Fun Flannel Covered Fall Book Decor Project

Photo of three stacked hard cover books.

My project today started out with three very similarly sized thrift shop books.

I gave them a fun fall makeover WITHOUT PAINT OR STENCILS! Take a look below.

(When you click on the bold Amazon, Old Sign Stencils or Dixie Belle Paint Company affiliate links you will be taken to the products I used for this project. If you order it does not change the price or service at all. As an Amazon Affiliate, Old Sign Stencils Affiliate or Dixie Belle Paint Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)

I have also included more flannel projects from the whole Thrifty Decor Team in this post!

The Thrifty Decor Team members are celebrating, our friend and fellow team member, Sarah Ramberg's (aka Sadie Seasongoods) new book "Crafting With Flannel"!

Photo of three folded squares of plaid flannel fabric.

I was able to find two plaid fabrics at Hobby Lobby and Joann Fabrics that were less than $6 a yard, and one was less than $4.

Photo of covering a hardcover book with plaid flannel.

I chose to cover my three books with plaid flannel. This project is included in Sarah's book, along with 54 other flannel project tutorials.

First, I cut out a rectangle of flannel fabric about 2" wider and longer than my book. I ironed the fabric to remove the fold wrinkles.

Next, I used a sponge brush with Mod Podge to cover the spine of the book. I placed the spine down in the center of the fabric.

Then, I flipped the book on one side and brushed more decoupage paste on book's top to attach the flannel. I pressed the fabric into all the book's grooves for a great fit!

I then attached the flannel to the bottom side of the book.

I applied a line of Mod Podge along the inside cover edge to attach my 2" flannel overhang to the book cover.

I cut a strip of flannel off my bottom overhang.

Then I snipped the ends of the overhang at a 45 degree angle, and applied more Mod Podge. (I cut the corner of flannel fabric to one thickness by cutting off the top fabric.)

I was very careful to tuck any fabric ends or strings under the fold to get a very smooth and neat book corner.

I repeated this procedure on the other three ends. Then I was left with this little tab of fabric on the ends of the spine.

I cut it off much shorter, and pushed glue into the little gap between the book spine and book pages. I used a wooden shish kebob skewer to apply glue, and then pushed the fabric into that area with a skewer as well. Here again, I added a bit of glue here and there, to make sure any loose strings or ends of fabric was folded under and underneath for a smooth edge.

Photo of books covered with plaid flannel fabric.

One book done and two to go!

The other two actually went much easier after I knew the ropes!

I actually thought that I was going to stencil the spines with fall words, but alas, my stencil was too big for the spine.

In plan B, I decided to computer print labels on muslin fabric, and then iron them onto the book spines. I used Picmonkey to set up my fall words in a suitable font, and to make sure they were uniformly sized and spaced too.

Photo of HeatnBond being ironed onto muslin.

I ironed a 4" x 6" piece of HeatnBond UltraHold Iron-On Adhesive onto my muslin fabric. I traced around 4" x 6" photo, and cut out the rectangle.

I put the muslin/Heat and Bond 4" x 6" piece, into the photo slot on my inkjet printer. The muslin side was placed down, just like the shiny side of photo paper for my printer.

I printed it, and it worked! However, the first muslin piece printed had some stray ink rubs here and there. The second try came out really clean.

I cut out the labels on the lines, removed the HeatnBond paper backing, and ironed the labels onto the spines of my books. I used a scrap of parchment paper over the label just in case the inkjet ink would smear with the iron.

I made sure the labels were in a straight line when the books were stacked.

I pulled out this miniature holiday stencil pack from Hobby Lobby to add a leaf to a paper tag with Fusion Mineral Paint Ash. Oh well, the books didn't have any stenciling so I wasn't wrong.