Back-to-school means fall fashion and outerwear in some circles, but here, we're talking about the style inside your backpack. Take those old worn-out T-shirts languishing in the bottom of your dresser drawers and put them to work!
Materials:
-Old T-shirt
-Scissors
-Composition notebook or sketchbook
-Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue
-Squeegee-like hand applicator
Make it:
1. Lay the notebook open on the T-shirt (preferably over the logo or design you'd like to feature). Cut through one layer of the T-shirt, about 2" outside the edge of the notebook.
2. Lay the T-shirt panel face down on your work surface. Apply glue liberally to the cover of the composition notebook.
3. Spread the glue evenly across the cover. Be sure to reach the edges, but avoid getting any glue on the pages!
4. Fold the T-shirt fabric over the front cover and press it evenly into the glue.
5. Flip the notebook over and spread glue over the spine and the back cover. Then pull the remaining T-shirt fabric over the back cover, smoothing any wrinkles. Let it dry flat.
6. Trim the excess fabric to the edges of the notebook cover. With glue, touch up any edges that are pulling away from the fabric.
7. Repeat with tie-dye T-shirts, old concert shirts, your favorite (but threadbare) sports jerseys, and so on...until your notebooks and sketchbooks are as stylin' as the person who carries them!
Variation: If you don't have that perfect T-shirt with the perfect text on it (like the Dancil-McGriff Family Reunion "Fun in the Sun" from August 31, 1999 that I found at a thrift store in Florida), make your own! Use iron-on letters to express whatever sentiment you're feeling. Announce your alliance to a particular sports team, school subject, or just claim it as your own by spelling your name across the front.
Craft on! Click here for today's daily giveaway!
