Covering School Books
An Easy-to-do, Back-to-School Children's Project
Get ideas for covering children's schoolbooks with paper.
With back to school comes back to books. Covering your children's schoolbooks with materials such as parchment paper or brown paper grocery bags will not only protect them from routine wear and tear, but also keep them looking their best throughout the year. Covering schoolbooks is a great project to do at the beginning of the school year either with your children, or you can let the children make the covers themselves. With several basic craft supplies and some creativity, your children will be able to create fabulous covers using the ideas we've gathered below.
Children can personalize their book covers by creating drawings on or pasting images onto the paper covers. Even if your children are all grown, there's no reason not to cover books on the shelves of your home library. You can easily make parchment covers to place on favorite books in your library that have lost or damaged book jackets. These parchment covers can also be used to wrap over book jackets you want to preserve, such as a rare book or a book that you routinely use. Visit a local stationery store for more types of paper, tape and other craft supplies that can be used for this project.
TECHNIQUE
Making School Book CoversMaterials:
- Parchment paper or brown paper bags
- Scissors
- Tape
- Sun prints, or other desired images
- P-touch labels, or marking pens
Directions:
Parchment Covering Technique
- Measure the height of the book you want to cover. Measure the distance from the front to back covers. Add 6 inches to each measurement. Mark these measurements on a piece of parchment.
- Fold, using the measurements as a guide, to create the top and bottom flaps for the cover. Open the book, and place it face down in the center of the paper.
- Fold over the front and back paper covers creating flaps. Slide the inside flaps and newly created folds over the book covers. Secure the flaps on the front and back covers with tape.
Paper Bag Covering Technique
- Fold the paper bag equal to the height of the book, creating top, bottom and side flaps.
- Using a Sun print, or another desired image, create a border for the image using tape along each side of the print. Apply the taped image to the front paper covering of the book.
- Create a label for the book with a P-touch labeling machine or use marking pens to make a label.
Tip: An old map, covered with parchment paper, makes a unique (and highly appropriate) cover for a geography book.
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