A cereal box is close to ideal cover stock. It is about 0.4mm thick, it scores and folds cleanly, it is free, and there is one in most kitchens right now.
Here is the whole thing: measurements, four ways to cover it, and how to add a closure that works.
Measure before you cut
Three numbers, taken from the pages you are binding.
| Measurement | How to get it |
|---|---|
| Height | Page height + 0.25 in (an eighth of an inch of overhang top and bottom) |
| Width | Page width + 0.125 in at the fore-edge only |
| Spine | Stack your signatures, squash gently, measure the thickness, then add half again |
That last one is the mistake everyone makes once. A junk journal roughly doubles in thickness as pages fill with layers, and a spine cut to the empty book’s width means a book that will not close by page twenty.
For a 5x7 book with five signatures: height 7.25 in, width 5.125 in, spine about 1 in.
Cut and score
- Open the cereal box flat along its glued seam. You get one large panel plus two side panels.
- Cut two boards at your height x width, printed side down. Use the largest flat area.
- Cut one spine strip at your height x spine width.
- Score, do not cut, two hinge lines on the spine strip, a quarter inch in from each long edge. Run a dry ballpoint along a ruler, hard.
- Fold both hinge lines away from the scored side. Card folds away from a score, not toward it.
You now have a front board, a back board, and a spine with two flaps. The flaps glue to the inside of the boards, leaving a small gap on each side that lets the cover flex.
Assemble
- Lay the two boards face down with the spine between them, leaving a 3mm gap on each side of the spine. That gap is the hinge and it is essential.
- Glue the spine flaps onto the inside faces of the boards.
- Cut a strip of fabric or strong paper the height of the cover by the spine width plus 2 inches, and glue it across the whole spine and the gaps on the inside. This is the real strength of the binding.
- Press flat under a heavy book for an hour.
Four ways to cover it
| Method | Difficulty | Look | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper | Easy | Clean, patterned | Wrapping paper, a map, a poster. Wrap edges 0.75 in around and glue inside. |
| Fabric | Medium | Soft, durable | Iron it first. Use a thin even layer of glue or it soaks through. |
| Collage | Easy | Genuinely junk-journal | Overlapping scraps, then one coat of matte medium over the whole thing to seal it. |
| Leave it printed | Free | Honest | Cereal box graphics, deliberately. This looks better than people expect. |
Wrapping the edges: cut your covering material 0.75 in larger on all sides. Glue the board down in the middle, snip the corners diagonally about 2mm out from each board corner, then fold and glue the long edges in first, short edges second.
Line the inside. A sheet of paper glued to each inside board hides the wrapped edges and stops the cover warping as the glue dries. Do not skip this — an unlined cover curls.
Closures
| Closure | How | Holds a fat book? |
|---|---|---|
| Elastic band | Punch two holes in the back board near the spine, thread and knot inside | Yes, best option |
| Ribbon ties | Glue a ribbon under the inside lining on each board, mid-height at the fore-edge | Yes |
| Wrap band | A strip of card or leather that slides around the whole book | Yes, and it adjusts as the book grows |
| Button and thread | Button on the front, thread loop on the back, wound in a figure eight | Only if the loop is long |
| Magnet | Two small magnets under the lining | No — pulls apart once the book thickens |
The wrap band is the sensible choice for a junk journal specifically, because it is the only one that still works when the book is twice as thick as when you made it.
Making it last
Seal the cover. One thin coat of matte medium or clear acrylic over paper or collage. It stops edges lifting and takes the shine off cereal-box print.
Reinforce the corners. Small triangles of card or fabric glued over each outer corner. Corners are where a cover fails first.
Double the spine. Two layers of card glued together for the spine strip, if the book will be carried in a bag.
When to buy a cover instead
Two situations.
You want to keep adding pages forever. A handmade cover is sized for the book you have. A discbound cover is sized for whatever discs are on it, and you can go up a disc size when the pages fill. That is the right answer for anyone who wants one long-running journal rather than a series of finished volumes — see planner discs and how the sizes work.
The book gets carried daily. A cereal-box cover in a bag every day for a year is a cereal-box cover with soft corners. A notebook with a sturdy cover is the practical base if you want to rebuild the inside rather than build the outside.
For a first book, though, make the cover. It costs nothing and you learn what the measurements actually need to be.
Start with the spine
Measure your page stack, add half again, and write that number down before you cut anything else. It is the one measurement that ruins a cover if you get it wrong, and it is the one nobody gets right the first time.
Then the binding, and 25 page ideas for the inside.