Fall pumpkins from recycled books

I love what people do with used and unwanted books. I played around with the idea of the pumpkin made from a book. And added my own methods and look.

It is perfect for Halloween, as well as Thanksgiving. I love a season craft that bridges two holidays.


I started with used books from the free bin in front of a local used book store.


My requirements included lots of pages, clean pages, and a good spine.

First I cut off the covers and spines... these maybe a future kindle covers! Then I began carving the pumpkins shape (half a pumpkin, actually) with an x-acto knife. A knife is easier than using scissors.









HINT: use the bottom of the book edge for the bottom of the pumpkin to add stability and save some cutting time.

Then I cut jute rope to a length that went the length of the spine. One end is hot glued, the other is wire- wrapped. The wire-wrapped end is the "view" end. The other end goes in the center of the pumpkin.











Next, using hot glue, attach the rope to the center of the spine and glue the book all the way around the rope. Then flex the book pages to make the page spaces as even as possible.

Lastly, I choose to add seam binding loops and Spanish moss at the top.

Cute, cute, cute and easy to make with, most likely, things you have around the house!

I'll let you in on a secret...

So, I love secret pin boards on Pinterest. It is where I store all the great ideas that I want to interpret into my own style. I am working on my Halloween shop design, as I type, and I thought I would share a couple of ideas I plan to interpret in my shop in Interiors and Antiques in Vestavia Hills.

The first comes from Sagebrush Ridge and is a pumpkin from a book. I am interpreting into different shaped pumpkins and I think I will be doing silver wood stems and silver pages with silver vintage German glitter.


This item is actually for sale on Etsy from The Dusty Raven, love the shop name. I love the concept of the corner spider web. I'm thinking silver, not barbed wire,  less Tim Burton-ish and probably a wire spider that hangs low from the web.



A few years ago, when I was a corporate librarian, I decorated a library space for Halloween with waves of bats circling the main reading room. The image below reminded me of that space. (It is actually Martha Stewart's bat mobile) I will definitely be doing the walls in wave of bats in the shop. I'm thinking the look will be like the Bat Cave in the Devil's Sinkhole State Natural in Texas where the bats emerge from at dusk most of the year.



What are you storing, secretly, on Pinterest?

Warding off evil at home- haint blue, jack-o-lanterns and bottle trees

Great Haint Blue porch from franklinpainting.com

Tis the season to to protect the home and hearth from ghosts, ghouls and goblins. Historically, keeping out spirits was a year around battle. The best protections was to keep them from entering the home through windows and doors, scare them away or to capturing them in the yard.

Common to the Southern United States is a shade of blue that was painted on porch ceilings and inside window frames. This color was intended to prevent ghosts, commonly called "haints" a derivation of haunts, from entering the home through the openings. It is a lovely shade of sky blue that rather extends the sky onto the porch. Perhaps that is how it ward off evil spirits, at night the porch looks like day and everyone know spirits called haunt you during the day. Haint Blue on the porch gives even the most modern home a historic context and feels like a cool drink of water on a hot day.

Carving ghoulish faces in fall vegetables are common in many parts of the world. Typically the indigenous vegetables are placed outside the home to scare away the local goblins! Of course pumpkins are common in the States, however, in Europe, large turnips and rutabagas are used. Pumpkins are not just for Autumn, the color is flattering to all skin tones and makes a lovely color for gathering places like family rooms and dining rooms.

From Walterreeves.com

Capturing spirits before they get to your house and are warded off by your haint blue. Bottletrees were originally designed to capture spirits by hanging bottles from trees or by placing the bottles on ends branches. With so many colors of bottles available, the bottletrees create a stain glass effect in your lawn. Driving in the country, often the bottles are blue. Perhaps there in a correlation between the haint blue and the blue bottles Or maybe, people in the country use a lot of Phillips milk of magnesia.