Fabric Book Cover - Diary 2011

2010 - say hello to 2011....

This project takes me back to my school days.  Where we would take great pride in covering our school books at the start of the school year.  Back then we used brown paper or clear wrap to cover them, which although neat, was a little boring.  So for the last few years I have been covering my diary with pretty papers, pictures, stickers lots of colour and designs.

For my 2011 diary, I have decided to dip into my fabric scraps to create a fabric diary cover.    There are some great tutorials all over the net to help you get started if you wish to sew one.   However, a lot of the tutorials I came across involved much measuring, pining, sewing and using things like interface - which I don't have. I also get to use one of my absolute favourite craft material - double sided tape.  Double Sided tape is so easy to use, very forgiving if mistakes are made and also stays very strong.

Here is my step-by-step guide on creating a very quick and fab looking fabric cover:

You will need:
- Diary of your choice (hard cover preferable but not essential)
- 1 piece of fabric (enough to cover the diary with a 3cm seam all the way around)
- Fabric scraps in your choice of color (I chose cotton, both printed and plain, as well as printed linen)
-  Double sided tape
- 2 pieces of card stock in your choice of color
- sewing machine and thread in your choice of color

Step 1:  Open your diary and place it on top of the large piece of fabric you have measured and cut to size.

Step 2:  Place your chosen fabric scraps on top of the bigger piece of fabric. Arrange in the design of your choice and pin in place.

Step 3 - Head over to your sewing machine and sew the pieces in place.  I used a zig zag stitch and went in a crazy pattern.  It is totally up to you on how neat you want to keep this step.  I chose to go wild stylee!

Step 4:   This bit is just like covering your book with paper.  Take your double sided tape and line the edges of the inside flap of your diary.  Peel the backing and fold the fabric over pressing down as you go.  Do this to both the front and back inside cover of your diary.  It may look messy - but don't worry as you will cover all this up in the next step.

Step 5 - Using your chosen card stock,  measure and cut a piece large enough to cover up the inside flap.  You can use as much double sided tape as you like to secure this card stock to the inside.  

Tadaaaa!  Here is the diary all covered in pretty fabric - ready for 2011 adventures

Inside cover of the diary - hiding all sorts of messiness!

I hope these instructions are clear.  Its actually much harder than I thought to write a tutorial.  So if you have any questions just let me know.

Happy Monday everyone!