How To Make Faux Spell Books To Decorate Your Home Just In Time For Halloween

You don't need a wand to perform this sorcery — just a paintbrush (and a few other materials you might have around the house, your choice). A new iteration of the fake book craze is sending Halloween lovers to dollar and craft stores to DIY faux grimoires to decorate their homes for the holiday. A grimoire is an old-fashioned word for a spell book, which includes instructions for performing magic. While the viral crafted faux versions of spell books don't contain spells at all, they are constructed to look like antique tomes that might have been thieved from Harry Potter's private library and will make your Halloween decor even spookier.

Projects range from easy enough to do with the kids to imaginative enough to be deemed art, all with the same result: creations not only worthy of display in October, but year-round for those with a penchant for gothic home decor. While the jackets of these fake books are often simply titled spell books, variations might include magic potions, books of shadows, and fantasy guides. There are also offshoot designs inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and the Disney "Hocus Pocus" films.

This is one trendy Halloween decor project that has TikTok users in a frenzy and whose only limit is inventiveness. You can use old books covered in crinkled tissue paper and Mod Podge-hardened with items such as plastic spiders to provide a creepy texture, all under black paint with a patina created in different colors with foam brushes and dry paint. To fashion an ancient look, crafters go a step further by using tea bag stains on the pages. Oftentimes, the titles of the fake books are three-dimensional, an effect created by painting over foam letter stickers or words written out in hot glue.

Then, there are those with covers embedded with bloodshot eyeballs made from a book painted over glued paper towels, air-dry clay embellishments, and twine. Some add metal details and fake clasps — and cut a hole inside the book to fit a mobile phone that peers out from another hole in the cover so that a video of a moving eyeball can be played. TikToker rosehavengables came up with a way to crystallize the spell book with Borax, displaying it open with an intact show of witchy items such as a magnifying glass, cinnamon sticks, and a bookmark.

Books are easy to come by at thrift shops, the dollar store, or maybe even lying dusty in the basement of your home. But some are conjuring the fake book TikTok hack that is perfect for hiding cords by turning their spell books into storage space, even for tiny things. Instead of actual books, they're using second-hand jewelry boxes or making a spell book out of foam that can double as a purse. There's even more abracadabra, where someone found ceramic spell books at Dollar Tree that they turned into high-end decorations with paint and stickers.

Of course, if you can make it, you can probably buy it. There are spell book props on the market that are perfect for putting out around the house for the runup to All Hallow's Eve. If you want to craft a spell book but are short on time, retailers sell plain fake books that can then just be decorated. And for $30, Amazon carries premade nesting Halloween-themed books, no assembly required.