Today has been a really busy day here in the studio! It was our first ever Handmade Christmas Gift Workshop… and we had fabulous time.

And… since we spent all day making book cover/cases for young readers, that is exactly what gift idea#20 (of our Great Homemade Christmas Ideas list) is all about. Fun to make, and perfect encouragement for all those young readers on your list!! (after all, who wants to walk around with an ugly book in hand when they can be ’styling’?)

We started off with purple felt because the lucky recipients of these book cases love the colour purple. Then, because we love recycling where we can, we took some really neat appliques off old clothing and mixed them up with some new fabrics to make these cases personal for each girl receiving them. Finish that off with some seriously bright pink ribbon, and the project was done. (The inside of the case features a pen pocket and pouches to hold the cover of the book – just to keep it securely in the case.)

We actually ended up making 3 today (they make up fairly quickly when made out of felt – the real time spent here is making sure the case is decorated the way you want). One of them was for a 6 year old, another was for an 8 year old and then, just because we couldn’t believe they went so fast, we decided to do another one too – for a 10 year old (I think that was their ages, but don’t quote me on it…. I am sorry if I got the ages wrong.)

So, between the purple felt and all the pink ribbon, flowers,  and appliques, there was a lot of fun and girly creative inspiration in every corner of the studio. But best of all, the book covers turned out to be really cool – a good way for the young reader on your Christmas list to take their books with them everywhere. (But if I were doing this for boys, I would not use pink and purple or flowers – I am thinking blue and animals and trains.)

As I said earlier, the trickiest (and most fun) part of this whole project is embellishing and decorating the cases.  (The scrapbook-er I worked with on this also said the same thing.) So, if you want to give this a try, and want the pattern, we will have it posted on our brand new website very shortly, but until then, email me and I will send it to you right away as a .pdf file.

(And… if you want to make a book cover, but would rather crochet one, check out this pattern for a bible cover at CrochetnMore.com.)