How to Easily Make a No-Sew Fabric Covered Junk Journal Cover Easy Tutorial The Paper Outpost

Hey everybody, this is Pam at the Paper Outpost and I've had a lot of coffee this morning so I am making some fabric cover journals and I thought I would show you a very easy process to do that. So if you want simple, quick, easy, but effective, come on along for the ride. Okay, I'm sort of semi-started here but I thought I would just show you what I'm doing. So I gutted some books and I took the center block out of the book and then I reinforced it with some kind of tape and I used Tyvek tape. You don't have to use Tyvek tape but that's extremely strong like household construction tape and I put a piece there. You can use masking tape, duct tape, or no tape and just put a piece of fabric there as well. Those will all work. But basically I'm going to show you how to quickly and efficiently cover a book cover. Let's say you want to make a bunch of Christmas presents for the family and you've got to crank these puppies out. All right, let's do this. Okay, so what I did, oh, long live the bed sheet. Okay, what I did was I took a piece of bed sheet and I coffee dyed it and it came out this beautiful, mottled, lovely old vintage Victorian look to it. It's a nice thickness of fabric for this particular procedure. So let's do this. And okay, so what I did was I measure. We're just measuring at the moment so you don't have to worry about right side, wrong side, anything like that. And just put your book down and I use, oops, sorry, whoop, oh heck. Stay in your little house. Okay. I use the tear method for this. It's very easy to tear fabric that way and it generally runs along a straight line. I like to give about an inch border for wiggle room and then you've got that to size. Okay. If you cut off all the edges of your bed sheet and tear those off, then it's much easier to work with the rest of the bed sheet. One bed sheet will last you forever. Okay. So now you want to keep your, your favorite side down, like the side you want to show on the outside of the book. Put that down. Okay. So here's here. Let me get that book. Okay. Let me get you a little bit organized here. Okay. So let's see what it is. Now, truth be told, I sing through this. Like I said, I've had a lot of coffee, so I'm just going to sing my way through this. I am sorry. I am apologizing now, but this is actually how I do it. Okay. So I look at the back of the book. Here we go. Okay. Most important thing, go around the edges. I'm using Fabri-Fix glue. It's a clear silicone glue, which is, go down the troughs, go up the troughs and then squiggle down the spine. Make a big X and then fill in the empties. Make a big X and fill in the empties. Come back here. All right. Got that. Okay. Now, here's probably the most important part, so you don't get bleed through. Bleed through seems to be the bane of everybody's existence. This helps a lot. I'm only using cotton, so bleed through is a high probability. You finger smoosh the bead lines out, push it to the edge so the edges get caught. Go down the valleys. Are you with me? Do the spine. Smoosh this side out to the edges. We move quickly through this because the glue does dry relatively quickly. And now, okay, we grab our book and we've got gluey fingers, but if you're okay with that, this really works well. Put it down. Shoot for the center. It probably won't be exact and that's okay. You have a little bit of movement time. Flip it over. There's lots of wrinkles. Okay. What you're going to do, you're going to come and pull. You got a little time. You can pull from the corners and you pull at the top of the bottom and then use your hand iron. Go from the center. Go out. Pull taut. Get some wrinkles out. Don't forget your little valleys. Get in there. You can also use your fingers and your thumbs if you don't have a bone folder. Okay. There we go. Nice and flat. Looks good. Let's flip it over. Looking at that, we got about approximately an inch. Maybe a little more. You don't need much. Put some glue on the corners. Oh yeah. Fabri-Fix glue is a clear silicone glue. Fabric to fabric, fabric to paper, paper to paper, not sponsored, just like it. Okay. You want right angles. If you forget what that is, it's like the corner of a square. It's a 90 degree angle. I don't do the cut like that. It's too cumbersome. This way, you never have a corner pop out. Okay. There we go. And now we go around the world with a big bead of glue. Same glue. I'm using a Sugar Bells icing piping bottle to distribute the Fabri-Fix glue. Going around. One big glue. One non-stop motion. You don't have to smush this. That's awesome. Only smushing is on the front. Okay. There we go. We've connected that. And then, let me go over here a little bit. I slide this to the edge, and then I can pick up the first. So you go, tot, tot, tot, which is also known as tight. Tot, tot, tot, pull it top, top, sharp corners, crisp corners. Okay. Tot, tot, tot, pull it down, pull it down, nice crisp corner. Tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, the glue on your hands actually helps you pull the fabric tight. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And now we do this side. Dot, dot, dot, tot, tot, tot. Double check corners are tot as possible. They will not be as sharp corners as if you did the little cut thing. But if you don't like doing the little cut thing, this is a great way around it. Okay. Here we go. Do, do, do, do, do, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot. Okay. There you go. And we're done. Okay. We have our book. Double check. Make sure all wrinkles are out. You can do more hand ironing. But there you go. There's your book. Remove any loose strings. And you got yourself a nice little fabric cover journal very quickly. No muss, no fuss. Everything is easy. And then you can just go ahead and cover this inside with fabric or with different pieces of paper. Maybe put a piece of strip, a strip of fabric down the center to cover that. That would actually look very pretty. All right. Let's do that since we're here. We have time, right? We have time. These books are red, so I've got red glue balls on my fingers. All right. Let's cut a little of this off. So this is a great way to completely use your bedspread. Your bedspread. Your bed sheet. Okay. There we go. We want to do about that long. Just a little lower. You can have it be a little higher too and have a little fuzz hang out at the top and the bottom. That's another cute look. But I'm going to do hidden. Hidden. Okay. And then we're just going to come and glue this. Okay. So we want glue in the center and glue up the sides. We're probably going to have to go back and just double check we get it all. Now this, I would also do a quick finger smoosh and that finger smoosh really saves the day because glue everywhere. There you go. Huh? Yeah. All right. And you could do it this way. You could actually do for a different look. You could put it on backwards. Oh, let's see. Yeah. Let's put it on backwards. It kind of looks cool. All right. So remember you can play with different things here. This is where the old artistic creativity comes into play. So yeah, wherever it's going to show, and this doesn't really show all that much other than the edges. The spine is going to have signatures on it. Mm hmm. And what do I do? I glue on this thin glue, squish it down so it didn't come through. No big deal. But if you're concerned, finger smoosh it because some fabrics are thinner than others or it might show through for some reason. Just come along. There you go. All done. And there we have our book. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There you go, folks. So I just thought I would show you that's a quickie. You want me to do it again? Okay. I'll do it again. Okay. Just in case. It was a little fast. I know. I know it was a little fast. Okay. So here's my bedsheet. Okay. Here's my bedsheet. What? You want me to sing again? I could sing again. Okay. Sorry. Sorry for those who are not a fan of the singing, but I'm in a singing mood today. I'm just feeling pretty happy, crafting, motoring along. Okay. Not even going to worry about the upside down, right side up because I don't know when you make a fabric cover journal, you could turn your, look it. So if you close it and you're like, oh, I really want that on the front, but oh, let's see. Oh, I put it like this. Okay. And I made it like that. We'll just remember that when you, you close it, but you flip it over, oh, it's that on the front again. So, um, that's kind of nice thing about covering a book with, um, fabric is that, uh, trying to free myself from these glue globs. Okay. Um, Sonny, you got anything to say? No. Okay, fine. Fine. Um, you sleeping? Yes. Okay. That's fine. Okay. I'm just peeling glue globs. All right. Ready? We're going to go again. Here we go. La la la. Where's my other one? Okay. Oh, did I do two already? I couldn't have done two. Oh, hang on. All right. So I got my book. Okay. Ready? Do your edges first with a nice bead of Fabri-Fix glue or Fabri-Tac glue or Beacon 3-in-1 glue or probably most kinds of silicone glue work well. So calm down the troughs beside the spine. Give a little snake squiggle down the spine. I'm going to go a little slower this time for you. Make a big X and then fill in the X and we're moving at a good pace so the glue doesn't dry. Oh, I lost half my X. All right. Here we go. We're filling in the X. All right. Okay. Now go down the troughs to the spine. Now glue, press, smoosh, smoosh, smoosh, smoosh, smoosh, and we're moving quickly here. Smoosh, smoosh, smoosh. Just take it to the edges. However you get it to the edges will work. Da da da da. Okay. Bad singing. I know. Oh, go get a cup of coffee and join me. It's not so bad. Okay. Try to remove strings. Okay. And we'll put that down in the middle as close as you can get. There you go. Flop it over and see what you got trying to remove the strings so you're not fighting with those. Now you're going to be stuck to those because that's what happens. It's okay. Now, hand iron out to the edges as best you can. Do a little pulling, corners, help, corners, and sides, and then come in with the big hand iron in the end. You can use your fingernails to emphasize the spine. Get in the valleys all the time. Oh, I'm rhyming now. That's awesome. Taking it up a notch. Okay. Flipping. Okay. You know, some people say, oh, they're glad I don't put music on the video. I wonder what they think about the singing. Like I said, I am. I am so sorry, but a little excited this morning. Okay. Going for the right angles. This doesn't require smooshing. There's no smooshing needed here. So the only smooshing that happens is on the front. Okay. So go for those right angles. You remember. Come on. Geometry somewhere. Way back. There we go. You're looking for what looks like a square, a square, a square, a square. Okay. Now we go around the world for completeness to get everything put together. Yeah. Coffee dyeing the bedsheets gives it a nice antique vintage sort of look. Tot, tot, tot, crisp corner, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, crisp corner, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, crisp corner, tot, tot, tot, tot, tot, crisp corner. And this is just giving you an option. There are a million and one ways to cover and make a fabric cover on a book. This is just one and it's fun and it's quick and it's easy and it's painless and you are just having a good time and things are coming together. It looks like a covered book. And also when you, if you have a white bedsheet, sometimes coloring it will also help mask what's beneath on the cover. So if you have a cover that's very loud and noisy, you can either cover it with a couple of pieces of white paper. That's another good little trick. Okay. So this guy's pretty much done. Let's just turn it over and make sure everybody's happy pants. Yeah. Very good. We are good. Okay. Um, do I have a piece of nothing? Okay. So let's say, pretend this is a white piece of paper. You could just cut out a white piece of paper to cover that and that will cover that. If you have a lot of noise on the spine and it's showing through your white fabric or something, you can come along with another piece of fat. Come on. There's another piece of fabric here somewhere. And you can actually layer that on top. Oh, wouldn't that be pretty? That's actually really pretty. Um, you know what you could actually do? You could, you could actually do this. Um, if you have a long enough piece of this, you could put it on the outside of the spine and you can glue it to cover the inside of the spine too. Wouldn't that be cool? But if you're, you're a paper, your paper, your fabric isn't long enough, you could just come in and make a bridge and just make sure you go wide enough so that you cover your tape or whatever the binder, uh, that you've used in the center. So there you go, folks. I hope that was fun. I hope it explained things. Why don't you try that? Okay. I'll try it. No. Should I try? Do I, do I? Oh, yes. I do have enough. Okay. All right. Let me make it wider. Oh, see this one. Yes. Are you wide enough? You are. Well, you might be too wide then for the back. Maybe. Yeah. Skip that idea for now. Let's just keep it simple. Simple. Yay. Okay. Um, let's just cover the inside. And if your book pages are pretty or your inside covers are pretty, and often they are in many books, you can just leave them naked because that's a cool old vintage look. Or you could put something on there like a piece of, um, a book page or a scrapbook paper or gift wrap. You could wrap, um, wrap a little piece of, um, let's see. Oh, I like that. That looks very pretty. Okay. Um, you could wrap a little piece of, uh, cardboard or cereal box or something a little stiff or cardstock or something to, if your paper is very thin, or you could just use the actual paper if it's thick enough. Yep. There you go. There you go, folks. There we go. Okay. Here. A little bit there. A little bit here. Let's stay it down. We're going to do the backwards thing because that apparently seems to be our thing. So this is reverse because I just think it looks kind of cool. A little, a little different there. If you didn't put enough, you can go back here, go right on the thing and you can do a finger smooch here if you want, if you're worried, but this fabric seems to be playing well. So not, not a big deal. And here all the way down the side. Okay. Oh, forgot to. Okay. If you got away on me. Okay. Whoa. Come back here. Wrong container. Okay. Um, so there you go. You can do a fabric covered book very quickly, very easily. Um, and if you have a bed sheet and an old book, and if you don't, and I know if some people are freaked out about, um, getting books, but let's say you go and you get a, like how to repair a refrigerator for, um, 1996, maybe something that nobody's going to read and you're okay with that practice with that practice with that, because you're going to find that this, this technique is actually really useful and it's already book bored and you're repurposing it, recycling it, um, for maybe something that somebody isn't going to read anymore. And you can do a lot of things with these. So if you have a, um, a set of these, when these make nice, um, journals for Christmas, I think so. So anyway, there you go, folks. I hope you had fun. Um, I guess this was just a little short video. I really don't have much else to tell you. Um, other than we could do putting signatures in, but I've, I've got other videos on that. Maybe I'll put a link below to that, or I will do that in an up and coming video. So there you go, folks. Take care. Have fun. Um, uh, my videos come out Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 7 a.m. Eastern time. My podcasts, which are new audio material, different from my videos, that comes out Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they are free to listen to on Apple or Spotify or eight other platforms, or there's just a link down below, uh, my video. Come here, Sonny. Want to say hi? I'm coming, Mom. I'm coming. I'm just getting ready for my makeup. I'm not ready for my makeup yet. I haven't done my hair yet. I'm so sorry. Um, hello, everybody. What else? Uh, a free monthly email newsletter. If you haven't signed up for that, go ahead and you're going to get a free digital image emailed to you every month. You don't even need to think about it after that. It just pops up in your, your email. And you'll also get a note from the bookmaker, which explains what a junk journal is. You can tuck this inside of your junk journal to help people understand what on earth you just gave them. And also some junk journal supplies that you keep your eyes open for. It's about seven or eight pages long. Just download it and take a look at that just to give you some ideas. And I have a Facebook group. The paper up was Facebook group with an awesome team of administrator and moderators to help us stay focused on weekly and monthly challenges as well as, um, uh, seeing what you guys make from these videos. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all your wonderful, creative, inventive, inspirational ideas. I'm learning so much from all of you and love our administrators and moderators. Thank you very much for all your hard work. And I have, and do I sell stuff? Yes, I sell stuff. I have an Etsy shop and an Amazon shop. In my Etsy shop, I sell things that I have made, either journals or what I call fundals, which are collections of old, antique, vintage papers, along with hand-dyed papers and unique papers that might be fun for anybody to start making a journal with. It's going to probably last you quite a few journals if you, um, uh, if you get a fundal. So, um, I make those periodically and I load them into my Etsy shop. And when they're available, um, if you see one there, uh, feel free to grab one. And I also sell vintage digital kits in my Etsy shop, which are printable downloads. So you download it, you print it out at home on your computer, and then you use that will, you own them forever. Um, and you can do pretty much whatever you want with them. Um, they, um, uh, are eternally saved for you on Etsy. So you never, you never lose them. Um, in my Amazon shop, I put all my favorite tools and supplies. Let's, so let's say you're wondering where I get these, these easy action style scissors. So they're easier on the hand or something like that. I put most of that in my Amazon shop, or sometimes I put a few links below if you're looking for something specific in a video, uh, below the video. You can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and, uh, my Facebook group. And also, um, uh, that's pretty much it. So if you're looking for any links to all this crazy stuff, it's all in the drop down description box below the video. And um, if you find value here, please like, subscribe, and share, and click the notification bell if you want to be notified of new videos that come out. And remember that fun can be simple and create with reckless abandon, everybody. I got to go peel my glue off. Take care and have fun. Bye bye.