craftgrrl | Bookbinding questions (Reply)

I have a couple of questions that I'm going to ask you about first, and then maybe join

handmadebooks or someplace and ask there if nobody can help me. :)

I'm going to be binding 30 books for a family reunion thing next month. I've got almost everything down as far as what materials I'm going to use, except for two things.

I'd like to find a decorative tape, maybe 1/2" wide, for the spine. Does anyone know where I can get something like that? Would Fred Meyer or Michael's or someplace have it? I'd like it to look sort of like masking tape as far as width goes, but I don't want the color of masking tape, and I'd like to find something that's a little stickier.

Also, I'm going to be putting an apple on the front of these books. This morning I went to look at fabric to see if I could just cut out apples and glue them to the covers of my books, but I'm kind of worried that the edges will start to fray or curl if people slide them in and out of bookshelves. Has anybody put fabric onto cardstock covers? How does it work for you? (My other idea is to just stencil apples onto the covers, but that's only if the fabric doesn't work.)

Thanks for all your help!!