The Southern Mercantile Blog

Words From Fellow Southerners: DIY Fabric Covered Notebooks

2/18/2016

I have a great tutorial for you today! This project is a fun way to use beautiful fabric for those of you who don't sew and a great way for you sewers to use those scraps that you just can't bear to throw away. These fabric covered notebooks are easy and quick to create and make excellent gifts (How many days is it until Christmas?! *wide eyed emoji*

I'm a little obsessed with notebooks. I keep all of my notes and plans in one single notebook. I figure if I have that notebook and my planner, then all of my important information will be in one place. If you looked through that notebook, you might think that I'm a crazy person because it skips from design consultation measurements, to drawings of decorations for a birthday party, to fabric orders, to billing notes, to grocery lists… But for me it helps to know it's all in one place so I'm not constantly looking for little scraps of paper. I think most people have a use for a beautiful journal or notebook, so why not make one for them (or one (or 10) for yourself!).

Supplies:

Durable Cover Notebook
Fabric
HeatnBond Ultrahold (found at fabric stores)
Pencil
Scissors
Iron

For this post, I'm using a spiral notebook and only covering a portion of the front. At the end of the post, you'll see pictures of the same process used on moleskin notebooks in case you'd rather do that. Both really turn out beautifully. Side note: just make sure that if your notebook has a design on it, like mine does here, to pick a fabric that is dark enough so that you won't be able to see through it. If the notebook is solid colored (like the moleskin) this won't matter.

Ok, these instructions sound a little complicated but I promise it's not AT ALL. You can make these in about 10 minutes. Here we go!

1. Iron your fabric so it's nice and straight and a little easier to work with.

2. Open up your HeatnBond Ultrahold and lay it on your work surface paper side UP.

3. Trace the cover of your notebook onto the paper side of the HeatnBond with your pencil.

4. Cut the HeatnBond about two inches outside of the line that you just traced. DO NOT cut on the line you just traced- cut a larger shape around that line.

5. Following the directions on the package, iron the HeatnBond (I promise this is not an ad for HeatnBond. It's just really good stuff!) onto the BACK of your fabric.

6. Now cut the fabric very close to the paper (so that the fabric is the same size). Then you can pull the paper backing away. Your entire piece of fabric should have a layer of plastic-y film on it.

7. Now position your fabric on the front of your notebook (leaving about two inches hanging off around the sides). Next place your iron CAREFULLY in the middle of the notebook and heat the very center of the fabric until it stick to the front of the notebook. Try really hard not to heat the edges because they are hanging off the notebook and will glue themselves your ironing board!!

8. When you have the front "tacked down" with the iron, turn your notebook over and fold one flap in and iron down.

9. I like to trim out the corners (see photo below) so that there's not a lot of excess fabric and then fold the other sides in and iron them down too.

10. Finally I go back and iron the front and flaps again just to make sure they stick really well. Please be careful though, not to burn the paper. You are using an iron on cardboard so exercise caution! lol

Here's one of the moleskin journals- With these, the only difference is that I didn't use the "flaps." I traced the journal on the the paper side of the HeatnBond and then cut about an inch around my traced shape. I ironed the whole thing to the journal while is was laying flat and then used sharp scissors to cut around the edges really carefully. The HeatnBond (Maybe I should be getting paid for this…) will keep the fabric from fraying, so you don't have to worry about the raw edge.