fun with textbooks!

Getting ready for the homeschool year is a very exciting time for us! This year, we were fortunate to find some of our homeschool curriculum used, at drastically reduced prices. The only problem with used curriculum is that sometimes it looks a little…. used. The math textbook seemed to be the worst, as the cover wasn't all that great looking even when it was new. Our solution was to make a cover, and I'll do my best to show you all the details in case you'd like to make one of your own.

We started with a pair of old jeans, a bit of clear vinyl for a pocket on the front, and one of the back jean pockets on the back. To make life easier, I just cut the whole pocket out with some of the surrounding fabric, intending for it to fray, and quickly stitched around the whole thing.
Here's our original textbook. Let's just say we hope it has a nice personality. ;)
Here's the cover, turned inside out. The outside cover is one piece of denim cut from the leg of the jeans, big enough to cover the whole book plus seam allowance. The inside covers are the green fabric - make sort of pockets the size of the inside covers of your book, plus seam allowance. The denim was too thick to try and tuck into the ends of the spine, so we just trimmed it and zigzagged across the top and bottom.
Here's the cover, turned right side out. Lizi will be able to put whatever she wants to display in the clear vinyl pocket on the front, and maybe a pencil in the back pocket.
And here's the inside of the cover, turned right side out.
Here's the process of putting the book into the cover.
Hope that makes sense! Looks much better now, we think. :)