All Books Are Not Created Equal

So, instead of going on to the spring book stack, I took a turn to Halloween. Somehow I saw all of my many stashes of orange and black and just had to go down that road!

I have been using James Patterson books for my first stacks. This time, I thought I would hit up some of my cozy mystery books and, even though they were all purchased from a book club many years ago and appear to all have the same generic black covers, the way they were bound is not the same.

I had pretty much had the cutting and pulling of the covers down to a science and, even though the surface is not totally flat, the parts that aren't are fluffs of paper and seen to smooth out almost completely once the chalk paint hits. Remember, the chalk paint is thicker than regular craft paint so I thought that must help.

When I did the same process with these books, I was left with a thick, shiny layer of glue and, when I peeled that off, I was pretty much left with the edges of the groups of pages. It was very uneven and, even several thick layers of paint didn't help...which lead to some unevenness in the letter images. The H was exceptionally spotty...so I ended up going back and touching it up the best I could. I think I will try possibly using a thin layer of patching compound on the next set and see if that helps. Again, luckily, this is supposed to be a "shabby" craft so perfection is never the order of the day!

This time I chose to paint the books with black chalk paint. I had also hoped to add a small, solid orange pumpkin in front of the word "happy". But, the two stamps I had that were exactly what I wanted were too large for the spine area and the two that I had that fit, I just didn't like. And so, I am leaving it with just the words and my list of things to look for once we can get out again continues to grow.

I thought I would leave it like this until I saw just how many Halloween embellishments I had and would probably never use.

 
 I had a packet of tags in Halloween colors and several packages of the 3-D witch stickers so I thought I would just go ahead and add a pop of fun and if, when this finds its way to its forever home, it is no longer needed, a simple snip of the twine and it can be gone.
 

So, another one down and at least five to go. I am having fun looking forward to doing these books each day and somehow, once I am going on them, I find myself off and running on other things as well. I have always enjoyed staying busy but even more so these days.

And, my beads have arrived so I'm sure it won't be long before I get busy painting these beauties and making the garlands. So much to do...so MUCH time. Lol Stay safe and stay tuned.