Super Easy Halloween Spell Book

Five years ago, my grandkids and I made Halloween spell books. They were loads of fun to make.

But.

The process was quite involved. Sanding the covers on an old book. Painting the covers. Gluing on snakes, spiders, and skulls. Gluing spooky pictures on the pages.

But the kiddos loved them. In fact, one grandson said it was his most favorite craft that we’ve ever done. And, 2 granddaughters still play with their spell books to this day!

Five years ago, our youngest grandchild was only 8 months old. Now, he is 5. I wanted to make a spell book with him. But I think he’s a tad too young for making one — at least one like the other grandkids made.

So, I got thinking.

What if we made a spell book but one that was easier. Much easier. One that a five-year-old could do.

Thus, my idea of a super easy Halloween spell book was born!

And, the nice thing is that it’s not only lots easier to make than the previous ones, it’s inexpensive, too.

Here’s the list of things that you’ll need:

• 3″ x 5″ notebook
• Scrapbook paper
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Spell book title graphic
• Graphics
• Spells

Before I start explaining how to make this super easy spell book, let’s talk about the notebook itself — and the scrapbook paper. You’ll probably want scrapbook paper in Halloween colors — black, yellow, orange.

When you glue the scrapbook paper to the front and back notebook cover, a little bit of the cover’s color will show around the spiral. (The scrapbook paper can’t get to the edge because of the spiral.)

So, if the scrapbook paper is Halloween colored, you’ll want a coordinating notebook color. For example, if your scrapbook paper is black, you’ll want a black notebook. If your Halloween scrapbook paper was orange, you’d probably want an orange notebook.

However, if the notebook is green and your scrapbook paper is black, the little bit of green that isn’t covered by the black scrapbook paper will be REALLY obvious. And that would not be cool. Does that make sense to you? (I hope so!)

Since my scrapbook paper was mostly black, I got black notebooks for these spell books.

Now. Let’s make a spell book!

First, print out the title for the spell book. This is what it looks like. (The black ink in my printer was low so it wasn’t very dark when it printed out — as you can see in the pictures of the spell books.)

Print the graphics for the book. The pictures below are just a couple of samples of the graphics that I’ve put together.

There are 7 pages of graphics. Click on the links below to download them.

• Page 1
• Page 2
• Page 3
• Page 4
• Page 5
• Page 6
• Page 7

Cut out the graphics. (Take the easy way and just do a rough cut. The graphics are way too small — especially for little hands — to cut exactly on the lines.)

Some of the graphics go with the spells. Hopefully you’ll be able to figure out which graphics go with which spells. (By the way, the ‘poof’ graphic goes with the disappearing spell.) And, not all spells have graphics.

Now, cut pieces of scrapbook paper to fit the notebook’s cover. Glue them on the front and back covers and the inside front and back covers.

Glue the spell book title to the front outside cover.

Print out the spells that I wrote.

Glue the spells on the pages in the notebook. You can glue them on consecutive pages or randomly throughout the notebook.

Glue the graphics that go along with the spells. Glue the extra graphics elsewhere in the notebook.

After you’re finished gluing, your notebook is complete. Huzzah!

This is the inside front cover of one of the spell books. (Isn’t that skeleton a hoot?)

This is the inside of the back cover of one of the spell books.

This is an outside cover.

Here are my grandkid’s notebooks.

And pictures of the insides of their notebooks.

This is my five-year-old grandson that inspired the idea for these easy spell books. Isn’t he a cutie?

This is my granddaughter Emma. She’s a cutie, too!

She absolutely loved the spells that I wrote — so much that she decided that she wanted to write her own. She tried and tried. Struggled mightily. She thought they would be easy to write. Alas, she found out differently. (They weren’t easy for me to write either . . . )

So let’s talk about writing spells — the artificial intelligent way.

Do you remember my post about using artificial intelligence to write clues for a treasure hunt? Well, you can use it to write Halloween spells, too. I spent a little bit of time (actually a LOT of time) using it to write spells. Here are some that AI created for me. Feel free to use these if you want!

Here’s one to make someone giggle:

With laughter light and spirits high,
Bring forth giggles to the sky.
A joyful heart and merry grin,
Let the laughter now begin.

Here’s one to make a cookie appear:

From dough to delight, with magic so sweet,
In this cookie jar, a treat to eat.
Sugar and spice, with a touch of glee,
Cookies appear, as I decree.

Here’s one to make someone stop snoring: (My husband wants to use this one on me . . . )

Candle’s glow, bring peace tonight,
Snoring and unrest, take your flight.
Let sleep be deep and spirits bright,
In tranquil dreams, till morning’s light.

Here’s one to bring love and attraction using flowers:

With petals bright and candle’s flame,
Love and attraction, I now claim.
As flowers bloom, so too shall love,
Sent from below and blessed above.

Well, there you go. Have a bewitchingly fun time making easy spell books with your grandkids!