How to Make a Covered Notebook

A while ago I posted a picture of a journal I had covered to Facebook, and a friend asked me how I did it. It's pretty easy, actually, and you only need one piece of specialised equipment, which is the spiral border punch from Stampin' Up. It looks like this:

(Actually, that is the model from a few years ago, and the new punches are much slimmer and more fancy-looking. But this one does the job just as well.)

Once you have obtained (or borrowed, as I did) this punch, you will next need to obtain a spiral coil notebook and some paper.

I chose pretty muted colours for this project because it is going to be a Christmas gift for my almost-nine-year-old nephew, Andrew. (If you are my nephew, Andrew: Stop reading this blog! Go do your homework. Also, stop putting your arms in the crumbs! Love, Auntie Laura.)

Measure your notebook cover and cut the paper to the required size. Measure the entire cover, including the part that has a spiral notebook coil going through it.

Then take the covers off the notebook by bending the coils a bit. You will be left with a sheaf of paper held together with a spiral coil. For some reason I took a picture of this.

Lay out your paper onto the covers exactly as you want it to look, so that you can see where to use the punch.

Use the punch to put spiral-coil holes in your paper. You have to use the punch from right to left.

Apply adhesive to the back of the patterned paper. I use insanely cheap-o Dollarama glue tape. Glue stick and white glue would probably work as well.

Line up the punched holes with the holes in the cover and stick it down. This is where I found out that not all coil notebooks are created equal, and some have a deeper coil gutter (I just invented that term! It sounds dirty) than others. So my paper measurements turned out a little off. I think it still looks pretty good.

At this stage, you may choose to use a distressing block or plain ol' sandpaper to sand off the edges of your paper. This makes it sit a little bit more flat against the edges of the notebook cover. I used sandpaper from the garage and it worked fine.

Both finished covers. As you can see, I used a different patterned paper for the inside covers. You don't even have to do the inside covers, but I did.

If you are anything like me, the next step will make you a bit crazy with impatience. If it doesn't, I don't even know what to say. Is it really all that great to go through life with an endless well of patience and tolerance? Seriously, I want to know. Not that I can actually change, but it would be interesting to hear about. Anyway, use your chosen adhesive to stick down every little tab of paper in between the spiral coils. You will think that this step isn't important, and you will want to skip it, but if you do you will pay for it. More on that in a minute.

Now you get to put the book back together, pretty much the same way you took it apart. Line up your cover to the gap between the coils and work it in bit by bit.

Now you will thank me for making you glue down all those silly tabs. Working the covers back into the coil is a tricksy, fussy little job, and if you didn't glue down the tabs, you'd be driven even more crazy by them all sticking up and getting in the way. Here's a picture of how annoying that is:

Now use your chubby, weird-looking hand to pinch the coils back together. Or, if your hand looks normal, use that. Don't get all braggy about it, though.

Repeat the steps for the back cover. Your notebook is now covered!

Now it's time to decorate it a little. I had some scrapbook paper with quotes on it, so I cut it up and stuck them onto random pages throughout the journal.

Note that I did not stick three on one page, this is just an example of the quotes. In some cases I used a punch or my die-cutting machine to cut them out.

Decorate the front cover. As you can see I added my nephew's name and some stuff that I hope will make him feel really special and important when he writes in his journal. Because being a writer is awesome!

And that's it! The whole job took probably an hour. Of course, my life being what it is that meant it took a week of 7-minute stints as various people clamoured for my attention. Maybe it will be different for you. Happy Crafting!

Fairy House by Amber

Because I am so blatantly, inarguably awesome, a full month has passed since Amber asked me to take a picture of the fairy house she made for Gwen's birthday.

PERSONALIZED AND EVERYTHING, YOU GUYS.

In case you would like to hear some of my litany of excuses, I include them for your enjoyment!

First of all, I was all set to take the picture, but I couldn't find one of the pieces. In fact, three weeks later I have no idea where it is. (It's the piece that's meant to go on one side of the box's lid, to make it look like a floor. It's never stayed on properly, and in fact I didn't even know what it was until I saw Amber's post with pictures of the other houses she's created.)

So that's why the left-hand side of the house doesn't have a dark floor. Because it's lost. What kind of people lose their floor? Unlucky fairy people, that's who.

EDIT: I totally found the missing floor this afternoon during the pre-dinner tidy-up. Insert sounds of frustration here!

This house is adorable. As you can see, it includes three people and an incredibly charming cat. It also includes a heart-shaped table and three ... um ... things. (These pictures only show two "things" because ... wait for it ... I don't know where the other one is. OF COURSE!.)

So, in the photos above, I am assuming the "things" are cushions for the happy fairy people (they are relentlessly cheerful, no?) to sit around their quaint little table and admire its colourful design. But the "things" also kind of look like sandwiches, so maybe ...

..maybe they are meant to be lunch? I don't know. The cat looks pretty stressed in this picture, though, doesn't it? It's as if it KNOWS there aren't enough sandwiches to be shared with a feline friend, and no cute kitty kibble to be found either. Poor puss.

(Okay, so now I am anthropomorphizing a WOODEN cat. It's no wonder I can't keep track of Gwen's toys, with this kind of mental state.)

Me Time

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to spend more time doing the things I want to do. I am rocking at this and it is improving my life immensely. A big part of this, of course, is spending less time doing things I don't want to do. One thing I don't want to do is use the computer as a time-killer. I love spending time online, of course: catching up on my blogroll, checking Facebook, goofing around with various other stuff. BUT there is a big difference between intentional computer time and the scenario I find myself in all too often, which is that I fall back on websurfing and email-refreshing for a couple of hours instead of finding something that would actually satisfy my need for mental stimulation. Walk away from the computer and go put on a movie, for Pete's sake.

Another thing I need to back off from is my volunteer work at the church. This is a challenge because the other members of Church Council have learned a dangerous fact about me: I am competent. As such, I am the one who gets called on to do all kinds of stuff. Just last week a fellow Council member, a very pushy one at that, called and asked me to take on a large task. Now, I agree that this task needs to be done. And I know I would be good at it. But as she described it, I also knew that I would find it entirely unpleasant, and that the methods she was suggesting for completing it would make me completely miserable. I was also struggling to think when I could possibly fit it in. And then it occurred to me! An idea so brilliant that I was almost blinded by its stunning radiance as it burst into my mind. I said, "No."

Have you ever done this? I swear, I was almost high afterwards. Chris was sitting right next to me and I bragged to him about it afterwards. "Did you hear me? I SAID NO! She asked me to do something that totally isn't my job, and I said no. IT CAN BE DONE!" I was just itching for someone else to ask for something so I could turn them down.

So, what have I been doing that I enjoy? A few things. I signed up for a Belly Dancing class. We've only had one session so far and it was pretty disappointing, primarily because the music was too loud and the teacher far too quiet for any of the students to hear a damn thing. I'm trying to keep an open mind for the second session tonight, though. I have also been spending some serious quality time (ha) in front of my TV, making my way through the boxed set of Kids in the Hall that I purchased with Christmas money in the Boxing Week sales. I'm really enjoying the show and the special features that give so much insight as to how the show was created - it's an icon of my youth, really.

Probably my biggest time expenditure at the moment, however, has been my foray into cardmaking. You may recall that last year I made Valentine's Day cards, ostensibly from Gwen, for her family members, and I decided to carry that tradition on this year. When I did it last year, I had no idea what I was doing, and no real plan, but I had hoped to improve for this year. A couple of weeks ago, I happened to hear on the radio (yay! Listening to the local station finally pays off!) that a rubber-stamping store was having a grand opening which included a make-and-take card workshop. I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn ... well, anything, since I had pretty much no knowledge to begin with.

I went to the workshop and did something that is very, very unusual for me. I asked questions, lots of them. I drew all kinds of attention to the fact that I am a total newbie and know NOTHING about cardmaking: techniques, materials, tools, lingo, and so on. I’m a blank slate! Usually I am so uncomfortable with the image of myself as ignorant that I fake it, not letting anyone know how clueless I am. I am most comfortable with skills I can pick up very quickly, i.e. in less time than it takes for my “fake it till you make it” routine to get discovered. But I really want to get good at cardmaking, so I decided to throw my ego to the wind and actually try to learn something.

The cardmaking workshop was very informative, even though every participant made the exact same card and thus there wasn’t really much creative process involved. Still, I learned things. And then I got the lady who was teaching the workshop to follow me around the store while I asked like a hundred more questions about everything that I saw on the shelves, how it would be used, and so on. IT WAS AWESOME. I came home all happy and full of knowledge. And no one made fun of me for not knowing everything to begin with. Weird.

I’ve said before that I’m pretty crafty but not really creative. I base that on the fact that I don’t actually create one-of-a-kind pieces, but instead follow patterns and end up with the same things that anyone else would if they followed those patterns. With cardmaking, I am forced out of that rut and have to come up with ideas. I have this great magazine full of beautiful cards, and I look through it and find an inspiration and then use that as a starting point for my own cards. I had a great time on Sunday just playing around, making several thank-you cards. There was no need to make them perfect – the point was to try different things and learn how they worked. It was very freeing. I also love that making a card takes an hour or so, while making an embroidery gift takes weeks or months.

This New Year's Resolution is panning out for me bigtime. I am feeling far less rushed and I am really enjoying most of my non-work hours. Chris and I even get to watch movies together sometimes - we don't have an easy time choosing movies that we both like, but that's another problem altogether. I'm really glad that my "free" time is being used more to feed my soul these days.

Valentine's Day

I know it's a little late to be posting about Valentine's Day but I wanted to wait until the applicable parties received their valentines in the mail before blowing the surprise in my blog. But now I have to tell you all about it, because I was really proud of this project!


First of all, you should know that I consider myself a crafty person but not neccessarily a creative person. The work I am best known for is my embroidery and cross stitch, but when people compliment my work, I am quick to point out that all I did was follow a pattern, and that I didn't actually create anything original at all. To take the leap and make something unique is a bit scary for me, as I don't like to fail. But this time around, the muse hit me and it would not be ignored.


I saw an article in a parenting magazine suggesting that kids make valentines for their dads (subtle cue here about which parent they expect to be reading the magazine) by unwrapping a large rectangular chocolate bar, replacing the wrapper with fancy paper that they decorated themselves. The part that caught my attention was the red lettering "I (heart) you" with the accompanying instructions for how to create a heart out of the child's fingerprints. I loved that idea, and kept the fingerprint concept while throwing out all the rest of it. I decided Gwen's dad needed his very own Valentine's Day card.


I started thinking about how I could create the card, and the first thing I wanted was a suitable picture of Gwen. One day while Chris was at work I dressed Gwen in an adorable red sweater she'd gotten as a gift from her Auntie Sara. I took about 20 pictures: this was the best one.






Then it was off to Michael's to buy supplies, which I did on Gramma Time. I had a gift card I'd received from my Mom for Christmas, but between my frenzy of card-making supplies and the felt I bought for another project, I overspent the gift card by nearly 100%. I ... can sometimes go overboard.


Plus, at this point I still had no real idea what I wanted to end up with, so the supplies were bought blindly. I just knew I wouldn't get another chance to return to Michael's before V-day, so I wanted to make sure I had enough for whatever inspiration might strike.


I bought a pack of 50 blank white cards and envelopes for a bargain price. I bought a red inkpad for the finger prints. I bought some fancy red paper. I bought some nifty charms and ribbon. And I bought approximately one shitload of stickers.





I enlisted the help of Gwen's high chair to manage her limbs while doing the fingerprints. This was a wise idea.


By this time I had decided I ought to make several cards: one for Chris, one for each set of grandparents, one for Auntie Sara, and one for Honourary Uncle Mike. I got out my set of rubber stamps, got Gwen down for a nap, and set to work.





I could probably ramble on for a few hundred words about what exactly I did with the stickers and stamps and charms and paper punches and so on, but oh my word, wouldn't that be dull? Instead, here are a few pictures of the finished product, and if you are curious about how a particular thing was done please ask me.





Two things I will draw attention to: the paper inside the card is scrapbook paper with a feathery heart design on it, which I cut to size and then glued on (and then stamped with my own designs as well). Secondly, the alphabet stickers, which were my favourite part. I bought more than a dozen different 'fonts' of stickers and mixed them randomly together. I like to do that because if you start out with no intention of making things uniform and ruler-straight and perfect, then it won't look glaringly awful when things don't go according to plan. I think in the end, the random letters sort of mimicked the way a child would write, too.


Either that, or they look like ransom notes. Moving on ...

After working so hard on the cards I had to decorate the envelopes too.

I really enjoyed the project, and I think this may be something that Gwen and I can do together in the future. I've never done any paper-type crafts before, and scrapbooking intimidates the hell out of me, but cardmaking is much less stressful. I like the idea of making cards for our friends and family: it will be time spent, instead of money spent, and the cards will end up being more personal and hopefully more interesting, something that might end up being a keepsake, instead of just being thrown in the recycle bin the next day.

The only downside is that I will have to forego the use of my beloved stickers. I did the math, and these cards cost me more than $6 apiece to make, which is a little ridiculous. If I spend some money to get some good rubber stamp alphabet sets, which can be reused over and over, it will be much more cost-effective. In the meantime, I returned all the unopened stickers to Michael's and managed to walk out the door without immediately spending my refund, which is pretty amazing.