"Spooky" book covers

After looking at all of the beautiful pumpkins in my pumpkin party post, I was inspired to pull out my gold leafing .

. 

I have these old books for display in  my lounging area and wanted to decorate 

them  a little bit for Halloween.

 Taking black art paper and gold leafing I made these.

It wasn't that hard either. 

I first folded my paper over the book to make sure I had cut the right size and I ran my fingers up and down the spine with the  paper on to get some indentations of where the spine was so I knew where to stamp.

Then, I stamped with the gold leafing sizing, which is pretty much a tacky glue for the gold leafing to adhere to. I used some vintage stamps I have. It's important to 

wash the stamps right away o the sizing doesn't ruin your stamps. Otherwise,they'll be sticky forever.

After it dried, about  30 minutes, I placed the gold leafing on very carefully. If you haven't worked with gold leaf before, it's almost like trying to place air.

The one trick I did find was to take a clean, dry finger and pat down gently, yet firmly over the area where the sizing is under the gold leaf to make sure it adhere's well enough. 

Use a super soft brush and a circular motion to wipe away the excess gold

 leaf. I brush mine into a box to use the "scraps" for other projects.

You'll end up with your letters all nice and sparkly.

I then taped my paper to the books so I can remove it and store them at the end of the holiday.

~Jen