DiY Project: Book Covers

Hive, I'm so excited to share this project with you! Not only because I puffy pink heart how these turned out, but also because you get to see how crafty Mr. Tartlet is. He's had weekends off this past month (glorious!), and has been the driving force behind the creation of these babies:

Book covers for our wedding programs! Now, how on earth did we get this idea planted in our minds? A while back I came across these brochures that Megan of Kelly Oshiro Events created.

(source)

Swept up in the torrent of paper passion, I pointed these out to Mr. Tartlet and exclaimed that I would love to incorporate these into our wedding somehow. After I had calmed down and the moment passed, the reality of tackling yet another DiY project set in and I mentally pushed these down on the priority list. However, Mr. Tartlet was a man on a mission and couldn't be stopped. Because he made these, I asked him to write up a tutorial for all of you. I handed the keyboard over to my hubby-to-be, and this is what he came up with:

Step 1: Buy/round up supplies

Step 2: Buy materials

Step 3: Cut materials to appropriate sizes

Step 4: Glue book cover to thick-ish cardboard stock

Step 5: Realize they call it a bone folder 'cause it's real bone

Step 6: Flatten corners

Step 7: Profit???

/end Mr. Tartlet

...

Alright, so clearly some teamwork was in order to add a Weddingbee-twist to his tutorial. Pull up a seat, turn on some music, and follow along!

Basic materials:

• Jade 403 PVA glue. This is a pH neutral, acid-free adhesive specially formulated for bookbinding. It may look and smell a lot like Elmer's glue, but Elmer's has a lot of extra stuff in it that can eat away at your paper over time. Plus, it has a bad tendency to wrinkle. We also tried using spray adhesive, but this succeeded only in getting us slightly high off the fumes and the covers came apart over time. Note: it's currently winter here, and Mr. Tartlet learned that if this glue freezes during shipping it becomes unusable. Luckily, we found it at a local paper shop.
• A 1" bristled brush (we found a 99 cent one at the paper shop). Easy to clean with the water-soluble Jade 403. Don't use a sponge brush, as these are flimsy and will fall apart as you work with drying glue.

• Standard 0.087 book board (left), purchased from a local paper shop in large sheets. The simplest way I can describe this is really thick and stiff cardboard. Mr. Tartlet cut them to size (4.25" x 5.5") using an everyday box cutter. The paper shop did offer cutting, but it would have been quite expensive.
• Italian (Cialux) book cloth (right) in Sand. This book cloth is made of 100% woven rayon with a paper backing, which makes adhering the cloth to the book board a bit easier. Mr. Tartlet ordered this online by the yard (53'' wide) and cut it to dimensions of 5.5" x 6.75". You'll see why it's larger than the board in a sec. There are lots of different types of book cloth available, but we chose this one because it was towards the lower end of the budget spectrum.
• Bone folder (seriously, the best $8 I've spent when it comes to crafting)

Eventually accordion-style inserts will be placed in between the covers with panels of the dimension 3.75" x 5". That's another tutorial for another day, though. Onward!


Step 1: (Optional) Pour the glue onto a disposable plate for ease of coating the brush. Start out with pouring small aliquots since you're racing against the glue's dry time. It's easy to get distracted and come back to a dried glue pancake!

Step 2: Apply the glue to one side of the book board in a very thin, even layer while still covering the board. Going glue crazy can mean bumps and wrinkles later! Let the glue set for a short period of time (~15-30 sec) until it becomes tacky (think post-it sticky). The glue doesn't stick well when soaking wet. While the glue was setting on the board, Mr. Tartlet went ahead and completed Step 3, which usually ended up being just the right amount of waiting time.

Step 3: Apply a layer of glue to the paper (non-textured) side of the book cloth, leaving the edges to coat later. Again, use the glue sparingly while maximizing coverage. Center the slightly dried book board (glue side down) over the book cloth and then smush the two glued sides together:

Step 4: Flip the cover over. Use the bone folder (or a dull-edged ruler) to smooth the contact area between the board and the cloth. Flip the cover back over over and apply glue to each of the four corners, covering both the cloth and the board. Fold each corner over. It may take a bit of practice to become a corner master, young Padawan: fold it too close and you get a gapped seam; fold it too far out and you end up with an extra bump of cloth at your corners.

Now you should have something that looks like this:

Step 5: Apply another layer of glue around the edges of the cover, again covering the cloth and the board. Fold the remaining edges over. Mr. Tartlet waited to apply the glue to the edges until now because he found out that it dries fairly quickly when spread thin.

Step 6: At this point, the parts you folded over probably look a little wrinkly. Use your bone folder to smooth everything out.

 Step 7: Step back and admire your work! Ooooohhh...aaaahhhhh...

There you have it, Bees! This style of cornering has a pointed edge, and when done correctly has an aligned seam with no overlying flap. Below is a picture demonstrating the difference between a "good" corner and a "bad" corner (that has a gap from folding too close in Step 4):

Another style is shown in picture #2 (the Kelly Oshiro brochure). This is the more traditional book corner, in which the sides are folded over first, and then the bottom is folded up creating a flap. Thus far, Mr. Tartlet has completed 24 books (48 covers) out 50, and by his estimate he averages 6-8 an hour while being distracted by the TV. We still have to design and insert the accordion panels as well as figure out a way to keep the entire thing shut, but these covers were definitely the most time-consuming part of this DiY project.

We hope that this post was informative and helpful, and that perhaps some of you will be adventurous and try your hand at it sometime! Remember, don't hesitate to delegate and accept help from someone who is willing and able! Signing off from this joint edition,

XO ~ Mr. and Miss Tartlet