How to Make Easy Fabric Covered Books

4 Materials
$10
1 Hour
Easy
Have you seen the price of cute stationery these days? My daughter really wanted a pretty academic diary for the start of her new school year and I really didn’t want to pay for it – so we made our own! In this tutorial we show you how to make fabric covered books quickly and cheaply at home with gorgeous results.
What we used to make our Fabric Covered Books.
  • Cheap academic diary and a collection of hard covered notepads
  • A selection of fabric offcuts
  • Bostik Fast Tak Spray Glue
  • Bostik All Purpose Glue
  • Something disposable to protect our table (paper) and the pages of our books (kitchen towel)
We started by cutting a piece of fabric that would cover our book with an overhang of about 2cm all around.
We chose Bostik Fast Tak spray glue to stick the fabric to our books. This permanent glue adheres almost anything together including plastic, metal, wood and stone as well as the usual paper, card and textiles. It is perfect for this project where we are sticking two different materials together and don’t want any seeping through the fabric. You can choose to spray it on both surfaces you are bonding or just one depending on their properties and the results you are looking for.


Spray glues should be used in well-ventilated areas, so we worked outside since it was a beautiful day. We used kitchen towel to protect the pages of our book for any rogue glue.(You can just see it in the photo below). Remember to also protect your working area with something disposable as the adhesive is permanent.
We only applied the adhesive to our books not the fabric. We sprayed the Bostik Fast Tak on one side of our book smoothing the fabric into place. After giving it a couple of minutes to dry we flipped it over and sprayed the other side. It really is a quick and easy process, and we soon had a pile of books with their fabric stuck on.
To finish the edge of the books we used Bostik All Purpose glue. All purpose is a clear, strong and quick drying glue. It’s brilliant for repairs and crafts where you don’t want to be messing around trying to hold things in place as it bonds quickly.
We tidied up the fabric edges with scissors, so they had an equal margin. To ensure a neat finish, we cut two slits either side of the spine and pushed the flap into the gap, before gluing our edges into place.
And here they are. Five fabric covered books made in about an hour, at a fraction of the cost of buying them in the shops. - We think they look fabulous!
For more glue craft inspiration check out our Super Easy Plantable Seed Paper Cards and our Decoupage With Autumn Leaves which is a lovely craft to try with children.
Suggested materials:
  • Selection of stationery   (Amazon)
  • Fabric scraps   (From our craft supplies)
  • Bostik Fast Tak spray glue   (From our craft supplies)
See all materials
Craft Invaders
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
Next