DIY album cover design

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

The desire to decorate and organize your precious photos, as well as important notes, can easily come true thanks to the development of such an interesting technique as scrapbooking. This article will show you how to create and decorate your own album cover.

Scrapbook

The literal translation of this type of creativity as scrapbooking is scrap "cut", book - "book". To paraphrase and define this art, it means creating and beautifully decorating album covers, notebooks, notepads and many cardboard products. Also needlewomen, in addition to binding, create pages of different sizes and colors. Decorate with beads, flowers, beautiful buttons in the form of animals, plants or other subjects. Glue ribbons, bows, rhinestones. Make out places for notes and photos with beautiful paper napkins. And all creativity is based on the imagination of craftswomen, products are born unique and inimitable.

Required Materials

To create an auxiliary instrument album coverand a lot of basic materials will be needed, since this work is painstaking and requires accuracy and perseverance.

• Often in scrapbooking, fabric is used to decorate the binding. Therefore, purchase several natural cotton cuts of the material, preferably with a small pattern, but plain colors are also possible.
• You will also need cardboard of different weights and colored sheets of paper.
• Glue stick and glue moment.
• Double sided adhesive tape.
• Scissors: straight and embossed, plus a paper cutter.
• A simple pencil, a handy ruler.
• Sewing machine and supplies.
• Satin tie ribbon.

Preparing templates

The size of the future album you determine yourself according to your preferences, photo parameters and recording volumes. In our example, the blanks will be calculated for a book with page parameters of 20 x 24 cm. Accordingly, the sides of the album cover must be increased by 1 cm, and they will be equal to 21 x 25 cm. Cut out two rectangles of the specified size and three strips for the spine from thick cardboard. The width of the end of the book depends on the content, the number of inner pages and the amount of decorations (for example, 2 cm). The other two strips that serve as the border will have a width of 3 cm. The length of all rectangles will correspond to the size of the cover. In two parts adjacent to the spine, it is necessary to punch or pierce three holes. The distance between them should be the same.

Working with fabric

We will create a cover for an album with our own hands from fabric. Therefore, we lay out our templates on the fabric laid out with the wrong side up. A spine will be located in the middle part, a border on its two sides, then we lay out the top cover on the left, the bottom cover on the right. Between all the details, leave 3 mm of free space for stitching. Next, we circle the blank and cut out a rectangle of the required size from the fabric, taking into account allowances equal to 4 cm. If you want to decorate the cover, then before gluing the elements, sew the decor of your choice to the fabric.

Assembling and gluing

When assembling, move the two large templates aside and cover the end with piping with a separate piece of fabric. To strengthen the material, coat the cardboard with pencil glue and press the fabric to the parts. It should protrude 4.5 cm in width on both sides of the edging. Mark the hole locations and punch holes in the material. Then insert the eyelets and use a sewing machine to sew 4 lines, starting with two between the parts and continue along the edges. Under the protruding edges of the fabric, place the top and bottom covers of the future album cover. Scrapbooking as one of the types of decoration requires beauty and accuracy. Therefore, when gluing fabric to cardboard, it is necessary to stretch the material well. This will help to avoid air pockets, bulging and wrinkling of the outside of the cover. If necessary, press the wrapped fabric allowances with paper clips or clerical clips. Glue rectangles on the flyleafbeautiful paper measuring 20 x 24 cm, covering all the folds, allowances and imperfections. Create a beautiful edging by sewing the entire cover detail around the perimeter on a typewriter. After you insert all the pages, thread the tape through the extreme holes and bring it up from the middle hole. Tie a beautiful bow.

Paperback

We looked at how to make an album cover out of thick cardboard. But the binding can also be soft. To do this, it is possible to cut out rectangular parts from the padding polyester, equal in size to the cover templates. Lubricate the cardboard with a glue stick and connect with the sintepon elements. It must be placed between the main fabric and the cover blank. Next, follow the steps described above.

In a lighter version, it is proposed to make a cover from a single piece of cardboard, and in place of the spine, draw a line several times using a ruler with the tip of scissors. This will help you easily bend the front and back of the binding perpendicular to the spine. Next, glue the batting to the template on the adhesive tape and wrap the outer side of the workpiece with a cloth. The gasket must be inside the cover. We sew the binding around the entire perimeter and decorate it according to our wishes.

Album cover design

You can decorate the binding in various ways. For example, a design might start with two different pieces of fabric sewn together. One upper part may contain a pattern (geometric shapes, stripes, checks, flowers and other patterns), the lower part will be solid. The seam is covered with a wide tape ofsatin.

Depending on the theme of the content of the album, the top page can be decorated with appropriate attributes. Wedding books are decorated with lace ribbons, rhinestones, boutonnieres. It is allowed to decorate the cover with details from a wedding dress, veil, garter and various small holiday decorations.

Albums for children contain a picture of a child, a cardboard stroller, stickers in the form of balloons. And also selected fabric with the appropriate pattern. For example, with toys or baby pacifiers and bottles.

Pleasant memories of a vacation at sea can also be arranged by choosing the appropriate colors of fabrics and small attributes: shells, sea pebbles, a boat on the waves.

If desired, an album can be created for any memorable and pleasant event. The main thing is to design the cover neatly, following the theme and with taste. Such an album will be an original and unforgettable gift for family and friends.