DIY Fabric Journal Sleeve

Hey friends! Happy Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras/National Throwing-of-Beads Day! I've got a quick and dirty DIY project for y'all today. So let's get right to it!

There are two things about me that you should know before I dive into the tutorial:

1. I love journaling
2. I love free stuff

Not long ago, these two things collided when I snatched up a couple of freebie journals at a housing fair (long story...) that were really nice, but had one little problem: they have a company's logo imprinted on the front.

No offense to the company, but staring at their logo when pop open my journal every day wasn't exactly my cup of tea. It felt a little corporate to me. So I decided to make it a little prettier with a journal sleeve/cover.

Here's how I did it!

1. Gather supplies.

I used a remnant of gold and silver dot fabric I had in my stash, some iron-on hem tape, a couple of bits of elastic, a needle and thread, and some scissors to do this project.

2. Measure and cut a piece of fabric to wrap around the journal's front cover.

If you end up doing this project, of course you'll want to measure your own journal, but I cut a 6"x18" rectangle of fabric out to wrap my journal. The final dimensions ended up being about 4"x16"once I hemmed it.

3. "Hem" all four edges with iron-on hem tape.

You don't quite get out of sewing for this project (see next step), but you certainly don't need to break out a sewing machine when hem tape will do the trick here! I like to pre-fold the edge and iron it down on its own first to give it a nice crease before adding in the hem tape. This way, I can make sure the hem looks right before committing to sealing it shut :).

4. Sew two short pieces of elastic to both ends of the fabric so that it forms a closed loop. This will become the sleeve!

I used pink thread because, why not? You don't see the stitches anyway because this part will be on the inside of the front cover. The elastic pieces are on the back side of the fabric. The reason I used elastic was so that the sleeve would slip over the edge of the journal easily, but be snug at the same time.

Here's what it looks like all finished! Be gone random logo!

Now I can snuggle up on my comfy slipper chair, drink some tea and spend some quality time with my pretty new journal.

That's it! As always, if you have any questions, leave a comment below!