look. 

After all of that was dry, I went about adding in some stitches.  I liked the video's method of adding them just with hot glue.  So I drew some lines on that mirrored the original book, then put the glue gun on the cold setting so the glue didn't just flatten everywhere.  Very easy to do once you got in a rhythm. 

Next up was a coat of darker brown to have as a base.  Oh, actually, before this, I added in the eye.  So I didn't have an eyeball from dollar store, but I did have one of those larger flat marble things that usually go in vases.  I like them for magnets and various other projects (they're actually really great for eye props).  So I picked an image of an eyeball that looked accurate and mod podged it onto the flat end of the marble.  I ended up liking this better than the eyeball just because due to the glass/curve of the marble, the eye looks like its following you at every turn.  Which I would have loved to do if I knew anything about animatronics at all.  So after the eye had dried, I attached it with a bit of glue, then folded over some pieces of towel to make a little eyelid and to make it look like it was truly a part of the book.  When doing the darker paint, I tried to be very careful to get the lid all around, but I still think I'll go over it with some acetone and a q-tip, just to make sure I got any residual paint up. 

For the snakes and other silver elements, I pulled out some oven bake clay that I had left over from various projects and made some pieces that I sprayed with silver separately before attaching.  The second coat of a lighter brown was next, focusing mostly on the areas in between the stitches, but also on the stitches.  I think it added a nice bit of depth.  I also included dabs of copper paint, which added a wee bit of shine.  Oh, and I also added an orange jewel because it was in the original..and I had one handy.  As a last step, I added some white paper to the edges of the book that had been creased accordian style to simulate pages.  I maaay go back over it with either some thinly drawn lines, or some kind of tea water to age the pages a bit.  Not sure.  I may just call it done.