Vinyl Notebook Cover Tutorial

I have been working on some extra little presents here and there and thought i would tell you all about the vinyl notebook cover!  They turn out cute and are sort of cheap and really don't take much time to make. Perfect for a quick and useful/reusable present all year long.

First lets talk vinyl. I got mine at Joannes.  They were around $6.00/yard. That is a bit much, but you only need a 12" cut. They come in 50-60" wide too so you get a lot for a little bit of purchase.  After sewing a few different kinds of vinyl I will say that the semi-thick ones are the best.  They have just a bit of padding on the backside making them a bit stiffer. They hold their stiffness better and won't bunch when sewing as much as the thin ones do.

So now we have the background, let's sew shall we?!

Materials needed for 1 book cover {these measurements are for composition books}:
* 10 1/2" X 16 1/2"  background for the cover
* 10 1/2" X 6"   inside sleeves
* misc. colored pieces for the picture you are putting on the front cover
* pinking shears or rotary cutter with pinking edge

* I would recommend using a larger stitch with these. Around a 3-4 or so. It feeds it a lot easier.

1) Cut all the materials needed for the book cover background and inside sleeves {in this pic below it shows all the edges are pink sheared. I did this for the first one, but it was too hard to keep lined up. I recommend waiting until the cover is sewn together and then pink shear them. Cut cut them straight with a rotary. Works perfect.
----you do need to pink shear one long edge of the inside sleeves as you won't beable to after it is sewn to the cover.

This is the pinking rotary cutter. Love it. Use it on the edge of fleece fabric for blankets and such. quick easy, wonderful!

2)  Find your pattern and copy/trace or make your own.  I used the discovery cards from the shape game--you know-- have a bunch of hard foam shapes, but them inside the card shapes and make what is on the card. They are very simple and straight forward. You can tell what they are. Perfect patterns.

3) Cut the shapes out of the vinyl.

4)  Place the larges piece on the front cover away from all edges and sew into place.

I sewed 1/8th inch from the edge. Now if they are thinner vinyl then they do have a tendancy to shift/pucker a bit...see the moon? and the smoke? Makes things interesting. live and learn.

5) Lay one inside panel on the backside of the front cover piece. Wrong sides should be together. Sew all the way around the edge- lining up the outside edge.  Continue around slipping the other inside panel in when you get to that point.  no pic on this, but it is easy. No turning out, trimming or anything! the outside raw egde is finished. You can trim this edge with the pinking shears and rotary at this point so they are cute.

6) Slip book inside the cover. You will need to bend it back a bit to get it in. Will fit just perfectly snug.

I made a total of 4. Here are the covers i did:

They are so not perfect! see the crooked cupcake, the lumpy moon and the sort of puckered truck? Well, that stuff is shifty and a bit sticky to the feet. So it does take some getting used to.

I homeschool and the kids use composition books for their handwriting, spelling and anything written. They can go through them so it will be nice to have a re-usable cover that they can just put onto their new book!

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