Easy DIY Notebook Cover Tutorial for Beginners

Very easy DIY notebook cover tutorial for beginners. Learn how to make an elegant notebook or journal cover with just a few easy-to-collect materials.

DIY Notebook Covers

We’ve all seen a lot of tutorials on how to decorate a notebook cover or journal cover but when we say DIY notebook cover, we mean it! Today, we’ll show you how to make a notebook cover from scratch and how you can reuse this notebook cover as many times as you want. Keep reading to find out this amazing technique of this DIY notebook cover and we’re sure you’ll love it.

This DIY notebook cover is mostly made out of leftover materials. We tried using scrap cardstock paper, scrap fabrics to create it. This means you can finally use all those scrap fabrics and cardstocks and turn them into something useful. Even If you don’t have materials to recycle, you can easily collect them, and it won’t cost more than $1 to make this amazing notebook cover. Go ahead and check out the tutorial.

Things You’ll Need

Materials

• Cardstock paper
• Fabric or leather or jeans
• Felt
• Waxed string

For this DIY notebook cover, if you don’t have cardstock paper, you can use cereal box cartons or any cardstock packaging if it’s big enough to trace the notebook cover base piece.

Tools

• Cutting mat
• X-acto knife
• Pencil
• Scissors
• White glue (or hot glue for quicker craft)
• Paintbrush – size 6, 7 or 8

How to make Notebook Cover

Step 1: Preparing the Base

Select a cardstock paper, ruler, pencil, and cutting mat to prepare the base of the notebook cover.

Step 2: Tracing the Base Fabric

Take the selected fabric and plate it on a flat surface with its wrong side facing up. Place the base cutout on the fabric by keeping an extra inch of the fabric all around the base cutout. Use a fabric marking chalk to trace a 1-inch border around the base on 4 sides of the fabric.

Step 3: Preparing the Base Fabric

Use scissors to cut out the traced fabric. Mark the corners of the base on the fabric and cut out a triangular shape from all 4 corners of the fabric cutout. Keep in mind not to cross the marked base corner points while cutting the fabric corner triangles.

Step 4: Attaching the Base Fabric

Apply glue on the extra 1-inch borders of the fabric and attach them to the notebook cover base on the inside. Make sure to fold the corners neatly before gluing them.

Step 5: Securing the Inner Surface

Trace and cut out a cardstock paper 1-cm smaller on all 4 sides than the notebook cover base. Attach it to the inner surface of the notebook cover. This will cover the raw edges of the fabric borders attached to the bae on the inner side.

Step 6: Preparing the Page Binder

To make the binders we’re using cardstock paper and a strand of waxed string. Cut out a small piece of cardstock paper, about 1 cm x 5 cm will do, and a strand of waxed string, long enough to tie a bow knot. Attach the string with the cardstock strip as shown in the picture of this step.

Step 7: Attaching the Binder and Pocket

Attach the binder strip along the inner surface of the notebook cover spine, keeping the open ends of the strand facing out. Trace and cut out a piece of felt fabric, depth 2 or 3 inches shorter than the depth of the notebook’s endpaper and width same as the width of the endpaper. Attach the felt cutout on the endpaper along the 3 open ends and keeping the inner side of the felt fabric open, to use it as a pocket.

Step 8: Adding the Pages

Adding pages to a notebook cover has never been easier.

Watch the Video Tutorial

If the step-by-step image instructions are not clear enough, you can also check out our video tutorial. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and turn on the notification bell to stay updated.

Notebook Cover Making Tips for Beginners

We have some tips for you in case you’re having difficulty making the notebook cover.

• For the base of the notebook, use thick cardstock paper or thin cardboard. If the material used for the base is too thick, spine folding would be difficult.
• To cover the base cardstock or cardboard use fabric that is thick as well as easy to make neat folds. We used thin faux leather and heavy cotton fabrics. You can also use thin jeans fabric.
• Make sure to iron the fabric neatly if it’s crinkled.
• For the inner surface use thin cardstock paper, do not use craft paper or stationery paper.
• For the binders we suggest you use strings that do not wear off over time, hence we used waxed string. Using yarn might not be a good idea for long-term use depending on the quality of the yarn.
• To make the pocket we used felt fabric but you can also use thick or thin cardstock paper. But do not use craft paper or stationery paper to make the notebook cover pocket.
• Keep the pocket’s open-end faced inside to keep the notes secured.

You can easily change or add the pages to this notebook cover and keep notes or bills safe inside the pocket. Definitely worth crafting and having in your craft collection. Happy crafting!

Hope you liked our DIY notebook cover tutorial. We have two more tutorials on how to make beautiful notebooks and journals that you may like.

• How to Make a Notebook from Scrap Papers
• DIY Recycled Cardstock Notebook

Don’t forget to share your feedback in the comments below. Share pictures of your version of the notebook cover with us if you do give them a try. You can share your picture with hashtag #craftaholicwitch on Instagram or Facebook or just DM your picture to us on Instagram or Facebook page.

Happy Crafting!

Thank you!