Remember when I asked if you were getting your craft on? After making Frodo and Butter those woodburned boxes last Christmas I am going to make it a point to give everyone something homemade for Christmas in addition to all the other junk we get them. Now I have so many projects in the works for Christmas that it isn't even funny. So to be able to share all that I am doing I have banned Buttercup from the blog until after Christmas and here is the first reason why:

I found this link from the instructables.com where gingerpete made a set of books mentioned in the Harry Potter series. I thought this idea was so far beyond brilliant that I had to try it out myself and I think my Howarts, A History turned out pretty well and the picture just doesn't do it justice.

The hardest part was actually finding a book that looked old and destroyed enough to play the part of a wizard's handbook. I finally scored a few at an antique bookstore near our house. I explained to the owner what I was doing and what I needed and she seemed really excited about it and sold me two books for a song. I made sure that the books were worthless first as I didn't want to hack up a million dollar first edition!

In the end I transformed this Emerson book, which is copyrighted 1883, into a book that can pass for something Hermione checked out at the Hogwarts library yesterday. Best of all Butter is so going to get her Harry Potter geek on over this one! And will you look at those pages! How much do you love the edges on this book? So I plan on making Butter a couple more for Christmas as I have enough gold leaf leftover and then I scored copper leaf on clearance at Michael's this weekend for only $1.99.

I hope to get the rest finished up this weekend so I can start my next project which equally excites me and I can't wait to share it with you. So I ask y'all again: have you got your craft on?

~ame

on Friday, August 05, 2011

Labels: Crafty