Spooky Halloween Book Covers

2 Materials
60 Minutes
Easy

Ok, I received a request for the details on these. So, here is an excerpt from my blog.You can get the full details at https://houseofhoneydos.com/halloween-book-covers/


Hope you all enjoy! I love making things look a little spooky for Halloween. One of my favorite projects to do is to make some scary book covers. They are really simple, and work with books that are approximately 8 1/2" tall. (By the way, I use legal size paper for this). I could go with a smaller book by trimming down the cover, but 8 1/2" is the max without cutting and pasting. FYI: two of these books are from my son's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" collection. :-) So that will give you all an idea of what size of book is needed for this tutorial.

Side View

To get the variations and creases that are seen in my book covers, I go over the sheet with a wet tea bag prior to soaking it. I just take the wet tea bag and, using it like a paint brush, run over the paper in the areas where I want darker accents to appear. Press tight creases in the paper as you swipe a straight line across with the tea bag. Then, the stain will gather more in the creased area when it soaks.

Next, I make up a small cup of strong tea. I usually just throw in 3 tea bags and let it sit for about 30 seconds. Then, I pour the tea into a large cookie sheet and soak the paper until I like the tint. (About 15 minutes for the color seen in the finished product here)

Once the color is to my liking, I very gently lift the sheets out and onto some parchment paper to dry. I let it dry overnight. Once it is dry, brush away any loose tea leaves that escaped from the bags.

You can create any image for these in Word (or Pages if you have a Mac) by selecting legal size paper,and setting the page orientation to landscape. The image for the front cover should be created so that it displays on the right side of document. If you want an image on the back of the cover, that would be created on the left side of the document.

Details on how I prepped these to go in the printer is included in the full post at https://houseofhoneydos.com/halloween-book-covers/

For those that are interested in these particular cover images, they have been made available to my subscribers on my blog. So, if you would like to have your book covers look like these, I'ld be happy to have you signup for my newsletter. The file access will be delivered upon completion. Thanks and Happy Halloween!

Suggested materials:
  • Printer paper
  • Old books
Rachel Lynn | queenbeeofhoneydos.com
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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3 of 38 comments
  • Jean Jean on Oct 14, 2015
    When I was young I used to make 'stationary' from water-colors colored water and plain paper. This reminds me of that. Could use for many things!
  • Renata Renata on Oct 15, 2015
    Did u try doing the printing before the dying? I'm thinking printing S P O O K Y T A L E S Then do the dying , drying n ironing... ????
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