A few weeks ago my favourite t shirt became definitely irreparable, so I decided to find another use for it. It was much too dear to me to throw it away. I tinkered around a bit and found a way to make it reusable. I clad a selfmade aquarel sketchbook with it and gave it a little twist.

When your "first instructable" challenge came up, I thought about it a little, and by this time, my favourite jeans met the same demise. So, why not upcycle it into an aquarel sketchbook cover, too?

Step 1: Preparing the Cover

The first step was to prepare the cover. After cutting the cover parts, as there are the front and back cover and the spine cover, I connected them with a thicker paper. The spine is cut to the size of the infill.

Then I installed double sided tape on the top end of the cover to make the next step a little bit easier.

Step 2: Making Life a Little Easier

Because life can be sooo hard if everything is so big, I cut the trousers a little bit to size.

I decided to take the right leg for my project, because the right side pocket has the additional coin pocket which fits perfectly for my needs.

After collecting my tools, which are a pair of pointed scissors, a pair of sharper scissors, an exacto knife and a seam ripper (from my sewing kit), I ripped open the seams to end with only one leg.

On this leg I opened the seam of the inner side to have a flat laying piece of cloth.

I placed my prepared cardboard cover on the inside of the cloth and added an allowance of approximately an inch to wrap around. The rest was cut away.

Then I opened the waistband with the scissors along the whole length. This way I have a clean upper finish of the cloth.

Step 3: Clothing

After cleaning the inside of the waistband as much as possible I used the double sided tape to fixate the upper rim of the cloth on the cover cardboard.

Then I used bookbinding glue to connect cloth and cardboard.

When the cover side was nice and flat, I wrapped the allowance around the corners and glued it in place.

Due to the fact that there are some multiple layered seams I had to cut some of it away. These are normally load bearing parts which have to be sturdy, but for my needs it only had to look good.

Step 4: First Twist Accomplished!

Now, the outside is finished. As you see, all my aquarel traveling tools fit into the pocket perfectly. My watercolor paint box, a pencil, a blackliner and a few aqua brushes. Plus my business cards in the small coin pocket. And this is only the front pocket.

First I thought I had a bug, because the rear end of the pocket went around to the spine. That put a pull to the pocket which made it harder to access the pocket. BUT... if you open the book, for example to work in it, the pull is no more and the access is no more problem. This way a closed book keeps the tools together.

"It´s not a bug, it´s a feature!"

And I haven´t even started to think about the back pocket!!

Step 5: How About the Inside?

Now I cut to size a strip of jeans cloth and sweetened up the inside of the spine. Allow a quarter of an inch overlapping to the covering cardboard.

As you wait for the glue to cure, write down the dimension of the cloth-free area. You´ll need it later!

Oh wait, I promised another twist!!

Step 6: Let´s Twist Again!

So I took two pieces of thin cardboard (thick aquarel paper is a good choice) and cut it to a size a quarter of an inch bigger than the free space between the wrap around. I cut two pieces of my jeans cloth to a size that protruded the cardboard pieces half an inch on three sides.

First I dispersed glue to the "inner" rim and fixated it with my trusty metal ruler.

After dispersing the glue on the rest of the paper and placing the cloth on the glue nice, flat and wrinkle-free, I applied pressure by placing the box with my 120 beloved Faber-Castell Polychromos on the cloth. That helps to avoid warping of the wet paper.

After curing, I applied the bookbinders glue to the overlapping cloth and glued it into the cover, leaving the spine area free. Make sure to leave the paper area free. We need the place for our twist!

The perfect order for that is to first glue the outer rim. Then the top and the bottom rim.

Step 7: Mind the Gap

Soooo, the next step should be to explain how to bind a book block with watercolor paper. That would be a repetition of dozens of instructables which are much more professional than I could do. Only so much: Due to the thickness of the material I used only two layers of paper, folded in half, for a book block layer.

The aquarel paper is nice and sturdy. Now I checked where I wrote down the dimensions of the cloth-free area. I cut the first and last side of the book block to these dimensions and even left a bit of wiggle room. Then I folded the whole cover back and let the book block slide in.

Due to the ability to slide in and out of the cover, the paper can lay perfectly flat wherever you open it.

As you can see, my book block binding skills are not that good, but I am still learning. Bear with me, I used sailmakers thread.

Also please bear with me, my native language is not the english language, so there may be a few, perhaps even a few more errors!