Scavenger Chic

Halloween Apothecary Jar and Spell Book

• By Joan
• October 15, 2014
• 8 Comments

Add to Flipboard Magazine.

The other night, while cruising around the World of Pinterest, I happened upon these fantastic Apothecary Jars  from MagiaMia.

I thought they were so cool.  I even eyed the vitamin container in my own  bathroom trashcan.  Which by the way hubby, should be in the recycling, but that’s another story.  I loved her lettering, her use of a glue gun, and even her use of a bottle stopper.

That same evening,  I found  these spell books  from  Better After.  They are works of art.  I also loved how the book has a little bit of a leather texture.

I read both tutorials and had them fresh in mind while I was at Michaels the next day.  I round the corner in their Halloween section and find that they too had apothecary jars and Spell books.  Now I’m thinking, I just have to make my own…it’s gotta be fate that I’m seeing them everywhere.

Now Michaels bottles were fairly easy, they just took old looking labels and decoupaged them onto old looking bottles.  They did have fairly cool labels, such as  Spider Cider,  Wool of Bat, Bone Preserves,  Feather of Raven and Blood of the Undead.  

Now if you want easy, The Graphics Fairy , has a great selection of potion printables that you can download.  The Party Planning Center Blog also shows some witches brew and bone rejuvenation tonic Halloween downloads.  And there are even more over at Itsy bitsy Fun.

Anyway…back to my trip to Michaels.  I don’t remember what I went in for….

…but this is what I went out with.   The letters have a little dimension to them, and the Eiffel Tower book is actually a box.  I have tons of old books but a box that looks like a book..perfect for keeping Halloween candy , and of course my spells.   It also didn’t hurt that it was 60% off.   The bottle was from my own collection, I had found that years ago.

For the book, I cut a banner out of craft foam to hold my title.

Glued on a plastic snake and foam dots for decoration.  Better After had used thumb tacks for deco, but I’m all for using what you have.  Also added the lettering from Michaels.

Covered the entire book with a layer of wrinkled tissue paper and modpodge. Tried to work the modpodge in especially around the lettering snake and dots.

The bottle got the same treatment.  Now just have to wait for the modpodge to dry.

Once dry, gave both the bottle and book a coat of black spray paint.  As soon as this was dry went over both pieces with a stippling (stenciling) brush loaded with a combination of black and brown.   A little bit of the shiny black showed through, but overall the effect was a dirty flat black/brown.  Once again, had to wait for my pieces to dry.

With a dry brush, went over the entire piece with gold paint  emphasizing  the texture.  I did go back with a small paintbrush  and black paint to make the lettering crisper.  My spells book was done.

What’s Halloween without a little blood?  This blood is red crayon  melted and dripped on top and allowed to drip down the sides.  Couldn”t really cover the neck too well without holding the bottle sideways, so ended up using hot glue around the neck and painted with red glossy paint.  Now I had lots of ooey gooey blood.

Now for the top.  Any top  this bottle once had was long gone.  I had to improvise with a wine bottle cork.  It was cut in half and tree bark was hot glued in place to cover the cork and high enough up to create a cup.  Inside the cup I placed dried moss and my raven eye.

The eye was just a wooden ball, painted black.  Modpodged to the top was just the round part of this eye.  I had googled images of evil eye and this eyeball popped up.

With  gloss modpodge, the eyeball looks pretty real.

The Raven (crow) was from the dollar store, I believe he wants his eye back and you can find out how to put the pallet wood base together here.

Oh, and I remember why I was in Michaels, I needed some string lights.

Shared at  The Penny Pinching Party , Thank Goodness its Thursday ,  Handmade Hangout Party, Link Party Palooza,

Make it Monday , Show me Saturday, DIY Sunday Showcase, Masterpiece Monday,

 Metamorphosis Monday  and Home and Garden Thursday

and I was featured at

Related posts:

My 2 Favorite Box Costumes Fall Decorating with Pallet Wood Crows and Skulls under Glass Spooky Halloween Window