{diy tutorial} Plaid Watercolor Book Cover

While the kids are hyped up on excitement from the end of a school year and long-anticipated summer vacation, you’re probably wondering what you can do to keep them busy. While I’m sure it would be great to come home to a sparkling clean home, I don’t think they would be overly thrilled about the idea of doing chores all day long! We have a great solution that will be fun for both you and the kids.

For today’s fun DIY project we’re making plaid book covers. This is an idea we created to go with our How to Create a Plantable Single-Section Book Using Seed Paper, which is another great project to work on. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out you definitely should. The books can be used for so many things like summer journals, thought plotters, or a creative writing book for the kids where they plot all of their adventurous ideas and create their own little storybooks to share with their friends. They’re also incredibly easy to make.

Here’s what you’ll need for today’s DIY:
Supplies

  • one single section book
  • a set of water color paints
  • a broad and flat watercolor brush
  • blotting papers (you can just use scrap paper or old newspaper for this)

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 2

Gather up all the supplies you will need, put on some music for inspiration and let’s get started!

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 3

Step 1– Open up the book and lay it flat with a sheet of blotting paper under the front cover. Pick the first color in your watercolor set and wet it so it’s nice and saturated for deep paint coverage. Draw lines up and down the book cover, dipping into the paint every row or two. Paint lines all the way to the spine. If your lines are shaky (like mine were), don’t worry, it makes it look more interesting.

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 4

Step 2 – Rinse out your paint brush really well and get your second color ready.

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 5

Step 3 – Using a contrasting color (we’re using a greenish-yellow), paint lines in the opposite direction of your blue lines.

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 6

Continue with the lines until you have filled the entire cover.

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 7

Step 4 – Choose your final colors and fill in the spaces between the blue and green lines. We used yellow and pink, the pink looks really neat when it overlaps the blue lines because it turns purple.

Botanical PaperWorks Plantable Plaid Book Cover Step 8

If your paper starts to cockle or warp, place the book under weight until it has dried (be sure that it is on a flat surface). Some scrapbooking papers are fairly light-weight. The Making Memories stock that we used for this project is only approximately 60 lb cover so when it gets wet, the fibers don’t dry uniformly and this creates the wavy cockling.

It’s fun to experiment with different color combinations. Have fun using contrasting colors to create unique looks. This technique would also be great for greeting cards and wrapping paper.

You’re done! Now all that’s left is filling the pages with all sorts of great stories, drawings, and summer activity to-do lists. If you’re looking for more activities and Crafts and DIY projects, be sure to check back here all summer long.

And with summer stories in mind, why not have the kids sit down and write a summer note to some of their friends? They can invite them out for an adventure, or to a party, or even to visit and make these plaid watercolor covers. For an extra special note, why not try plantable notepaper? It’s on sale for 40% off until July 30, and there are so many bright and fun designs to choose from. Kids will love using seed paper, and will have another fun summer project when they plant the paper and start seeing flowers grow.


Learn more about this special paper made by Botanical PaperWorks that uses post-consumer materials and is embedded with seeds so that it will grow when planted!

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