How to Create a Book Bag (with Pictures)

2025 Author: Samantha Chapman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 13:28

Here is the ideal novel bag for those who love to collect or read many books!

Make this bag using an old book (preferably cheap and not one of your favorites). The book-bag will surely be a topic of conversation wherever you take it and will also allow you to recycle a book that is no longer used.

Steps

Step 1. Choose a hardcover book that is large enough

Second-hand book stores or flea markets are great places to find a suitable volume.

• Look for a book with a nice cover, in a color that suits your style (or that of the recipient). Some old books are leather bound (or leatherette) and embossed.
• Look for textbooks, outdated or mismatched volumes of encyclopedias, Reader's Digest anthologies, or something you think is worth more for the cover than for its content.

Step 2. Separate the book pages from the cover by opening the cover and cutting along the fold

You can use a pair of scissors or a utility knife.

• If you like, keep the pages or some parts and use them in a collage or other work you can make with paper. Printed text, even if it has no particular meaning, can give character to your craft projects and old encyclopedias can be great sources of inspiration and images. If you want, you can also cut out pieces of text to paste on the cover of the book - for example the person's name, etc.

  

Step 3. Draw the book cover on heavy card stock

Old office folders or mailing envelopes may be fine.

Step 4. Cut out with scissors or a utility knife along the drawn edges

Cut slightly inside of the tracing lines, so you get a cardboard rectangle that is only slightly smaller than your cover.

Step 5. Remove the inside of the back

Step 6. Check that the cardboard cutouts fit snugly onto the book cover and that the edge is slightly smaller than the cover

Step 7. Cut a piece of cardboard slightly smaller than the spine of the book

This will serve to support and reinforce the bottom of your new bag.

Step 8. Wash the fabric you want to use for the inside of the bag

Step 9. Iron the fabric to remove creases

If desired, the fabric can be starched to make it stiffer and therefore easier to use.

Step 10. To cut the fabric you can use the previously cut cardboard rectangles as a template

Place the cardboard on the fabric and cut out around it, leaving an inch or so on each side.

Step 11. Repeat this with the cardboard piece of the spine

Step 12. Here's how to prepare the lining of your bag

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  Fold about 23 cm of fabric in four parts (once along the center vertical line, then once along the horizontal line). The result will be a rectangle, with two folds on the same side and four layers of material.

• Measure and mark the references as follows:

  • 

    Put the cardboard, previously cut to the size of the spine, on the folded side and mark the shorter side. This measurement is indicated in the previous diagram with the red color.

  • Measure the length of the cover from the corner where the sides are folded, as indicated by the blue line.

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  The blue line represents the folded side. The red line is the folded part that needs to be cut to divide the individual triangles. Cut the triangles along the drawn lines.

• 

  You should now have two triangles of the following dimensions:

  A = twice the width of the back.

  B = the length of the short side (width) of the book cover.

  C = the maximum opening size of the bag (which you want).

• Repeat the above to get two more triangles with this size. In the end there should be four triangles.

Step 13. Cut out the upper part (tip) of the triangle in fabric by about half a centimeter (attention, this must then go to insert into the inner part of the back, as indicated in the images)

Step 14. Sew two triangles together along the longest side

Repeat this on both pairs of triangles.

Step 15. Iron so that the two flaps do not form folds

Step 16. Turn and sew approximately 3-4mm from the folded edge (topstitch) on the side that will remain visible

This operation serves to give more nerve to the fabric and guarantee a finished and refined effect to the part of the bag that will open like a gusset.

Step 17. Fold the tip of the triangle in half to form a crease at the bottom

Step 18. By hand or machine, sew the fold from about halfway up to the edge, making a fold of at least one centimeter

This will allow your bag to close cleanly without having excess fabric to the outside.

Step 19. Line the two large cardboard rectangles with the fabric, gluing the edges on the back side

If you want, you can also glue the fabric on the front.

Step 20. Insert the tips of the triangles into the inside of the spine

Pay particular attention that the folded part is inside the cover-bag. Once this is verified, you can use hot glue to weld them together.

Step 21. Place one of the previously cut strips of cardboard on the inside of the spine and then line it with the fabric

Step 22. First line the short side of both ends with the fabric and then join them together with hot glue

Step 23. Now proceed to glue the sides of the triangles along the top and bottom edge of the book cover to shape the sides of the bag

Step 24. Make two rings with bias or satin ribbon, one will be used to create the jewel clasp that will be inserted into the second ring

Step 25. Place the two rings exactly in the middle of the opening and place the hot glue all along the ribbon

Step 26. You can use beads and bias tape or something similar to make the bag handles

Step 27. Take the measurements well then proceed to glue them

Step 28. Now glue the rectangles previously covered with the fabric on both inner sides of the book cover, so as to cover everything already glued

Step 29. Press the side corners towards the inside of the bag and glue them together

Step 30. Your new handbag is ready to amaze and surprise

Advice

• This process is also good for creating a book container with handles. • Hot glue works well due to the minimum drying time. You can also use vinyl glue, but you will need to fix each element and let it dry before proceeding to the next step. • Make sure the hot glue gun is really hot before use. Otherwise you will get unsightly creases in the fabric.

Warnings

• A collector or book lover may be offended by this use of the book rather than reading it. A tip is to choose an old volume, which has no value. • Be especially careful in handling scissors, cutters and the hot glue gun.