This is one of my favorite DIY projects using recycled materials…first start with this: a cereal or other empty, clean paper board box. Collapse it and cut off any rough edges.

Next score the paperboard so there is a 1/4 inch panel down the center as shown.

Next, cut a piece of fabric you like to the size of your paper board plus 1 inch on all sides. Grab your Mod Podge and cover one side of the paperboard with it. (In hindsight, I should have flipped it over so the printed side would be facing in so it doesn’t show though the fabric in the next step!)

Attach the fabric to the glue-y side. Flip it over and brush some more Mod Podge on the inside edges.

Fold the fabric edges inward. It will look like the photo below. I actually chopped the corners at an angle before I glued so they would appear to be mitered – makes it lay flatter.

Next cut some pretty cardstock to the size of your paperboard minus about 1/2  – 1/4 inch. Score a 1/4 inch channel down the center as you did with the paper board. Apply Mod Podge on the back of the cardstock and apply to the exposed paperboard side of your book cover. Hey, look – you made a book cover! Put something evenly heavy on top and let this whole thing dry for a couple of hours.

Once the glue has dried, fold the cover you have made using the score lines you made earlier. You can see it coming together, right?

Now you will make the inside pages. I tried to come pretty close to a traditional binding method here so the final book will look super professional.  You will use your Martha Stewart Scoring Board to score a neat line down the center.  Next take 3 pieces of paper at a time and use very big stitches to sew them together.

Next take 3 pieces of paper at a time and use very big stitches to sew them together.

You could probably fit 5 or so folded bundles of three in a book with the 1/4 inch channel we made…3 are shown in this tutorial.

Next get a piece of paper that is the same height but slightly wider to fit around all of your bundles. Apply a nice thick bead of glue to the center so it holds all of the bundles together. Let this dry.

Once dried, apply another nice fat bead of glue to the channel we created on the cover and fit the piece from the picture above snugly in there, taking care to wipe off any glue that may be smoooooshing out the sides and sticking to any pages. I decorated mine with a ribbon to close it. Voila! You are done!