Covering a cake board... a tutorial.

I've taken to standing my book art projects on a covered cake board, for presentation purposes. It really finishes the project off. This tutorial will take you step by step through the process of covering a board.

So, here we go.
You will need a thin cake board, large enough for your book fold to stand on.
Your chosen wallpaper, to match or compliment your book fold's colour scheme; it needs to be large enough to easily cut 2 circles the size of your board with an overlap.
PVA glue and brush.
Double sided tape.

Lay your cake board on to your wallpaper and draw around the board. This first circle will be the visible paper on top of the board. If you wish a particular bit of the pattern to be shown, position your board first in the right place.

Draw the circle on the wrong side of the paper and put the board to one side. Draw another circle outside the first line, about 2 inches/5cm larger.
Cut out the bigger circle.
Now cut in to the inner line, making a small fringe all the way round. My fringe segments are about 1/2"/ 12-15mm wide.

Before we go on to the next step you need to draw a second circle on another piece of wall paper. Now draw a line about 3-5mm inside this circle and cut out using the inner line. This circle will cover the back of your board. Put this to one side while you cover the front of the board.

...so the next step is to fix the paper to the board. 
Cut a piece of double sided tape and position it in the centre of the board, or in the centre of your paper circle. 
Stick the board to the wrong side of the paper.

Now get your glue and brush out. 
Glue the strips to the board, one at a time, overlapping where necessary and keeping the edge as neat as possible.

When you've glued all of the strips, glue either the smaller paper circle or the board itself; position the circle centrally on the back of the board, covering up the edges of the overlapping strips.

...and there you are... a covered cake board to compliment your finished project. 

Any questions or comments please feel free to use the comment box below... happy sticking!

Update & up to date...

Afternoon peoples... it's been a while since my last post... the dreaded #Fibro and #ME reared their ugly heads again and decided to hang around for quite a while.
However, in between the bad days I have managed to get a bit of crafting done; I've made some hair decorations for 3 of my granddaughters and also finished of some bookart projects.
So... firstly here are some of the hair bits, these first 3 are matching, as the girls are all sisters. 

These are all the same colour pink but they photographed differently.

Three bows for three sisters.

These next ones are for school, for the eldest.

...and these are a selection, so that their mum can make a choice. 

Shabby chic, on a pink Alice band.

Double stacked twisted boutique bow on a clip.

Blues, white and daisies on a stretchy band.

Aqua and white on a clip.

Spotty lilac and satin on a clip.

The Book Art projects. 

This book fold was actually for a competition. The pattern was for a horse & we could decorate it as we wanted. 
Unfortunately this was last month, just as my Fibro and ME took off with a vengeance, so the closing date came & went with my entry half finished. 
To be honest this was the least of my worries at the time, this recent bout really knocked me for six; when I realised that I'd missed the deadline, I made sure that I finished it when I was able... it won't go to waste (it will make a great present). 

A Magical Forest; The Unicorn.

The stylised trees.

I really liked the way the cover turned out; the stylised trees echo the inside cover and stand out well against the background of decoupaged doilies. I finished the trees of with a touch of gold on top of the white, with added sequins and gold skeleton leaves.

The second book fold was for my friend, she wanted a BookArt present for a new baby ...whose name is Bluebell. I used images of old bluebell flower fairies for the cover and I was very pleased with the result.

The 'Bluebell' book was finished off with bluebell coloured ribbons, glitter, white crocheted flowers, butterflies and handmade paper flowers.

Bluebell, finished with crocheted flowers, glitter and ribbons.

A bluebell fairy, and the handmade paper flowers.

Well folks, that's all for the moment; I hope you like what I've been doing while I've been laid up, hopefully the next ME & Fibro flare won't be quite so bad as this last one.

I shall be back before you know it. Stay safe & take care of each other.

Don't judge a book-fold by it's cover... until it's decorated!

Morning crafters and spoonies... When I started writing this tutorial, 'How to cover a book', I'd been awake for most of the night. It was only at 06:27 that I feel like sleeping... it's a peculiarity of the Fibro/ME/CFS combination. 
Sleep disturbances, including insomnia, coupled with extreme & chronic fatigue, how contradictory can you get?... anyway I thought 'aah well, I shall try and stay awake now and make a start on this tutorial'... that was 3 weeks ago and at last it's finished... so here goes!

Since I started book-art, or book-folding, I've become increasingly interested in the cover decoration. In order to get a professional finish you'll need a foundation for your decorations, this can be done by recovering your hardback.
This tutorial shows you the basic instructions on how to cover a book. 
Applying other decoration is left up to you & your imagination... I may even do another tutorial looking at decoration in the future, who knows :)

You will need:-
Paper to cover the book, a good wrapping paper or wallpaper.
Contrast paper for the inside cover (optional).
Scissors or a blade for cutting. 
A ruler and pencil.
A small household paint brush, about 1"
PVA glue 
Double sided tape.
Plastic bag, a carrier bag will do nicely.
A hard surface, a tray will do.
Hot glue gun, if you have one.

Read right through the tutorial first, so that you have some idea of the steps and what you will need to do.

Cut a piece of paper to fit around your book. 
Lay your book on the paper; you can draw around the book if you like, until you get used to covering your books. Draw another line around the first, leaving a border of about 4cm. Cut around this outer line.

Make sure you press the spine down after marking one side and before you mark the other. 

Mark where the spine's opening meets the front and back covers. Cut 2 small V shapes, pointing down to your marks, either end of the spine. The shape in between these marks will be slipped down into the spine cavity as we cover the book.

Getting ready to glue. 
Lay your paper right side down on a clean flat surface. I often use another piece of wallpaper placed on a tray. That way you can move your project out of the way quite easily, while it's drying.
I use PVA glue, thinned slightly with water to make it more brushable. 
Brush your glue, quite liberally, on to the paper.
I then quickly wipe the hardback with a wet cloth, not dripping wet, but enough to help it absorb the glue on the paper & adhere nicely. 

Quickly place the closed book on to the paper, matching the first V with the fold of the cover & spine. Wrap the paper around the book, smoothing it out as you go. If your paper is already starting to dry at the edges, peel it back carefully and brush on more glue before smoothing it back into place.

Place the covered book on the plastic bag, this prevents the cover sticking to the paper or surface it's laying on. PVA will peel of a plastic bag but if your cover sticks to the paper/surface your cover will not be usable. Leave it to dry.

When the cover is dry start to fold the excess over to the inside of the book. Using double sided tape stick the excess to the inside of the cover. Don't worry about the flap on the spine, we'll do that in a minute.

I mitre my corners and trim them, as in the next picture. This gives a flatter surface under the book's inside cover paper.

Pinch the two edges together at the corner, creasing them at the join. Trim as close to the join as you can, being careful not to cut it to short, it's better to be able to trim again than to have a gap.

Lift both edges, apply a bit of glue under one and press it down on to the cover. Apply more glue to the other edge, fold in the corner and stick down well.

This isn't the neatest mitred corner but it serves it's purpose well enough for this project. Most of this corner will be covered by the inside cover. 
If the paper is a really heavy paper I'd recommend using a hot glue gun for the corners and for the spine. It's a lot faster and more secure.

Trim your spine tab so that it fits easily inside the spine cavity. Be careful not to trim to much at the corners, you don't want to see the original cover.
Apply some glue to the tab and pop in down inside, press firmly to get a nice neat edge.

Cut two pieces of paper to fit inside the front and back covers. 
Measure from the fold of the spine to the edge of the book and subtract about 2mm. You only need to subtract a border allowance for one edge because the other edge butts up to the body of the book and spine and doesn't need a border.
In this pic the measurement is 12.7cm, take away 2mm for the outside edge border= 12.5cm

 Do the same for the height. Measure from edge to edge and subtract the same amount at each end for the end borders. This measures 19.8cm. Take away 4mm= 19.4cm (it's 2 mm for each end remember!)

You should have a piece of paper measuring 12.5cm x 19.4cm, that fits snugly into the crease of the spine and has an equal 2mm border all round the edge of the cover.

Apply double sided tape to the inside cover and carefully stick your inside cover paper in place.

Again, if you're using a particularly heavy paper I'd use hot glue, carefully, around the edge to keep it from lifting.

That's it, you've covered your first book-fold. Now you can decorate it to co-ordinate with your book design. 
I hope this has helped, feel free to leave a comment or even to ask questions... I'll do my best to help x

JustGiving and a Paw and crossbones...

I've recently set up a Just Giving page, to raise money for Fibroduck, the charity that raises money for research and awareness into Fibromyalgia.
From now on all money raised from the sale of any of my makes will be visible on this page.
You can also make a donation yourself, directly to Just giving, on this page...

https://www.justgiving.com/DreamIt-MakeIt-LoveIt/

Our little Ozzy has been feeling the cold, so I made him a jumper, mainly because I couldn't stand him shivering :)
I combined several patterns and this is what I came up with...

A flower by any other name...

I've been having a go at my very first bookart. I'm making my first folded word, a present for my mum's birthday. 
As part of the decoration I've made some folded flowers... so I thought I'd do a tutorial on how to make them.

This tutorial is for the 5 petal folded flowers, not the roses.
You will need 5 squares of paper for each flower, glue (preferably a hot glue gun) but a pritt stick will work if you allow for drying time. 
A button, bead or gem to decorate is optional.

Take a square of paper, any size... you will need 5 squares in total, each the same size, for one flower. Each square represents 1 petal so the larger the square the larger the finished flower.

Try a 3 x 3 inch square to start with... about the size of a post-it note.

The paper can be plain on one side, this will not matter as the pattern will appear on both sides after folding.

Fold your square in half, corner to corner diagonally... try and be precise.

You will now have a folded triangle. With the long folded edge towards you fold each outside corner up to the top point. Crease the folds carefully.

Do one corner at a time.

This next bit may seem a bit tricky but don't panic. Take one of the points you've just folded, open it and squish it with the centre fold in line with the fold underneath.

When it is flat, fold the top point down in line with the top edge.

Do this to both sides.

Fold the little flap back inside, so that it's hidden front the front.

...like the left hand side of this one. Once you've folded the little triangle flap in you can continue to the next  and final fold.

Fold the outside edge in, to meet the other side of the fold, this will be quite a thick fold and you'll have to crease it well... try using the end of your ruler or the side of something hard to make the crease as crisp as possible.

That's it... now just roll the two outside edges in towards each other, to make a cone shape. You will see the start of the flower now, this is one petal.

You're going to glue down between the edges that meet... this will keep your petal in the cone shape. Try not to get the glue everywhere, we want the finished flower to be as pretty and as clean as possible.

You can mix your colours or keep them all the same; you can make these out of old magazines, telephone directories, store catalogues... even newspapers!

Take the first 2 cones and carefully glue down one edge, sticking the 2 together.

Keep repeating this process until you've stuck all 5 cones together into a circle. You can glue the finished flower onto a stick or glue some cord from the bottom, to hang from a christmas tree or stick many flowers onto a sphere to make a flower ball or a flower tree.

So, here are the finished flowers. My flowers are not as precise as I'd like them but this is mainly because of the difficulty I have with my fingers and hands misbehaving... however, all is not lost! By placing a bead, button or gem in the centre symmetry is restored. The centres ideally should be circular, not oval or irregular in shape. 

Any questions? Just ask and I'll be glad to help if I can... just be aware that there's a possibility of a slight delay in replying if I'm going through a Fibromyalgia flare or an ME/CFS episode.

Please let me know how you get on and if there are any inconsistencies with this tutorial... leave a comment, I'd love some feedback :)