</MYMAILSTATIONERY> Homemade Book of Shadows
MATERIALS:
2 sheets of poster board, I used white, but it doesn't really matter, one sheet is just incase you make a mistake.
Paper, Like printer paper, I used flourecent & pastel ink-jet printer paper.
A low temp glue gun, high temp works if your cautious...
Some perdy fabric, about a yard, maybe two.....unless you are making a really BIG BOS!
Ribbon, about 1/4 of a cm wide, and 1/2 a yard to a yard long
Fabric glue Clear drying (Elmers works, but if you can get ahold of some Gem-Tac....That stuff is great!!)
An old paint brush with rigid bristles (not nesacary, but helpful...)
A ruler
an exacto/razor knife
and a pencil Scisors
Okay....got it??
First take a sheet of your paper and fold it half to find the center. Unfold it and mark the center with your pencil. Put this sheet on top of the rest of your paper, make sure they are all lined up in a nice neat stack.
Take your ruler (on a old newspaper of an the back of an old art pad, or better yet, a sheet of old ply wood) and line it up with the center mark on your stack of paper. Take your razor knife and place it up against the edge of the ruler and neatly cut them in half. You may have to do this more than once as you may have a lot of paper to cut through, or like me, a very dull knife!!
Next, Grab your poster board, pencil and ruler. From the left of your poster board measure 5 1/4 inches toward the center and mark it at the top. From there measure 8 1/4 inces toward the bottom. Then take your ruler and connect that line to the left edge of your poster board. Do the same exact thing again under or to the right of this. These will be the front & back covers of your book. Now you need a spine for it. (Something to attatch the pages to) Measure 8 ½ inches tall & 3 inches wide.
You didn't lose your razor knife did you? Ok, take your ruler and line it up on the marks and Carefully cut out all your peices. Here comes the fun part!!
Grab up that lovely fabric and lay it out nice and flat, with the designed side down. (Hint: grab some candles or something kinda heavy to keep it nice and strait while you are working with it.) Take one of your peices of poster board and spread a thin lair of glue on it. (This is where the paintbrush is handy)
Make sure every spot is covered, especially the corners and edges. Lay the glued side face down on your fabric about a half inch from the top & left edge, be sure the fabric is tight and flat when you do this to avoid wrinkles. Take your ruler and pencil, and measure & mark a half inch all the way around your poster board on the fabric. Cut it out as neatly as you can on the line.
Once you have it cut out, Cut all four corners off of the fabric only. Just the corners!! Do the same with the other two peices after you have glued them in the same way. Okay...now grab the glue and your fabric covered poster board peices and see that half inch of fabric hanging over the edge? Fold it over and glue it to the other side of the board. (This is why the corners were cut off!!) Do the same with all your peices. Have I lost you yet? : )
Now, grab the peice that you cut out to use as the spine of your book, the middle of that should be 1 1/2 inches from the left, mark it. This is where your ribbon goes....but not yet!! Before we do that, take your paper which will be your pages, and pinch then togeather and measure how wide they are. (mine=1/4 inch) Then center that measurement on the center of your book spine, mark it, and use the ruler to draw strait lines to the top and bottom.
Take the ruler and place it on these lines and make a nice strait crease on each kay....take the peice the two peices you want to be the front of your book, and the spine of your book. Lay the spine with the right hand side crease to the left edge of your cover and mark very lightly where the flap ends. To the left of this line is your glue area. Hot glue may work better for this than the fabric/elmers glue. Again make sure every spot is covered, especially edges and corners. If you are using hot glue, make sure the glue really gets into the fabric, but work quick cause the glue will cool quick.
Now grab you're the Back cover of your book and do the same thing, trace the where the flap ends, and glue. Now, you should have that nice little space inside wth the center still marked. Now it's time for the ribbon. Cut it so it's about two inchs longer than your book. Un-holster your glue gun and glue it to your mark.
Now the hard part.......Get your pages ready. Put them all together nice and neat, so that every edge of every sheet is lined up perfectly on atleast one side of the stack. Put them on your work surface and smoosh 'em flat as you can without straining....(carefully so that o\not even one moves out of it's place, very important!!) take your glue gun and run down the edge of your stack leaving as thin a lair of glue as possible while being sure you have gotten every edge of every peice of paper in the stack. They should all be stuck together when you are finnished.
Almost done!!! Last, but not least....Take your book cover and lay it open and flat. In the very center of your spine, from top to bottom, Cover with Hot glue, and quickly(before it cools too much) Stick in your pages!!!(P.S. Don't forget to consecrate befor use!!) Viola!! You are done!! Aren't you so proud!!
Homemade BOS
Many local bookstores carry blank books but why not make your own?
You could make a simple booklet by taking maybe 10-15sheets of 8 x 11 paper and cutting a manilla folder down to size for the cover. Fold all in half and either staple three times or sew with a heavy thread down the center.
Another simple way is to take full sheets of paper (make it a nice textured paper), add a 60 lb. weight paper to the back and front and staple them three times down the one long side. You can leave the staples bare or run booktape down the side. You could punch three holes instead, down the one side and tie them shut with yarn, twine, leather strips, whatever! You could even make a hole opposite the center hole to tie your book shut. You can get really fancy with the cover this way by using posterboard or even pressed board from the back of a tablet. You could rubber cement fabric on this or even a paper that you had marbled. Heck! Even left over wallpaper or wrapping paper would work! If you want to make your own book, use your imagination.
Can you sew a straight line? If so, you can sew a book together. Take ten pieces of paper, line them up, and fold in half. Now take a heavy thread and sew maybe 5 stitches along the crease. Repeat with another set of ten papers. Keep doing this until you've almost an inch of folded sewn papers. Next, sew all these together by going through the stitches already made. You can make the cover out of a heavier paper by using rubber cement to glue it onto the front and last page or use pressed board or cardboard.
Modern Witch's Spellbook
by Sarah Lyddon Morrison
If you don't own a midi, a shawl, a shoulder bag, a jacket, or a piar of boots with fringe on them (seems impossible by now), go out and get yourself such an item. Not only will you be marvelously swingy in your fringes, you will have a great time wherever you wear them. Fringe completely protects the wearer from the malevolent influence of the evil eye. Bad spirits don't like fringe because it's too distracting to them, and they keep away. Ask any Arab camel driver and he'll tell you the same story. (Look carefully, and you'll notice that his camel's saddlebags have long fringes dangling from them.)
Incidentally, evil spirits hate tassels, too. Start a litle fashion of your own with them - perhaps braiding them into your hair, or letting them hang in a passel from your hips. Need I remind anyone that strippers have always worn tassels, and that it might be amusing to take a cue from then and learn to seing a few of your own?
If you think I'm beginning to sound like a fashion magazine, it's because amulets and talismans are body adornments, often worn as much for their effect as jewelry as their magical properties. All that gorgeous Egyptian stuff you seein the museums? All those silver filigree necklaces and rings worn by the women of India? All those marvelous bone things you see on African chieftains and their ladies? Amulets. That's what they are, pure and simple. Just take bells, for example. Little clinky silver bels found in Arabian anklets and bracelets. They're meant to keep away evil spirits. Church bells, too, have significance beyond calling the faithful to prayer, or announcing a marriage or death. They were originally used to keep back the evil ones. In modern caverns, beyond the fringe, look for bells - on horses, asses, camels, and their drivers.
An amulet's job is to protect the wearer from any kind of trouble. This trouble may come from evil spirits (such as those you've been rousing against your enemies), or from the evil eye. The eye of the human being is the focusing device of a very powerful force - the human mind when it's engaged in bewitching. People are forever projecting emotion at each other, and should you find yourself, for example, in the position of being generally envied over some good fortune, the powerful feeling spent on you as people congratulate you while thinking negative, jealous thoughts is bound to have an effect. Negative emotion sent your way can even sometimes reverse your luck and leave you wondering what you did to deserve this. Nothing. Sheer witchcraft at work, that's all.
I always wear an amulet. Since I've acquired it, I feel a thousand times better. There are a lot of heavy, bad vibrations in the air (like pollution), and an amulet nullifies their effects. I've been lighthearted (can't remember when I was last depressed), positive, and, strangely, nothing really bad seems to happen to me anymore. Not a tear has crossed my cheek in six months (an all-time record). And if something ghastly should occur, it won't, I know, make me feel that the end of the world has finally come.
You acquire an amulet by discovering it. Maybe it's one that's described in this next chapter, or maybe you see a bit of glass or a stone, perhaps a carving or a piece of jewelry, and you eye it. Oddly, it seems to eye you back. You feel it saying to you, "Make me," or "Pick me up," or "Buy me," whatever. You get this powerfully good feeling from the object, as if it were possessed of a supernaturally strong protective power. Now don't go around keyed up trying to find your ultimate amulet. If you do, every bead and buckle is going to seem like one. Your desire for the good-luck charm will make you become so tense you'll lose your judgement about it.
It's essential to understand that you'll happen upon it. When you see it, you'll know that htis is the amulet you need. I wasn't looking for one, nor had I ever thought of owning one when I stumbled across mine. Oh. When you find your piece, be prepared to face poverty. If your amulet happens to be something you see in a shop, no matter what the cost, your eyes will glaze over and you won't be able to make out your check for it fast enough. My advice: stay away from expensive places like Tiffany's, objets d'art stores that carry museum pieces, in fact any supercostly emporium. Could be a disaster. In debt for nineteen years.
Now a talisman has a slightly different function. Its protective influence covers one specific area. For example, if you've just moved into a super, top-floor apartment in a New York brownstone that has everything, including a skylight, you should probably make a talisman to keep away thieves. Skylights in top-floor apartments are an open inivitation to addicts in search of goods to pawn. Your goods, in this case. Just hang a little decorative talisman above your front door, and relax. No one will bother you. Or, as protection against the next stock market crash, you've decided to bury a fortuen to see you through. No good just to put all those neatly stacked piles of money into the earth. Suppose your neighbor's dog rooted up the money and the neighbor's little boy decided it was great fun to watch the pretty green papers sail away on the breeze. Heaven forfend. Put a protective talisman with the money when you bury it, and no animal, be it four-footed or two, will find it.
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