DIY book covers!

Hey there, fellow bibliophiles! So, this is this month’s first weekly post! (ironic, I know, 2 more days and we’re done with July). Potterthon came to an end yesterday. Click here to check it out!
Today, I’m going to show you 5 diy book covers that you can paint yourselves! I know the image shows 10 covers which is why I’ll be doing a part 2 soon! The best part is that you don’t need paint brushes, just a piece of sponge. You’ll see that they give an amazing texture! So, let’s get started.

Common materials required:
➡ Notebooks (obviously?)
➡ Acrylic paint
➡ White cardstock (or any colour, you’re going to paint over it. So..)
➡A sponge and a dotting tool(or anything with a round, flat tip)
➡ Basic stationery (a pencil, white school glue, a ruler, a stencil, fine liners, regular pens and felt pens).

The first step for all the covers, is covering the front of the note with cardstock paper. The only difference is in the patterns and colours used.

DIY cover #1

So, first you need to take the cardstock and paste it on the front of your notebook. Make sure you leave a few air bubbles, so when you smooth it down later, you’ll get a few ridges here and there. Then I sponged on some light blue paint. Once that was dry, I went with a darker shade of blue and sponged that on the ridges. After that was dry, I went with a silver pen and outlined all the ridges. Once everything is dry, (if you want), you can apply a coat of acrylic sealant. I usually just go with a layer of white school glue but I don’t think that’s professional.

DIY cover #2

This is pretty much the same procedure as the previous cover. The only difference is that, I made sure there were no air bubbles and used more than 7 different colours. I was actually intending for a universe kind of theme, but it ended up like this. After all the colours were dry, I drew that hideous design in the middle and added a few dots(read stars). If you look carefully, you can see a weird figure at the top right. Yeah, that was supposed to be a shooting star (bet you didn’t see that coming).

DIY cover #3

Another pretty basic cover. Paste cardstock and then start painting. I went with a peach background and drew some red polka dots with a dotting tool. Yeah, I know they don’t exactly look perfect, inspite of using a tool specially designed for drawing dots. I may have used a pencil’s tip too..and stick and a thumb tack and…

DIY cover #4

This was comparitively a little difficult because I wanted to create a decent gradient effect. I was also aiming for a vintage/antique appearance both of which I failed at horribly. But the cover ended up okay. The white spots were made in a moment of thoughtless and reckless behaviour. But they ended up standing out against the dark background.

This is a close up image of the cover shown above. I managed to get a more (spongy) prominent texture in this one as compared to the others at the cost of 2 times the paint required for the others. It actually feels kind of nice, extremely rough and uneven but relaxing.

DIY cover #5

This is another version of the first kind. Pretty much the same procedure, cardstock and ridges. And then I used 4 colours here as opposed to the two I used in the first one. So, I went with a violet background and once that was dry, I sponged a light shade of purple in a completely random manner. Then I went with some light blue and used that to highlight the ridges. I used a dark blue felt pen to outline the ridges. And finally, I went with some gold and silver pens and drew a few dots towards the right edge(of the book). I actually wanted to make it look whimsical and dreamy but it ended up looking like a cloud dump. Oh well.

So, that was all for today! I’ll do the other 5 soon! Let me know what you think of the ones above! Which of them did you like/hate the most and would you try any of them?

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