Bookish Halloween: How to Make a Magical Flying Book Pages Display

As part of my mission to create as much bookish Halloween decor as possible I made a magical flying book pages display for our reading nook.

This is one of the biggest displays I’ve ever made and I am obsessed!

It’s a fairly simple process, and DIY Halloween decorations don’t come much cheaper than this one.

Here’s how I made it happen:

Step 1: Prop Open Book

The anchor piece for my flying book pages is a thick book that has been propped open to look like the pages are standing up without any help.

To create this illusion, I used bobby pins!

(Paper clips would probably work too. Bobby pins were just what I had available.)

At first, I began bobby pinning the bottom of a small group of pages together (3-5 pages). And that worked for 8 or 9 groups. Then they started falling over.

So, I switched my method.

Instead of clipping the bottom of the pages together, I gathered a few pages and stuck one end of a bobby pin in the middle down towards the spine. When you lean the pages on the bobby pin that’s sticking up, it sort of stands up the pages.

This creates the effect that the book is magically opening and flipping pages on its own.

Step 2: Hang Command Hooks & Twine

Once you have your magical book ready, it’s time to work on the base for the flying book pages.

First, you’ll need to decide the path of the pages. I wanted mine to go from the bookshelf, over the chair, and to the entrance of the hallway. This display would pretty much take up our whole ‘reading nook’.

We hung one command hook on the bottom side of the bookshelf over the ‘magic book’, one over the middle of the chair, and one near the hallway where we wanted the display to end.

After the command hooks are hung, tie a knot in the twine and run it from the bottom hook (on the bookshelf), to the hook over the chair, to the last hook near the hallway and tie another knot.

To make sure that the twine wouldn’t slip out of the hooks, I also added a bit of hot glue over the tip of the hooks and twine.

Step 3: Make Rolled Pages

Once the base of the display is ready, it’s time to start getting the book pages ready to fly!

Tear pages out of your sacrificial book. We used “The Story of King Arthur and His Knights” by Howard Pyle. It has a lot of beautiful illustrations and I wanted to incorporate those into the display.

I rolled several pages into cone and cylinder shapes and glued them. These rolled pages will add dimension to the flying book pages so that they don’t look like a flat line of paper snaking across the room.

It’s helpful to rip out a stack of pages and make these ahead of time, so that you don’t have to stop to do it while you’re up on the ladder gluing everything in place.

Step 4: Glue On Book Pages

Now it’s time to make your page fly! Start adding the pages to your twine with hot glue.

The easiest way I found to do this was to place a big glob of hot glue in the middle of one book page and stick it to the twine. Then stick another page on the back of that, sandwiching the twine in the hot glue between the two pages.

(Note: Don’t stick the two pages perfectly together; off-center/twist the second page to make it uneven and create a more textured display.)

Add the rolled pages periodically throughout the display. When adding the rolled pages, prop the edges of the other pages on them. Otherwise, the rolls just look really weird and stuck on.

Step 5: Hang Pages on Fishing Line

Once the entire length of twine is covered, tape a few pages to a piece of fishing line. Then tape these free-flying pages to the ceiling near the display.

They’ll move around when the air blows and make everything look extra magical!

I also taped the edges of a few loose pages to the display for the same effect.

And you’re done!

I’m so obsessed with these flying book pages in my reading nook that I might just leave them up until Christmas.

Creating bookish Halloween decor this season has been so much fun and I can’t wait to add to the magic next year!