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Cost
$ $ $ $ $
Difficulty
• • • • •
Time
1h30

a vintage style cover for your photo albums, diaries or journals
I will add some pictures to the tutorial soon!
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Need a nice new wrap for your photo album or your sketch book?
No problem!
You just need black fabric (denim and twill work the best!), your hot glue gun and some bleach!
But be careful! Bleach contains chlorine! So work outside or in a good ventilated area!
When you use a brush to bleach special designs or fancyworks like I did, make sure you use a brush with synthetic hair! The bleach is very aggressive against any organic material! My first brush lost all of his hair, because it was of natural hair.
And PLEASE wear old clothes and be certain that your hair won´t get in contact with the bleach.

Posted by Fräulein Elle from Kassel, Hesse, Germany • Published See Fräulein Elle's 3 projects »
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  • Step 1

    Take your book or photo album, open it and place it on the fabric.
    Take a pen and draw a line around the whole covers and the spine of the book and mark the places where the covers end and the spine begins.

  • Step 2

    Cut out the fabric. Be certain there is enough "seam allowance", because you are going to need this when glueing it to the book!

  • Step 3

    Take some sheets of a newspaper and place it on a table or on the floor. Lay the fabric upon the newspaper,marks showing down.
    Make sure there is enough newspaper around so that nothing can drop on the floor or the table!
    Now take your spray bottle (the one I used contained window cleaner) and pour the bleach in.

  • Step 4

    Now spray the bleach all over the fabric. Always keep the bottle ca. 30cm away from the fabric.
    Wait a few minutes. You will see that the fabric will turn it´s colour into a light brown at the points where the bleach is.
    Wait until it´s completely dry!
    Then take your brush and a little bowl(or something like that), fill a small amount of bleach into it and paint some designs on it, if you like to. I painted curlicues on my fabric.
    Wait until it´s dry and wash the fabric.

  • Step 5

    When the fabric is dry again, take your hot glue gun and glue the fabric to your book. Start with one of the covers. Don´t forget to cut out little rectangles at the corners to make the fabric fit better.
    Clip the seam allowances at the places where the spine begins and shorten it in the spine area. There should be just a little allowance left. Glue this to the inner side of the spine just above the pages.

  • Step 6

    When you finished glueing just wait until it´s dry.
    Now you can add rhinestones or other decoration, if you want.

  • Step 7

    Congratulations!
    You are finished! =)

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