Junk Journals Tutorial 2: Part 2: Making a Book Cover

Hi all, sorry for the long break! We've been celebrating Chinese New Year here in Singapore and now that it's nearly at an end, it's time for me to finish up this tutorial too!

Today's tutorial covers how to make a cover for your journal and is very useful when you are making journals of your own. Once you have some simple steps mastered, the technique can be applied to making any kind of journal.

Making A Book Cover

You will need:

Tools and Materials
Paper (This would become your cover)
End Paper (Any kind of coloured paper, for the inside of the cover)
Adhesive
Bookbinding stapler (Or ordinary stapler and eraser, if you are following my alternative stapling method)

Here, for this tutorial, I have chosen a page out of Frankie magazine as the paper for my cover. The paper from this magazine is quite sturdier and after the end paper is pasted, will become strong enough to act as the cover.

Step 1: Fold the top and bottom edges of the magazine page to your required size. To gauge the size, I've put the paper from Part 1 on top. Leave a few millimetres allowance at the edges.

Step 2: Fold the right side down but cut the corners away. You should have something that looks like the picture above.

Step 3: Take away the notepaper. Stick the right side down. Then do the same on the left side. 

We're almost done. By this point, the top picture shows the inside of the cover and the bottom picture shows the outside after I folded it in half. 

Step 4: Open the cover and stick the end paper of your choice on the inside. Here I chose a piece of white paper to keep a clean look. This will also cover any ugly folding marks you made.

Step 5: Open the cover and open the notepaper to the centre. Clip the notepaper to the cover as if it were a finished book. The clips will keep the paper in place and make it easier to staple.

 Step 6: Turn the whole thing over and staple the paper to the cover.

Done! Here is the finished journal when closed and the tools I used!

Like I said, this tutorial is handy for making covers for any kind of journal or notebook, so save it and keep it handy!