Travel Log 5-1: The Thrifty Witch Rides Again!

First things first- Blessed Beltain everyone! I plan on spending the day baking and then end it with a nice little bonfire in the back yard. I hope all you lovelies out there are getting your May Day on in your own style!
   Second things Second I will be doing the drawing for my Witches In Fiction Sir Terry Pratchett Signed Discworld novel Giveaway tonight, so get those entries in!
     Do any of you remember my witchy broom tutorial? Well it's been featured in a brand spankin' new e-zine called The Witches Hour. I am so excited I squeed. Check out this month's issue with my little craft inside here (it's under The Thrifty Witch).
    And now on to current business, lol. In my quest to create a complete set of witchy tools as inexpensively as possible I've created my own Book of Shadows (henceforth known as a BoS since I can be lazy on occasion). I've actually made these for about a year now and I use them for all sorts of stuff, so it's yet again one of those versatile crafts I love.

Personalized Book of Shadows How To

What you'll need:

 1. A 3 ring binder (I got a few of these for $0.99 right after back to school this past year)
 2. Fabric you like (The one I used was actually scrap from my Halloween costume)
 3. Cardboard as big as the binder or bigger ( you will need 2 pieces so make sure to have enough cardboard- I've used cereal boxes before so it doesn't have to be thick)
 4. A hot glue gun and glue sticks.
 5. Scissors

Step 1: 
     Lay out your fabric and open your binder, open, on top.

Now is a perfect time to check that your pattern is going the correct direction. As you'll note I did not do this, lol. Go ahead and cut your fabric leaving about 2 inches all the way around the binder. You will need 2 of these pieces so doubling your fabric before you cut saves a little time.

Step 2:

Take your first fabric cut out and lay your binder back on top of it (make sure your binder is on the wrong side of the fabric if you have one sided fabric) and glue one side of your fabric down.

 

Repeat on the opposite side.

Step 3:

  Now fold the bottom edge of the fabric up, and then fold the corner again to make a triangle.

Then glue it into place along bottom edge of the binder, and repeat for the other corner and glue along the straight edge as well.

Repeat this for the other edge. Now it's time to work on the inserts.

Step 4:
Grab one of those cardboard pieces and position it on one side of the binder. Make sure to put the edge where the crease in the binder is, not right up against the rings. Mark where you need to trim it and snip snip.

Make sure you line up the cardboard so that it covers the edges of the fabric you already glued so it makes a nice finish later. You can go ahead and repeat this on the other side now if you want, just make sure you mark the sides so that you know which one goes where (I have so forgotten to do this before and it can be a pain in the rear).

Step 5:
Now we're going to need that second piece of fabric. Go ahead and lay it down wrong side up and lay your cut cardboard on it. This first piece you're actually going to cut longer than the piece of cardboard on the side that will be next to the rings so you want to make sure that you cut that edge long enough to go about 4 to 5 inches past the rings.

Step 6:

Glue down the three edges that are not going to be next to the rings just like you did for the binder. Go ahead and glue the edges of the fabric down on the long piece like you would a hem, so that no rough edges are showing.

 Oh hi mom..what ya doing?

 Can I help?

What's this?

Now is about when you move the cat away from the hot things he's about to play with and get on with the project.                                                                                                            

Step 7:

 Now flip your cardboard piece over and position it over the binder where it is going to go. You'll have that extra fabric laying across the rings.

 This is the part that can be kind of tricky. You're going to have to cut little holes and slide each side of the rings through the fabric so that the fabric covers the metal and lays flat along the other side.

This really is the trickiest part, and if you mess up you can always add some scrap fabric to the back and do it again. Once you have that done, go ahead and glue all the edges down all the way across.

Step 8:
Time to wrap that other piece of cardboard in some fabric. Now unlike the one we just did, this one is going to be fitted all the way around on all the sides, no extra fabric, so go ahead and glue all those sides down.

Step 9:
Now go ahead flip that over and glue it into place, covering up the excess from the other side as well as the rough edges from the covering of the binder itself.

And Viola!

   You can leave the outside plain , or decorate it any way that your imagination fancies!

I decorated mine with  some silver ribbon and a salvaged heart locket (that I can keep messages or wishes folded up inside) and pentacle pendant. As you can see, I didn't pay attention to the pattern on the outside, lol.
   All together this cost me about $5.00 and I can use this a ton of different ways, but it definitely gives me a unique and very personal BoS.
   I hope you all enjoyed it and I have some definite ideas for my next little project!