How to make mini book covers #bookishhobby

I’m back with a DIY project and as far as bookish hobbies go, this is the cutest one yet! I’ve seen plenty of photos on Instagram of little mini book covers and I always wondered how to make these. I have finally found the answer and I’m happy to share it with you. And don’t worry, the good news is that it’s really not all that difficult!

Okay time to start! First, think of some book covers you want to make in advance so you know when you start that you’re not adding another 30 minutes trying to decide. I just picked my last ones that I read and the ones that I’ll be reading in the next few weeks, so not especially favourites. I’m sorry I don’t have lots of photos of the start of the project but I’m talking you through it step by step so it should be clear enough.

Note: The following instructions mention a programme named Canva but you can easily do the same in Word. I tried and tested it and it gives the sames result, only the colours in Canva that you need for the spine are a bit more diverse in shading, and they suggest colours there too based on the colours in the image which is helpful too. I only found out after I had already made this post so I’m giving you my original review.

First, open up the site Canva, make an account or log in and ‘Create a design’ by selecting an A4 document. Make a rectangular ‘shape’ on the page by choosing a square in the ‘element section’ on the left. On the bottom of the page you can increase the percentage of your view and I scaled my view to 120% so that I could fit the covers nicely into the squares at the right time. Now it’s entirely up to you how big or how small you want your covers but as a guideline I set my square at around 70 mm horizontally and 40 mm vertically. You can add the ruler when you go on the top into File – View Settings – Show rulers and guides.

   

Now open another tab and Google the title of the book you want, you want to see a book cover so once you hit enter choose the tab images to see all the covers. You don’t have to go on a website but you can just choose an image, you click on it and when you see it bigger on the right side of your screen you simply right-click on the cover and ‘copy the image‘, then go to the Canva page and paste it.

It’ll be too big but you can change the size when you go to the corner of that cover picture. Make it fit in your square and if you’re happy with it, copy/paste the image again for the other side. You’ll be able to turn it upside down too so that your book cover will look good from all sides. Make sure you have left a little space between the two covers because that’s the spine of your miniature version of the book.

You can change the colour of that spine by simply clicking on your square. It’ll show a color icon next to shape above your page and you can change the color to another one that goes well with your cover.

Time to print these via Share – Download – PDF Print

And we have:

                                           

Now the really fun part starts! What you need is some foam (you can do it with paper too, there are other tutorials I’ve seen that use paper, but my way is so much faster) and glue. Cut out two pieces of the same size as your cover, glue them together with some mod podge (I didn’t find that here so I used the glue I had) and into the booklet and there you have it. Use a minimum of glue (even less than I’m showing here) and spread it out with a piece of paper or cardboard, because it’ll cause the paper to wrinkle if you use too much.

And this is how it’ll look on my Instagram 🙂

So what do you think of these mini book covers? Cute innit? I’ve seen some bloggers making covers for all the books they read in a year. I’m not going to start such a collection but I’m keeping the ones I made as home deco in a jar.

Oh and as a behind the scenes… this is what I’m working with… or better yet how :-). For full disclosure, Poes did not have any glue on her, it’s a small miracle.

Till next time! Tell me what you think, I’d love to hear if it’s a yay or a nay!

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