Here is a quick little tutorial for how I do the titling/designs on my books! All you’ll need is a printer, some white chalk/pencil graphite, painter’s tape, a tiny paintbrush, and some fabric paint! You’re basically going to make some homemade transfer paper in order to transfer the design to the cover and then carefully paint over the design once you’ve got it on the book.
First, you’ll print out whatever design you want to have on your cover (this can be lettering or pictures–just remember you will be painting over this so you want it to be a big enough size that you’re confident that you can paint over it and still have it be clear). Then you’ll flip the paper over and rub either white chalk or pencil graphite on the backside of the design you want transferred (white chalk for dark bookcloths, graphite for light colored bookcloths). Next, you’ll tape your design down where you want it on the book using painter’s tape with the chalk/graphite side facing the bookcloth. The next step is to carefully trace over your design with a pencil–this transfers the chalk/graphite where you trace to the bookcloth.
You should now be left with the lettering/picture in chalk/graphite on the bookcloth! And then the last step is to paint over the design with some fabric paint (I really like the Lumiere by Jaquard metallic acrylic paints, as they are opaque but also a really nice thin consistency that’s easy to paint with and they’re designed for use on fabric…the non-metallic paints by Jaquard are also good but I like to thin them out a little with water because they’re a thicker consistency–I found these paints at Blick).
Here’s a finished example of what this ends up looking like!
