I cannot resist buying books for my kids. Seriously, give me all the books.
But do you know what I don't love? Dust jackets on hardcover picture books! They just fall off. All. The. Time.
Seriously, within minutes of my kids opening new books, the dust jackets fall off. So I've learned to just pull the dust jackets off immediately.
Now, I can't bring myself to recycle or throw out the dust jackets, though. Needless to say, I've ended up with a large collection of dust jackets over the years, determined to find something to do with them.
Thankfully, I've come up with a perfect solution. I turn them into DIY puzzles!
So, if you've been wondering what to do with dust jackets from children's books, then you're going to love these easy, peasy homemade puzzles made from dust covers.
A version of this post originally appeared on the CBC Parents website.
Homemade Dust Jacket Puzzles for Kids: What You'll Need
It's super easy to make your very own book cover puzzles for kids. To do so, you'll need:
- Dust jackets from your child's favorite books
- Scissors
- Laminator (optional) - In case you want to make the puzzles more indestructible. This is the laminator I have and love.
How to Make These DIY Puzzles for Kids
First, remove the dust jackets from your child's favorite books. Doing so will let you to make puzzles with your child's favorite book characters on them.
Then simply cut up the dust jacket cover into pieces of various shapes and sizes.
Optionally, you could laminate the pieces for durability. However, I find they're fairly durable on their own to begin with. Especially since the paper that dust jackets are printed on is usually quite thick or has a coating on it.
That's it! They're now ready to be reassembled over and over.
Some Final Notes on these DIY Book Cover Puzzles
Perhaps you have some old comic books that have covers that are falling off...you can make those into puzzles too! For example, we had a little Pokemon comic (I think it was from Free Comic Book Day or something) that had been ripped off. I turned that into a puzzle too because why not.
It's also worth noting that these puzzles make great busy bags to take while on the go. Think road trips, waiting at a restaurant, keeping kids busy on the airplane, etc. Simply store the pieces in a little zipper seal bag.
So, which book dust jacket are you going to cut up first for these DIY puzzles for kids?
