Summer Activity Series, Installment 1: Waterproof Edward Cullen

If you're anything like us, you've probably spent the first weeks of your summer vacation sprawled across the living room couch numbing your brain by watching as many hours of reality TV as you can before your butt merges with the fabric. This is the beauty of summer stretching out before you: three months of uninterrupted nothing-to-do'ness.

The problem is, as those those empty days of summer haze turn to weeks to months, you'll probably start to get a little (sotto voce) bored. Enter SparkLife on our white stallion!

Because mama loves you, we're going to whip up a little souffle we like to call our Summer Activity Series, henceforth known as SAS. Each week, we'll offer an idea for a fun, distracting, possibly creative, hopefully cheap mini project to keep you occupied and your brain from turning  to Talk Soup porridge.

Your first mission, should you choose to accept it: Waterproofing your Twilight box set. Why? Because there is nothing more annoying than getting to page 432 and reading that Bella and Edward lean toward each other with the tortured souls of star-crossed lovers, their lips brushing like rose petals against marble until finally... and finding that the pages are stuck together.

Step 1: Lay Twilight open and flat over a piece of oil cloth or vinyl fabric (you can get it at a sewing, quilting, or craft store). With a pen, trace a rectangle on the fabric around the book, leaving a 1-inch border of fabric at the top and bottom and 4 inches on each side.

Step 2: Cut the rectangle out. Don't run with scissors.

Step 3: Lay Twilight open and flat again in the middle of the rectangle, making sure the spine is pressed down. Fold the fabric on the left over the front cover. Trace a line down the crease of the fold with a pen. Repeat with right side/back cover.

Step 4: Remove book. Fold the fabric at the top of the rectangle down 1/2 inch. Glue or sew it down only between the two lines you traced (the length of the book). Repeat with the bottom.

Step 5: Once dry (if you used glue), fold left and right flaps over at the crease. Iron if you're Type A. Slide the covers of the book into the flaps.

Step 6: Repeat for New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

Step 7: Take your SASsy waterproof (okay, water-resistant) books to the beach or pool, and rest assured that the only thing being smudged with sunscreen is your back.

More SASsy projects to come. Leave your ideas and requests in the comments!