When I was a kid, heading back to school not only meant a new “back to school” outfit and spiffy new supplies-it also meant covering books.
Presumably to keep the text books new (but in reality to give us something to scribble on instead of the cover) each fall we’d pull out the brown paper bags from our local IGA-you know, the ones that actually had the book cover pattern printed on them–and wrap our texts up.
I’ve noticed in recent years that the stores actually sell stretchy fabric book covers. Where is the fun in that? How can you tell who is in love with who if kids can’t scribble initials and hearts on the covers of their books?
This month when Walmart issued the Walmart Moms their Back to School DIY challenge, I knew mine had to be book covers!
Aren't they cool?
This project is easy, fun and frugal-a winner in all ways
Kraft Paper from Walmart!
Start with your all purpose brown Kraft Paper or mailing paper. Pull out your markers, crayons, paint pens, stamps, ink, and whatever else you have on hand and go to town! For the sake of demonstration a selection of my favorite cookbooks became my “text” books.
You can go with a theme decoration such as a passage from “The Little Prince” in french (“Le Petite Prince”) for a french book:
or numbers and equations for a math book.
You can skip the theme and go free form and do an artistic doodle effect or a simple rainbow.
Then again, you could just let your kids go wild-like I did with Buddy:
Buddy decorating his book cover.
Buddy's Book Cover
What? After all my beautiful ideas you say you don’t know how to make a book cover? No worries-its easy!
1. Lay your book onto the paper and trace around it.
2. Fold the top & bottom down to fit the size of the book.
3. Fold the end in to fit the book
4. Slide the ends on and your book is covered.
There you have it. Easy Peasy!
****This is a sponsored post****
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own.
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Love this post! We always made book covers like this when I was in school, although we used brown paper bags. Was great that we could just create new ones if they got messed up or if we decided we like a different boy LOL.
We used paper bags as well. Free and reused! I still have one from junor high school that my friend drew a circus on while we were “listing” to a very boring science teacher. lol.
We used the brown paper bags, too! My school gave us book covers that were sponsored by local businesses, but if you wanted a decorated cover, you had to make your own with the brown paper. Thinking back on it, I suppose I could’ve been “funky” and used gift wrap paper (bought on sale of course
)!
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