Start out with a huge hardcover book that's really unattractive. I used a biography of the Kennedy family.

Use your exacto knife to cut out the middle of the book. Do as little damage to the book's cover as possible.

It should look like this.

Cut your fabric so that it is a little bit bigger than the area you want it to cover. I applied my fabric in three pieces: one for each cover and the spine.

Use paint the modge podge on top of the fabric and slather it on until you can see the color of the book through the fabric. If you want your fabric to be more opaque, then modge podge a layer of white fabric on before you modge podge on your decorative fabric.
Allow to dry almost fully.

When your fabric is almost dry, wrap your edges around to the inside of the cover and hot glue them down.

Now it's time to do the side pieces! I used a cute owl fabric to match the owl I used on the front. Again, cut the fabric a bit too big, then hot glue the edges down to the inside. I also hemmed mine with hot glue, but this is because I forgot to hem the fabric earlier.

Add whatever embellishments you want.
I added an owl and a piece of ribbon going across.

Now it's time to glue in your strap or straps. If, like me, you want one long strap, then cut a long piece of ribbon and apply glue to the bottom two inches of it and attach it as straight as possible to the insides of the purse.

Viola! Done.

Now check out my blog because I say so.