Fire magic is a tricky thing to master. In order to really understand it, you’ll need a flame tome, but those can be hard to come by when you’re just out and about. In this tutorial mini-series, we’re going to show you how to make your very own flame tome prop using a hollowed out book as a base to start from. This prop is fun to make on its own, but it could also be a great detail to add to any flame mage cosplay you might be building. In this post, we’ll share part one of our tutorial on how to make a magical flame tome using CosBond and a few other materials you may already have on hand. Watch the video tutorial and get our step by step instructions below!

Flame Tome Tutorial Part 1: The Base

To make a flame tome that opens like ours, here’s what you’ll need:

• Fake, hollow book (we found ours at the craft store, ready-made to use as a starting point)
• Dremel with cutting and sanding attachments
• Faux leather/Vinyl (we picked a weathered-looking one on purpose to make the book look ancient)
• Fake LED candle
• Marker
• Scissors
• CosBond Attach & Build
• Hot glue gun/sticks

Once you have all your supplies gathered, here’s how to make the book base into a magical tome:

1. We specifically chose a hollowed out book so that we could use it to hold our goodies while we’re out cosplaying. We made sure everything we wanted to keep inside would fit before going any further.
2. Trace an area for your candle to go into your book. Cut that out, and then sand the edges if needed. We used a Dremel to make this quick and easy, but you could use a craft knife, scissors, etc. if that’s all you have. Try your best to smooth out the edges with sandpaper.
3. Now, trace your book onto some vinyl, leaving extra vinyl on the sides to wrap your edges with.
4. Cut your vinyl out, along with a hole for a candle.
5. Cut out long strips of CosBond Attach & Build and place it all over the edges of your book. Peel the backs of them, and stick your vinyl around your book.
6. Cut the vinyl at the corners, and then peel and stick on some Attach & Build. Begin wrapping the vinyl around the entire cover.
7. Finally, use some hot glue to stick your candle in place. And with that, we have the base of our Flame Tome finished. 

Using CosBond for Multi-Material Cosplay

Aside from just being a mess-free, fume-free way to get an instant bond for cosplay and props, CosBond is a great choice in adhesives because it works on almost any cosplay material you might be using. In order to stick the vinyl fabric to the cover of our composite cardboard book base. While these aren’t the most common materials you can build with, the great thing is that CosBond’s nontoxic, instant bond adhesive can stick them together permanently without any poor reactions (or falling apart). If you’re ever in doubt about which adhesive to use, CosBond’s peel and stick adhesives are the way to go.