Making Your Own BOS

MATERIALS:

2 sheets of poster board, I used white, but it doesn't really matter, one
sheet is just incase you make a mistake, I made plenty!!!

Paper, Like printer paper, I used flourecent & pastel ink-jet printer paper.

A low temp glue gun, high temp works if your cautious...

Some perdy fabric, about a yard, maybe two.....unless you are making a
really BIG BOS! : )

Ribbon, about 1/4 of a cm wide, and 1/2 a yard to a yard long

Fabric glue Clear drying (Elmers works, but if you can get ahold of some

Gem-Tac....That stuff is great!!)

An old paint brush with rigid bristles (not nesacary, but helpful...)

A ruler an exacto/razor knife and a pencil Scisors

Okay....got it??

First take a sheet of your paper and fold it half to find the center.
Unfold it and mark the center with your pencil. Put this sheet on top of the
rest of your paper, make sure they are all lined up in a nice neat stack.
Take your ruler (on a old newspaper of an the back of an old art pad, or
better yet, a sheet of old ply wood) and line it up with the center mark on
your stack of paper. Take your razor knife and place it up against the edge of the ruler and neatly cut them in half. You may have to do this more than once as you may have a lot of paper to cut through, or like me, a very dull knife!! Next, Grab your poster board, pencil and ruler. >From the left of your poster board measure 5 1/4 inches toward the center and mark it at the top.

From there measure 8 1/4 inces toward the bottom. Then take your ruler and connect that line to the left edge of your poster board. Do the same exact thing again under or to the right of this. These will be the front & back covers of your book. Now you need a spine for it. (Something to attatch the pages to) Measure 8 1/2 inches tall & 3 inches wide. You didn't lose your razor knife did you?
Ok, take your ruler and line it up on the marks and Carefully cut out all
your peices.

Here comes the fun part!!

Grab up that lovely fabric and lay it out nice and flat, with the designed
side down. (Hint: grab some candles or something kinda heavy to keep it nice and strait while you are working with it.) Take one of your peices of poster board and spread a thin lair of glue on it. (This is where the paintbrush is handy) Make sure every spot is covered, especially the corners and edges. Lay the glued side face down on your fabric about a half inch from the top & left edge, be sure the fabric is tight and flat when you do this to avoid wrinkles. Take your ruler and pencil, and measure & mark a half inch all the way around your poster board on the fabric. Cut it out as neatly as you can on the line. Once you have it cut out, Cut all four corners off of the fabric only. Just the corners!! Do the same with the other two peices after you have glued them in the same way.

Okay...now grab the glue and your fabric covered poster board peices and see that half inch of fabric hanging over the edge? Fold it over and glue it to the other side of the board. (This is why the corners were cut off!!) Do the same with all your peices. Have I lost you yet? : ) Now, grab the peice that you cut out to use as the spine of your book, the middle of that should be 1 1/2 inches from the left, mark it. This is where your ribbon goes....but not yet!! Before we do that, take your paper which will be your pages, and pinch then togeather and measure how wide they are. (mine=1/4 inch) Then center that measurement on the center of your book spine, mark it, and use the ruler to draw strait lines to the top and bottom. Take the ruler and place it on these lines and make a nice strait crease on each. Okay....take the peice the two peices you want to be the front of your book, and the spine of your book. Lay the spine with the right hand side crease to the left edge of your cover and mark very lightly where the flap ends. To the left of this line is your glue area. Hot glue may work better for this than the
fabric/elmers glue. Again make sure every spot is covered, especially edges
and corners. If you are using hot glue, make sure the glue really gets into
the fabric, but work quick cause the glue will cool quick. Now grab your
then back cover of your book and do the same thing, trace the where the flap ends, and glue. Now, you should have that nice little space inside wth the center still marked. Now it's time for the ribbon. Cut it so it's about two
inchs longer than your book. Un-holster your glue gun and glue it to your
mark. Now the hard part.......Get your pages ready. Put them all togeather
nice and neat, so that every edge of every sheet is lined up perfectly on
atleast one side of the stack. Put them on your work surface and smoosh 'em flat as you can without straining....(carefully so that o\not even one moves out of it's place, very important!!) take your glue gun and run down the edge of your stack leaving as thin a lair of glue as possible while being sure you have gotten every edge of every peice of paper in the stack. They should all be stuck togeather when you are finnished. Almost done!!! Last, but not least....Take your book cover and lay it open and flat. In the very center of your spine, from top to bottom, Cover with Hot glue, and
quickly(before it cools too much) Stick in your pages!!!(P.S. Don't forget
to consecrate befor use!!) Viola!! You are done!!

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