Halloween Decorations for Downey

I'm really getting into creating with books now. For my library every month I decorate this manzanita branch tree. This month I printed Halloween images onto book pages and cut them out with decorative edge scissors, cut out black tags with my Cricut and glued the images to the tags. Tied those on with orange ribbon with black dots. I added some Halloween skeletons and a rubber rat from Dollar Tree.

Then for the Staff Halloween Potluck, I made book pumpkins. They are so fun and easy. Here's what you do.

1. Design a template for half of your pumpkin shape. I had my first ones too pointy on the top so be sure to curve them down. Also leave a flat edge about 2" on the bottom to give your pumpkin a flat base.
2. At first I was following other tutorials and cutting the pages with scissors. It didn't too long with small stacks of pages but then I had a great idea- cut them with our new bandsaw! My husband and son cut 20 of them in about 20 minutes. So much faster and the edges were more even.
3. Remove the covers. Run a large bead of glue down the center of the spine and a little bit on the first and last pages. Invert the book so that the last page is being glued to the first. Watch to see if pages are separating from the spine. If they are, add more hot glue. You'll need to hold them until it can stand up on it's own. Let the glue harden.
4. Lightly spray paint orange. You don't want to color them completely. Just do enough to give the color but not obscure that it is a book.
5. I displayed them in threes with one at table height center in a doily that I cut with my Cricut. One was on a candlestick ($1 at Dollar Tree but left over from my mom's birthday.) Another was on a vase (another Dollar Tree purchase recycled form mom's birthday.) with scrapbook paper inside. I added two Halloween images (bats, skeletons, ghosts, etc.) printed on book pages. I also had a few pieces of scrapbook paper that were left from the doily that I placed under the pumpkins.