On 15th of every month a member of our DT creates a tutorial for you all to try. This month Rosey shares with us a Book Cover Tutorial.
This is how to create a simple, professional dust jacket to raise that gift book to something really special. It takes only a couple of hours to make. My explanations are more complicated than the reality, as I have allowed for the fact that your book will most likely be a different size from mine, therefore I can’t give exact measurements. Hopefully the diagrams will help a little.
You’ll need:
- Your book
- 2 pieces of the same 12”x12” patterned paper: the thinner kind works best
- Ribbon
- Scissors
- Double-sided adhesive tape
- Scoring tool
- To decorate, choose elements which won’t mark the book or its neighbours on the shelf.
How to make it:
1) Measure your book. Mine was 13cm (5 1/8”) wide, by 19.4cm (7 5/8”) high by 1.7cm (3/4”) deep.
2) The front and back panels are each made in the same way. Ensuring you will get the same pattern on the outside, cut the panels so that the parts that show on the front/back are about 1/2cm (1/4”) less than the book width, and the flap that folds in is around 3cm (1”) less. Score where the fold will be.
The larger part will be on the outside. The smaller part will make the inner flap.
3) Take one of the off-cuts or a contrasting piece of patterned paper, and cut the spine panel. This will measure the height of the book, by the depth plus 3cm (1”). My measurements were 19.4cm (7 5/8”) high by 4.5cm (1 ¾”) which was made up of the depth of the book 1.7cm (3/4”) plus 3cm (1”).
4) Score 2 lines lengthwise down the spine panel. The middle section will measure the depth of the book plus 2mm (3/16”). You will have to measure. Crease along the score lines.
5) Score again about 1mm (1/16”) inside the first score lines, so that when you crease these score lines, the curve of the spine panel will follow the curve of the book spine.
6) Ensure the spine and front and back panels are exactly the same height. Trim if necessary.
7) Attach the front and back panels to the spine panel, with the spine panel innermost.
It is easiest to fit the pieces around the book and apply the double-sided tape to the inside edge of the front and back panels to get the best fit.
8) Attach ribbon to the inside of the spine panel using double-sided tape. If your ribbon has a “good” and “bad” side, attach the tape to the “good” side before sticking to the panel. Measure the length of the ribbon against the book before trimming it to length. If you want to leave the ribbon end plain, leave a good 3cm (1”) hanging out of the pages. If you want a tag at the end of the ribbon as I have done, it should be shorter so the tag does not hang out of the bottom and get crushed when the book is on a shelf.
9)Decorate the front of your book cover, avoiding bulky elements which might mark the book or its neighbours on the shelf. I’ve used an embossed, inked image and a rub-on.
Our Design Team all had a go at Rosey's book cover and you can see what they all did by hopping across all their blogs! Start HERE with Rosey herself and then follow the links through all of the other DT members blogs. Don't forget to leave them some comments along the way!
Ooh and please bear with us, whilst we all try to load our posts for the same time, we sometimes have delays due to timezones! If the link is broken please come and try again later.
If you decide to make your own book cover then please share your creations with us by leaving a link HERE ON THIS PAGE. Your name will be entered into our monthly prize draw. This month our prize is some fancy pants paper!
You will note that there is a new tab at the top of our home page too - "October 2010 - Your Challenge Entries".
To explain - each month we hold weekly challenges and each month we have a prize pack that one lucky person at random could win (if they took part in any of our challenges). Previously the challenges have each had just one week deadline - but we know you all lead busy lives and sometimes miss the deadline. We have therefore decided that from now on you can enter any number of our challenges for that month, as many times as you want and then link them all in one place. Deadline for all the October challenges will be 4th November 2010. Hopefully this will keep everything neat and tidy and you can go visit that months gallery of creations whenever you want!
Phew! Thats a lot of information - we hope it all makes sense! :)
Have fun making your book covers, link us to them, come chat in the forum and come back next week for Challenge #80!
Rosey used the word "Dream" 
Now - it's your turn! Give the challenge a go and then link us to your layouts HERE. 
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