Hi.  Thanks for stopping by my blog!

I wanted to show you another cute use for some bits and pieces of DSP (designer series paper) or other pretty scrap paper you have lying about.

I got this idea from the very talented Tanya Bell, who posted some gorgeous covered notebooks, as well as a YouTube tutorial on how she made them.  I get a lot of inspiration from Tanya’s blog, so encourage you to check it out.

I made mine a little differently, but the basic idea is the same.    I bought some little notebooks from a $2 shop (I think I got 8 little books for $3?).   Rather than covering the books just with DSP like Tanya’s tutorial, I wanted to make the cover a little sturdier so covered it with card stock first and then decorated with rectangles of DSP.

To make the card stock cover, I measured the size of the width of the front of the notebook and added 2mm on either side.   This is the width of the card stock you’ll need to cut.    To figure out the length you need to:

1 –  measure the length of the front of your notebook (eg 8cm) and double it (ie, 16cm)

2 – measure the depth of the notebook (ie, the size of the ‘spine’) (eg 0.5 cm)

3 – add 2mm overhang for the front and back (ie, 0.4cm)

The total length would be 1 + 2 + 3 (using the dimensions in my example, this works out to be 16.9cm)

You then want to score the length of the paper where the fold for the spine would be.  (Using these example measurements, you would score at 8.2cm in from either side of the long end of the card stock, leaving a .5cm fold in the centre of the card stock which would go around the spine of your notebook.)

Fold and make sharp creases on the score lines.  I use a bone folder to get a really nice crease line.

Attach the card stock to the front and back covers of the notebook and stick down over the spine.  You can use glue (eg Snail adhesive) to do this, but I found that using Sticky Strip (Stampin’ Up!’s uber strong double sided tape) gives a stronger hold.

To decorate the cover I used some leftover DSP and the snail image from the Button Buddies stamp set, with a button on the snail attached with a glue dot.

I have made these notebooks with all sorts of decorations.   Butterfly punches can make them look especially gorgeous!

I have also used DSP and various punches and stamps to decorate plain spiral notebooks.  These are super easy – just measure the front of the spiral notebook just to the edge of the spiral, then cut and glue on the DSP.

I decorated these ones with the Stampin’ Up! Blossom punch in Daffodil Delight card stock, and I used the wings from the Bird Builder punch to create leaves.  A 1 inch circle punch made the centre of the flower and a cute button in Daffodil Delight finished it off.

These are so easy to make I hope you have a go.   I’d love to see a photo of anything you make!

Thanks for reading

Caro