The attachments I form to stories could be generously described as abnormal. As a fan, my mind tends to live in the aesthetic of one fictional world or another for weeks on end. I think that is why the physical representations of those stories, the props, are so endlessly fascinating to me. Replicating and decorating with props brings a part of their world into my own. An inside joke between me and fictional characters. But while my love for the story or characters may fade over time, my coveting of the physical object often remains. I have not watched an episode of I Dream of Jeannie since grade school, but I have painted more than a few Jim Beam Christmas decanters since then.

What the hell does any of this have to do with a magic book tutorial, you ask? Sabrina the Teenage Witch played on a loop in my living room for years when I was young. I wanted to be like that girl so badly it hurt. The magic, the bitchy-as-fuck cat, the linen closet portal to anywhere – what’s not for a 10-year-old to love? More than any of that, I wanted Sabrina’s magic book: the tome she used for the entire run of the show. Even at 10, I knew the pages were just ornate filler (a fact later confirmed by the prop master*), but I coveted that bejeweled behemoth more than life itself for a few formative years. I made my own versions out of sketchbooks and cardboard and would get giddy when I saw a rerun with a clear close-up shot of it. I could name those episodes by heart.

A few years later, my mind was unexpectedly taken over by it again when we (the book and I) ran into each other during a family trip to Disneyworld. If it were up to me, we would have had dinner at that Planet Hollywood every night, just to sit next to the thing. We only went twice, but I spent the entire second trip taking reference photos. The years went by, and despite occasionally being reminded of the prop when I came across the surprisingly good reference photos I took at 14, I never seriously considered replicating it, mostly because I could not see a reason to own a giant tome of blank, or bullshit pages. But, why not make it a keepsake box? Suddenly, I was reliving my childhood struggle to find the right rhinestones and braided border trim, and redrawing the crest in the cover over and over to get it exactly right.

Ultimately, I could not be happier with how it turned out. The book is far from screen-accurate but close enough for me to love and display it proudly. And even though I rarely watch Sabrina now, my 10-year-old self gets very happy every time I catch a glimpse of the book on my shelf. This project was really for him, anyway.

TUTORIAL TIME

First, you’ll need reference. Say a thanks to 14-year-old Matt and click the link to see the detail shots I took at Planet Hollywood and sketches I did recently of the title lettering and crest.

DISCOVERY OF MAGIC BOOK REFERENCE 

After way too much looking, I found the perfect base-box-book on eBay, an 11”x15”x5” version of “Treasure Island,” made by a company called Third Hand. Happy hunting.

At first, I thought I would have to cover it in a brown leather, until the book arrived and I found it was already covered in a thin faux-leather vinyl. Perfect for what I needed to do.

I started small, sculpting the raised top of the center seal with two-part resin. This is the same material a lot of action figure customizers use to sculpt new bits onto toys. I sculpted the green rhinestones into the resin when it was soft (which wound up being a bit of a pain when I was painting, but alcohol got off most of the paint).

Speaking of painting, I used various shades of brown, orange, and red, and several coats of each. Paying as much attention to my reference as I could to immediate the different gradients in the original leather. I was also careful not to cake on too much paint at a time, as I wanted to preserve as much of the vinyl’s texture as I could to help sell the illusion.

Happy with the painting I’d done, I printed out the title and the crest to size and used transfer paper and sculpting tools to stencil them onto the book in solid lines. I then used the sculpting tools to do my best to “emboss” the crest onto the book. Since the cover vinyl was not a thick piece of leather hide like the original prop, this process was a bit of an uphill battle. Imitating embossed leather with thin vinyl and cardboard is not ideal, but I went slow (read: this took for-fucking-ever) and ultimately came out with a crest that had enough depth to sell the look. I used a star-shaped embossing tool for the larger stars, and then etched in the small stars and the moon by hand. The title was easy-peasy, comparatively. Got done with that in no time, and added the appropriate hatch marks.

A bit of touch-up paint and gold-lettering later, I was ready to start with the two rows of border. I did my research on this one, and found what I believe to be the exact style of tools used to make the two, distinctive border bands on the original prop. This was a total fluke, in fairness, as the only reason I knew what tools to search for was that I happened upon a graphic in my endless Google-searching that named them exactly.

Using a rubber mallet and elbow grease I eventually got the borders clear enough to highlight in gold, though this process was deceptively difficult as well. The border tools are very detailed, and cardboard simply doesn’t hold a stamp as well as wet leather.

The gold border ribbon, tassels, and rhinestones were the last pieces. A few dabs of super glue and, voila, a perfect/bizarre keepsake box.

*So, quick story. After I got home from that Disney trip I’d found that the Internet was able to provide me with the name and address of the prop master for Sabrina, Bill King. I wrote him that October asking about the book, and got a call from him that November. This total stranger talked to a 13-year-old kid for an hour about the show, and the book, and what it was like to be a prop master, and it made my life. Eternal thanks to him for being so nice to a little nerd in Jersey.

UPDATE* I started making this prop around the time I started dating this girl, right? Long story short, it now stores keepsakes from our adventures and acted as the “guest book” at our wedding. See, it is magic.