Making your own craft tools: Grimoires and other books

I was going to write how to make your grimoire and other books by yourself, but I think my vocabulary and writing skills aren’t yet that good, so I will link few videos from youtube, to show you how it’s done and make this post more about the content and ways to use, write and decorate your books.

• How To Create A Book Of Shadows From Scratch / Mandi See
• DIY Kettle Stitch Bookbinding Tutorial | Sea Lemon

I have few books that I have made myself, the grimoire and the spell book, sort of. My grimoire has the normal type of book binding, I used watercolor paper, but it can be done with what paper you got around. Though, not all paper holds very good watercolors etc. and that’s mostly the reason I used the watercolor paper, it holds most of the mediums I use for decoration and writing. 

You do not need to be very artistic, nor your grimoire does not need to be very crafty, it can be plain with just text. Basically, it can be just the way you want. 

The books I am showing and telling you about in this post doesn’t hold much personal things. Both are made for learning, information collecting and reverence purposes. I collect general information about witchcraft, folklore, correspondences, spells, recipes etc. that I find useful or are important to me. I use the book as for reminder of things, my memory sucks and most of the time I must go back and check out what is what. In my spellbook, I add thing I have done and things I might need later. I usually use them as reference to make my own work for the specific use. In my grimoire, I usually write things I have used or things I have to research more, etc.

Basically, your grimoire and book of shadows, or whatever one wants to call it, you make it as your own, add there things you feel important, write notes and such.

Here are some examples of my books and pages:

This is my grimoire; it has black faux leather paper cover and some details made from designer paper and crumbled paper. I painted the crumbled paper with acryl colors to give it silver-ish look. The designer paper is painted with black and brown watercolor and I drew some flower on it in sketch style. 

The bookmarks and secure cord are waxed cotton.

Inside cover has this flowery design and latin text, I’m not exactly sure if it’s a right wording, but I don’t care, it doesn’t really have any purpose than look pretty. 

The designer paper and the other paper in inside cover is painted again with watercolor, I think I used black, brown and some beige.

The text is done with markers and the flower is watercolor and markers.

There are pages that contains some history and lore about runes, again the artwork was done with watercolors and some markers. Text was written with markers and ink. I used piece of thick brownish paper for detailing. 

I have written something about moon and it’s phases, and I have added some bought prints too, some info on them I agree, some I don’t, but I do write some of those that not are my thing to my fgrimoire as well, because that is part of learning imo.

Some pages aren’t ready, I have planned to write about lore and stories that interest me, like the woman in white etc. I also have notes about candles and colors.

I usually write stuff from the memory, I do fact checking though, but I like write things the way I feel about them. 

I use many types of things when writing in these books, I sometimes use ink for writing, sometimes markers, paint with watercolors, use washi or stickers etc. I think that working with books should be enjoyable and kind of fun, so my suggestion is that you should work with it when you feel good.

 

For some reason, the linking of the picture isn't working, so if you're interested some of the texts in the pages, leave a comment, and I'll either email it to you or maybe I'll do a post, we'll see.