Hard Bound Book Tutorial~

 One of my favourite crafts to do is to make hard bound books~
It's relatively cheap, easy and a fun way to customize books at home or even make your own book.

What you will need:

Cardboard or Posterboard

Fabric or paper

Rubber Cement 

Exacto Knife

Needle

Thread

Book

Optional:

Paper puncher

Decorative paper

Decorations

Stack of paper

I will start with making your own book which is optional~

 With a stack of paper, fold them in half and make them even and stack them within each other~
Using your exacto knife, puncture through the stack through the fold at even intervals.

[you can also do the same thing with a hole punch

 Then using a needle and thread, sew the pages together, using the holes made with the exacto knife or hole punch and make sure it's bound well.

Binding the book:

 Cut two pieces of cardboard/card stock/posterboard to the size of the book.
If you have a thicker book, also cut a strip the length and width of the book's spine.

Cut a piece of fabric or paper an inch- two inches larger than the cardboard pieces laid out.

Pieces should be laid out roughly 1/4-1/2 inch a part... 

If you have the extra spine you will need to cut your fabric like the diagram above~

And that's how the pieces should be laid out.

 Without a spine, the cuts should just be on the corners~
Using the rubber cement, glue the cardboard peices down to the fabric or paper and make sure it's glued nice and flat.

 Then, glue the outer flaps onto the cardboard too~ Make sure everything is nice and neat.

 Then take your book and glue the covers to the cardboards. If you have the spine, DO NOT GLUE THE SPINE!

 Then, optional, you can cover the book ends with nice paper so you can't see any excess fabric or the book covers.

Then just glue on decorations, and you are done~

A nicely bound custom hard cover book!

I hope I explained it clearly~ It really is simple to do, and it only took me like, 20 minutes to make and it looks so cute!

<3CarisseIris