Mod Podge Archives » Cathartic Crafting

This project was inspired by a family visit to the Renaissance Festival, a wonderful place of creativity and imagination. My oldest was enthralled with so many of the crafts there and wanted them all. This was much the same feeling I had as a child going to the Renaissance. As a mother, I would have loved to buy her all the things, but my pocketbook definitely didn’t allow for that desire. For many of the crafted items, I put a pin in the idea in my mental board to create later. One of those wares was the leather-bound books with the intricate faces deftly shaped into them. They seemed like the perfect at-home project. And thus, this spooky Halloween Book Cover craft was born into being!

Spooky Halloween Book Cover Materials & Tools

Book
Leather-like Material
Hot Glue
Paint
Eyeballs
Scissors
Xacto knife
Tissue Paper (Optional)
Mod Podge (Optional)

For my first two books, I went ahead with using some old books I had but didn’t care much about. For the next two, I took a trip to Goodwill and happened to come across two books with topics that were a perfecting pairing with Halloween; bugs, and strange stories. I was pretty tickled by the finds!

Easy Crafting Steps for the Eyeball Look

Cut the material to size. With the book open, you want it to be about an inch and a half bigger on all sides. You can definitely make it a little bigger if you’re worried about it being too small.

2. Use the razor to cut small slits for the eyeballs. For my first attempt, I went with one eye on the binding of the book.

Being careful not to burn yourself, hot glue the outside of the material to the surface of the eyeball to give it eyelids. I ended up using a large tongue depressor to keep from burning myself.

5. Glue the rest of the cover to the outside of the book. As it cools, squish the material together to create ripples.

6. Trim the outside edges and notch the corners so when they are folded in, you get a clean diagonal seam.

7. Leave as is or add whatever shading or darkening you prefer to age the material.

I was not quite happy with the end result, so I decided to add a little brown shading.

8. Set it up to show off.

Spooky Bug Halloween Book Cover

Shading

HOT GLUE!

Much of this cover consisted of piling on the hot glue. I honestly don’t know what I would do without my hot glue guns and stock of sticks. Hot glue is truly versatile when it comes to crafting. My first attempt was to create the centipede on the underside of the leather. It didn’t work so well, so I ended up adding it to the top of the leather. And then I added more…. and then a little more to each bug. Let’s just say I went through a lot of sticks.

Cheap acrylic paint served me well to paint the bugs and do the shading. It stuck to the hot glue pretty well with several coats.

A sharpie was an easy and permanent way to add a few details.

Complete Spooky Bug Halloween Book Cover

Tissue Paper Flare

To create a wrinkled appearance, follow the easy steps:

Apply Mod Podge to the surface.
Then press small squares of tissue paper into the glue.
Get a little extra Mod Podge onto a paintbrush before pushing into the tissue paper.
Add additional layers of Mod Podge based on your desired look.

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Happy Halloween Crafting!!

Rainbow Shelves

Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.
― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow

In 2015, we moved our family of five from a three-bedroom house to a five-bedroom house with loads of extra space. It was glorious for all of us, especially for the 7 and 4-year-old sisters who were previously sharing a room. The oldest liked sleeping with the door open, with music and lights on while the younger one preferred sleeping with the door closed in the quiet and with the lights off. Besides being able to control their own space, they also got to choose their room themes. The then 4-year-old unwaveringly went for

R A I N B O W

as her theme of choice. Curtains and sheets were easy to find. Shelves, on the other hand, weren’t something I could find in any nearby stores. The obvious choice was a mommy/daughter project to craft our own.

Supplies:

Wood Cubes
Small Wood Screws
Wood Glue
Paint
Scrapbook Paper
Mod Podge
Paint Brush

I came across a nine square set of nesting cubes and decided to make them into a fun shelving unit for my rainbow lover’s room.

Each cube had a bracket to hang each individually. I thought it’d be easier to have them connected to each other. This would mean I’d have fewer nail holes in the wall. I used tiny wood screws to secure the cubes to each other in the fashioning of our design. Something to keep in mind when screwing into any wood is the likelihood of splintering or cracking when drilling the screw without predrilled holes. If there’s a chance it’ll crack or you’re unsure, it’s best to drill a hole prior to screwing in the screw. Be sure to use a drill bit no bigger than the width of the screw core to prevent the hole from being bigger than the screw.

After the cubes were secured to each other, my middle child and I started with the painting. Her motto is ‘you can never have too much rainbow in your life’. I love when I can infuse mommy-daughter time with crafting (so long as it’s more fun than frustrating). Generally, it’s a double bonus for me to have girls who enjoy doing some of the same things as me. As an adult, I have come to realize as a child I learned so much by simply watching and helping. I hope my girls learn as much from me on how to be handy and self-sufficient as I learned from my parents.

A fun Rainbow Pop with Patterns

We could have kept it simple by painting all the surfaces, but I thought it’d be fun to give it a pop of pattern to the cubes, in addition to the pops of color. It was more likely to see the ceiling of each cube when hung on the wall. This pushed my decision to use scrapbook paper to spruce up the ceiling of each cube. (Scrapbook paper really has so many uses.)

I cut colored and patterned paper to the size of the corresponding cube. Using my favorite Mod Podge, I glued them to the wood surface. I’m sure you can read the Mod podge instructions for yourself, but I’ll explain it here for you as well. Use a paintbrush to paint it onto the surface first. Then paint the back of the paper and smooth the paper onto the surface to remove any bubbles. This isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds. Those pesky bubbles and wrinkles can be a pain to get smoothed out. Finish it up by painting the final top coating to protect the surface.

I have had the same bottle of mod podge for years. It’s lasted me through many projects. Check out some other projects you can use with mod podge.

Once the paint and glue were dry, hanging and filling the shelves were the only tasks left. My little Lily was excited to get her things in there.

Rainbow Shelf #2

We already had a shelf on hand for the next rainbow incorporation. I decided to do a fun bottom since that would be the only part to really show. I used scrapbook paper and Mod Podge again to adhere the paper to the surface. While cutting the paper to size to fill the length, the chevron pattern matched perfectly. In looking at the photo below, I obviously failed to put the two pieces in the right spots. It’s very likely I was slightly distracted by my chattering girls. It doesn’t take long for Mod Podge to work, so I was stuck (literally) with my mess up. My OCD self still gets annoyed with this mistake, but luckily my middle child was okay with it.

Simple and easy is the best way to be when the task list is long. One project down in a night’s time and a daughter over the moon with her finished rainbow project.

Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.
― Maya Angelou

Cathartic Crafting

Tag: Mod Podge

Frightfully Spooky Halloween Book Cover for your Next Craft Project