covering books with contact

Ok here is another post mostly to assist my memory and less of a newsy one.

I will just say that day 2 of school started out very well with no anxiety or hassles on Kt's part.

She pretty much sent me off without a second glance! I on the other hand lingered outside trying to catch glimpses of her ....

I have been able to leave school and just get on with my day without feeling bad or empty or upset ... no need for weed pulling in the garden (although there actually are weeds that need to be pulled!LOL!)

So back to the title of this post ... book covering.

I struggled a bit with this, having to peel back bubbly contact off Kt's books numerous times before I got it right, so I want to record the best way of doing it to fast track me for next year.

The main problem I had was that the way the paper is rolled when you buy it, makes the sticky side of the contact want to curl over and stick to itself.

The other problem was running out of contact and really only being short a couple of centimetres.

So:-

Step 1) ... unroll your contact and roll it back on itself with the backing side facing out. This can be done as soon as you buy it or a couple of days or even weeks before you are ready to start covering your books. Even a few minutes makes a difference.

Step 2) ... Lay out your contact and measure out enough for each book. On the contact instructions they suggest leaving a 3-5cm border around the outside of your book but this seems to be a bit of a waste to me. Each square marked on the backing paper is 2cm wide and I think that one to one and a half squares (2cm - 3cm) is plenty.

Step 3) ... once you have figured out the best way to cut each piece to avoid wastage you should cut it. Try and cut as neatly and as straight as you can because the edges you cut will be the ones visible on the inside covers of the books and straight and neat looks much better than jagged and uneven.


Step 4) ... Next flatten each contact piece underneath some heavy books for a few hours or overnight. This seems to make it a lot less likely to bubble and really helps.

Step 5)... Once you place the spine of your book in the middle of the contact, only stick down a little bit of contact to the surface of the book at a time and use the rounded handles of a large pair of scissors to smooth out any bubbles. Although you will have to peel the backing paper off the first half of the contact, you can cut that backing paper and cover up most of the sticky part of the contact again until you are ready to peel back more of it and stick it to your book.

Step 6) If you are gentle you can peel contact back off the cover to correct any big bubbles so do this if you run into any trouble!

Step 7) Slowly rub and stick on about a 2cm section of contact at a time until you reach the edge of the book.

Step 8) Cut off your corners and pull each edge taut to seal up each side of the cover.

Step 9) Working on the second side of your book is easier because you only have to peel off a small section of backing paper at a time and you can use your scissors to rub 2cm at a time, and you can also pull the contact and backing paper taut to make sure it stays straight.

I have one last book to cover for the moment so I am going to follow these instructions now and will hopefully end up with a perfectly covered book!