I absolutely love Back To School shopping! It is always so exciting to me – the promise of a fresh start, a new year. I’m always a little bit sad for summer to be over – who doesn’t love these endless summers – but going back to school is exciting in its own right. To ease back into it a bit I came up with these super fun DIY felt book covers that you can personalize for each child to give their books a bit more of a fun, personal touch. The best part is that the materials to make 6 of these book covers only cost me a whopping $10 at Walmart.
Here’s what you need to make these adorable DIY felt book covers at home (links are all to larger package deals that you can get online, but you can buy them individually in a Walmart store if you need less of them, which is what I did):
* Felt in the colors of your choosing ($6.29 for a pack of 25)
* Embroidery needles (prices vary depending on your needs)
* Embroidery thread ($6.29 for a package of 36 colors)
The first step to making these adorable DIY felt book covers is to measure your book. You will need to cut your felt to the size of your book when it is open. Then, depending on the size of your book, you will either fold in the sides as “sleeves” for the cover of the book, or you can sew another smaller piece in the same color (or a different color, if you are a trendsetter!) to the inside, as I did.
From there, thread your embroidery needle and start sewing! Even though you won’t need the stitching all the way around, I continued it anyway because I really liked the way it made my finished product look!
After I finished sewing together the book sleeves inserted my book to make sure I didn’t need to make any adjustments. It fit perfectly, so then I started on the fun part – the personalization!
I used my Cricut Explore ($250 at Walmart) to cut out some starts in various sizes and the initial “A” for my daughter in brightly colored felt. I fully intended to sew these on, too, because I think it would have looked super cute–but I was in a hurry so I decided to use my trusty glue gun instead.
I really loved the look of the book cover at this point, but I decided it needed just one more thing! I cut a small piece of felt in the same color as the cover to attach to the spine to serve as a pencil holder. I quickly sewed it into place and voila–the perfect DIY project for back to school!
My girls will love this; they also like to experiment with denim.