Afternoon of Crafty-ness: Book Covering

So lately, I have been relaxing (a tiny bit each weekend) by doing random paper crafts. drawing, and writing snail mail letters to friends.  Nothing too crazy, but still, just enough to allow me to be "artsy" without the constant critique of the practice room.  Don't get me wrong, I love practicing!  But practicing is my work.  It's freeing -- the same way a performance is freeing -- to be able to do something artistic without actually critiquing yourself in the search for that elusive highest artistic performance.

Little project -- re-cover an old journal I have lying around.  It's been filled up for awhile now, so I'm not writing anything else in it, but I have at least 3 other small black notebooks just like it.  I can't even remember the number of times I have grabbed this book, thinking it was the current one.

My roommate, Qiudi, was so kind to introduce me to Rubber Cement craft glue.  This glue is awesome, because it is (obviously) rubbery enough to help prevent wrinkles when working with paper.  I never did so well with traditional Elmer's glue, or even glue sticks...so this was great!  

This was my first book-covering experiment, so it's not perfect by any means; however, it was definitely fun!

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First, my tools:  slightly tattered journal, two kinds of paper, and some rubber cement.  The rubber cement reminded me of the glue for PVC pipe, but thankfully it's not nearly as stinky.

Isn't the paper cute?

Yeah, I obviously like this paper.  It's just nice, cool tones.  And whimsical!  I like whimsical.

Apply rubber cement to each surface - then stick them together.  Super easy.  

The first corner didn't turn out quite so well, because I was still figuring out the angles to cut.  No, I didn't pay $12.95 for this small book.  I think it was $3.

From the front (of the back cover).  Not too bad.

Getting ready for the finishing paper.  It's plain white cardstock.  Next time, I will just use plain white paper.  Cardstock may have been a tad overkill.

Finished back cover.  View from inside, plus pretty paper for front.  

Prepping the front - the glue is almost dry.  You can wait til the glue dries to put the paper together, or place them together when it's still wet.  If it's dry, though, you have to put it in the right place the first time, because it won't be going anywhere.

Yeah, I got the front a tiny bit crooked.  Before arranging the corners.

Despite crookedness, the corners turned out MUCH better.

And, a finished view of the inside front cover.  No, your monitor doesn't have spots on it -- that's actually the awesomeness of rubber cement.  If you have excess around the edges, it comes off quite easily in small rubber balls.  Vacuum them up, then you have a cleanly finished book/envelope/etc. with no trace of glue or tape!  I had begun to remove the excess glue here.  This aspect of rubber cement is my favorite.  If you are a bit clumsy and tend to drop things, or accidentally paint glue somewhere it doesn't need to be, the cleanup is very forgiving.

And...

I'm finished!  Back view:

And front view:

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I would call it a successful first book-covering excursion.  Next time I think I'll try something a little more complicated.  Fun times!