Kindle Cover DIY Tutorial

I'm really excited to share today's post with you. Here's the tutorial for the kindle cover that I made. It is very picture-heavy, but it is so much easier to see what's going on in pictures versus in words. I would say the whole project cost less than $5, which is so much better than the $20+ you could spend, and it's totally customizable. After figuring out the first one, I would say it took less than 20 minutes as well. It takes longer than that to look through all the online and in-store options!

Here's what you need:
- A composition notebook or other hard-cover book  (The sturdier it is, the better. I found a pretty sturdy one at Walmart for under $2. The black and white ones aren't super, but they'll still work.)
- Fabric scrap choices-
*one at least the dimensions on your notebook, plus 2-3 inches for folding over
*a strip in a coordinating pattern, optional
*flannel, fleece, or batting, optional, but gives it a little more sturdiness and padding
-1/8" elastic
- hot glue gun/sticks (I like it because it's so easy to work with. I went through about 7 or 8 sticks per cover.)
- cardboard scraps (at least the size of your kindle or reader)
- iron, optional
-scissors
-pencil or pen
-ruler
-your Kindle or tablet for measurements

Step One:
Remove pages from book. Just snip the strings.

Step Two:
Lay out your fabric to covering the outside of the notebook. This is why I said the iron is optional. As you can see, the fabric was very wrinkly, but if you pull it tight enough around the book, you won't be able to tell! Glue the fabric to the outside, pulling as tight as possible. Make sure that the fabric is wrong side up.Don't be afraid to use a lot of glue! You don't want it to be saggy. Turn it over and glue the fabric to the inside of the notebook.

Step Three:
Fold down any extra fabric you have. This part reminds me of the beginning of the school year when we would have to cover our books (before the stretchy book covers they have now) and we would use brown paper bags. I glued the corners down onto the fabric, to make the folding all of it down easier.

 

I used a lot more fabric than was probably necessary, but this way you don't have to worry about covering up as much of the notebook as you would if the outside fabric was cut shorter. I hope that makes sense! After folding and covering the book, we have that space to hide. Using the coordiinating fabric, cut a strip to your desired width. It has to be at least twice as long as the book plus some, so it will go all the way around. I attached it with the hot glue again (stick # 4 maybe?)

Put the notebook to the side. We'll come back to it.

Step Four:

Now we are going to start working on the home for the Kindle. Take your cardboard and cut to slightly bigger than your Kindle measurements. I would give measurements, but they are all different sizes... Cover the cardboard with your batting and fabric. Again, I used hot glue for this step as well. Pull the fabrics nice and tight so it doesn't sag.

Before (the back of the cardboard before fabric) and after (the front with the Kindle on it.) The extra space around it will make adding the elastic easier.

Step Five:
This is the hardest part of the project: marking where to put the holes for the elastic. Knowing that the holes should actually be underneath the Kindle so it can be nice and snug, I marked my holes 3/4" in from each side, and at a diagonal. I tried to show my measurements, but like I said, since they are all different sizes, it may be different for you.

Poke holes through all of the layers to thread the elastic through. I needed to use scissors and my cricut poker, but whatever works best for you! After getting the holes in, thread the elastic, about 4 inch pieces,  through your holes, with the ends at the back. Glue them down nice and tight so they don't move or loosen up. It's okay if it looks ugly, since it won't show anyway.

What it looks like with the elastics in place.

Step Six:

Take the whole middle piece, and using LOTS of glue, glue it into the notebook. This will cover any gaps you may have between all of the layers. To cover any gaps you may have on hte other side, you can glue in another piece of cardboard or coordinating paper.

 

 Now the main part is all done. If you want to, add a ribbon under that outside "binding" strip to tie it closed.

Here are all three of the covers I made (one for each of us and mom.) They can be held in either orientation, and since it's just a pretty-fied notebook, they don't take up any more room than that!

Now it's your turn! Let me know if you've made one and I'd love to share it!

Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Kindle Book Cover

We both got Kindles for Christmas this year and have been trying to find a case for them. The ones we've found are either too small or just too expensive. So after doing a Pinterest search, I found a couple of different types. I wanted a little more than just a sleeve, but also kind of like a book, too. Here's what I came up with.

 Since this was a first-try sample type, it doesn't look quite as awesome as I'd hoped. It doesn't look too bad, but hopefully the next one will come out even better. There are some things that I will change on the next one.

I used a cheap-o composition book as the base of the cover, and lots of hot glue. I'm going to do a tutorial on it when I make the next one for sister. (I kind of have to make her one. She made the beautiful flower on the front!)

Here it is standing up so you can use it on a table or other flat surface.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Change from the Norm- A Super Simple DIY

Happy Friday night, everyone! I know it's practically Saturday morning, but we hope you all have had a fantabulous week and have plans to enjoy the weekend. Today was the perfect end to a pretty dreary week here- 50 degrees and sun! That's like spring back home!! Oh, so much better than bone chilling temperatures and snow. There's room on the couch for anyone who wants to visit! Today's project is a little different from most of our posts, but it can be used in either warm weather or cold, or just to wear around the house.
Since most of the schools around here had half-days (silly, I know), I was 'fortunate' to start my weekend a bit early. When I woke up this morning, I had big ideas on how to spend my day. The biggest one was cleaning. It needed to be done. But no one really likes to clean, me included, so my brain decided it wanted to do something else more fun. I could have done a paper project (and probably should have), but I really wanted to make something out of fabric. One of the accessories I like to add to an outfit is a little scarf, sometimes to add a pop of color, others because some of the classrooms get uncomfortably cold. We have a huge bin in the closet full of scrap fabric and so I decided to make a scarf with some of the scraps. This is what I came up with:

(It was either the lamp or the vacuum cleaner...my model has gone to bed and I haven't quite mastered the art of taking good self-portraits.)
Now, it was super easy to make this scarf. The project (if done correctly the first time) could be done in under an hour and with only a little bit of fabric. After spending more than enough time trying to figure out what kind of scarf would look good in white flannel (there are quite a few differnet types- scarves, fringed, frayed), I decided to make a 'curly' scarf. There are a whole bunch of tutorials on how to make these, but the idea is super simple. You take your fabric (old t-shirts work well, too) and double layer it. Trace a circle, about 10" in diameter, onto the fabric and cut it out (for an 'adult' length. The bigger the circle, the longer the scarf.) The next step is to cut both layers into a spiral. They don't have to be perfect and you can most likely cut more than one at a time. My scarf has 10 strips, but you can add more to fluff it up. I wouldn't go smaller than this. Find the half-way point of each strip and then put it on. It's that simple. You can add a few stitches to the back to keep the layers in place, but they've stayed pretty well all day, even after taking it off a few times. Onto the flower:

This is where I spent most of my time- trying to figure out what kind of flower I wanted to add to the scarf. I tried the rolled ones, but it was just not working for me. It was a hot mess- figuratively and literally, with all the glue from the hot glue gun. After three failed attempts, I decided on this one. There are also tutorials out there on how to make these, but again, they're super easy. This is the tutorial that I followed. I cut out a 3.5" flower from some black and pink fabric and tulle. She said to use 9 flowers, but I added a few more to make it a bit fuller (OK, I also misread one of the directions and glued my black layer down by accident.) I folded the matching tulle into the flower, to give it a little pizzazz. I sandwiched a cheap black elastic between two pieces of felt, so my flower can be interchangeable. This flower just happened to match the rest of my outfit (socks included) quite nicely! I guess tomorrow's project is to make some more flowers. Or to continue cleaning....such a hard decision.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another Cupcake Saturday!