Boooook, it’s time to come to mummy! And if the book doesn’t answer your call like it does for Winifred Sanderson, you’ll just have to make one of your own. You don’t need to get it from the Devil or use human skin. Blogger Mizerella made her replica of the Hocus Pocus spell book from supplies you can pick up at any craft store. No witchery or magic is required, just patience and some basic skills. It’s an intermediate project, but you could definitely produce a spell book of your very own over the course of a weekend. Carry it around while you’re in a Hocus Pocus costume or leave the finished book out as a display piece on your coffee table.

The base for the book is a cardboard book box that Mizerella found on clearance. She covered it in a skin of tissue paper with Mod Podge (a versatile and handy craft supply you should keep on hand) and then used red Das brand air dry clay. Any brand of air dry clay that doesn’t shrink will work fine. She sculpted the seams and painted it to closely match the book seen on screen. She sculpted the eyeball and all the metal embellishments from polymer clay, baked everything, and painted it. Polymer clay is your friend.

The finished book is creepy looking, but thankfully doesn’t look too much like human skin because yuck. I’m impressed by the details and texture, and now I really want to make one of my own.

You have plenty of time to craft a spell book of your very own before Halloween! Get all the details and more photos at Mizerella’s blog. Bonus: she also has instructions for creating Evil Dead’s Necronomicon Ex-Mortis.

And before you go, a supercut of the book:

HT: Make

Image: Buena Vista Pictures