Stitched Notebooks Tutorial

Hello, Diana here with this month’s Tutorial. Today I’ll show you how to make cute notebooks.

Some scrapbook lines have made pretty fabric paper, I really like the 3 designs from the Donna Downey canvas collection and thought of using them as covers for my notebooks.

The materials you’ll need: computer paper, a couple of cardstock pages, thin cardboard and fabric for the cover, assorted ribbon, twine and embellishments of your preference to decorate the cover.

This is a 6”x4” notebook, to make the section books start by cutting the computer paper in an 8”X6” size, arrange the sheets one inside the next and fold in half.

Trim the fore-edge with a scalpel and a ruler. You’ll need to make several cuts to trim through the whole book.

 You’ll need an Endpaper and a Cover Sheet; to make those cut two pieces of cardstock (see next image). The length of your cardstock will depend on how many section books you are adding to the notebook, measure the thickness of the section books and add that number to 8”. Mine has two section books and my cardstock pieces measure 8.25” X 6”.

On both cardstock pieces Score a 4” line from left to center and a 4” line from right to center, there should now be a thin spine on the cardstock. Mark four stitch holes along the inside fold for each section book, pierce the holes.

These are the parts you should have to stitch together.

Start stitching one section book to the endpaper and cover sheet, continue with the second section book. You now have your book block.

To make your cover cut three pieces of cardboard, two will be for your front and end cover and one for the spine. Measure your book block and make the cardboard pieces slightly bigger.

Cut the fabric a few inches bigger as shown on the image. Glue the cardboard pieces to the fabric; I like to use Fabri-Tac glue. Diagonally cut off each corner of the fabric within 3/16in of the corner of the cardboard. Fold and glue the short edges of the fabric. Tuck in and glue the fabric around each corner. Fold and glue the long edges of the fabric. 

The final step is to glue the complete endpaper to the inside of your cover, but before you complete this step read my next note.

Note: before you glue the endpaper you can add some ribbon and twine to the front cover, I also added a piece of lace to the spine. 

Another idea is to add a piece of ribbon between each the endpaper and the front and back cover to provide a way to close your notebook with a knot or a bow.

Or decorate with brads and embellishments.

If you are still short a few stocking stuffers, avoid the crowded malls and shop your supplies, these are easy to make and are nice gifts.

Till next time!

=D

Christmas Gift Wrapping

 Hello! Diana here, I’ve been seeing on my favorite blogs and on Pinterest beautiful gift wrapping made with scrapbooking supplies.

I wanted to try it myself; I used White paper wrapping, paper doilies, assorted colors of curling ribbon, hemp twine, Bazzill Basics die cut shapes and Chipboard pieces.

Doilies are so pretty and a great decoration for any project.

You might be thinking why take the time to decorate if they are going to rip it open in seconds and toss everything in the trash.

Well, that is why I used curling ribbon, it is not expensive and adds nice color to the gift wrapping. 

Paper Doilies are also sold at a very low price, and you can use those extra Christmas embellishments you've been saving from past years.

For that hostess gift that does not need to be wrapped a nice handmade bow and a thank you note will look great.

You can make it out of ribbon or paper, here is a tutorial: Holiday Gift Bows

Gift wrapping is my least favorite thing to do, but adding a little creativity to the task made it easier and fun.

Hope you all have a great day!

=Di

December album

 Today I thought I'd share with you my album for this December :) I know a lot of you will be aware of projects like December Daily and Journal Your Christmas(if not you need to go check it out!); well, this year is my first attempt to go right the way through the holiday season and out the other side with Shimelle!  My album is an A5 album from Paperchase (totally awesome for stationery by the way!)...

 ...which I decorated mainly with paper and embellishments from the My Mind's Eye Lost and Found Christmas range; really loved the vintage look of this paper and red and gold are two of my favourites.

 I added some Thickers and some Making Memories alphas for the year numbers on the front and sides of the album.

In Paperchase, there were also options for different pockets to go in your album; I decided on some A5 pockets for full pages (which I filled with pages cut to size from the double-sided My Mind's Eye paper) and then added business card pockets inbetween which I intend to use for journalling, extra pictures and ephemera from this year's Christmas :)

I hope you're having fun with your Christmas albums, whatever you've chosen; would love to hear about any awesome supplies you've discovered!

Happy December :)

Gayle xx

A Christmas Paper Bag Album

December is here!  :)  Boy, these months seem to fly by!  It's Julie here with you today and I would like to share a paper bag album that I'm going to record the holiday happenings in!  In this album, I used Webster's Pages papers and stickers, Webster's tinsel trim and vintage laces.  On the cover I used a Papertrey Ink snowflake die and then used glitter to make it sparkle!

I had found some vintage Christmas sheet music at an auction a while back so I thought I would use that to dress up my pages.  Now I will most likely cover those pages with a photo or two but I thought it would be nice to have a bit peek out!

I also used a glassine envelope covered with some sheet music as well as the middle pages of my album.  I have tags tucked inside so I can record some precious memories.

Finally, I finished my album off with some sheet music and Webster's trim!

I hope you enjoyed this mini album today and I hope you have wonderful Christmas memories to put in one of your own!  :)

Accordion Binding with Gate Fold Cover

Hello, Diana here with this month’s Mini Album Tutorial. The inspiration from today’s album is from the Book Re-Bound by Jeannine Stein, I used part of the binding technique from her Twelve Month Organizer to make my album.

The materials I used: 6 large kraft envelopes and 2 small ones, cardstock to make the accordion, one piece of cardboard for the back, glue, assorted pattern paper and assorted embellishments.

To make the accordion measure the Length of your biggest envelope, mine was 5”, so I cut two 5” pieces out of a 12X12 cardstock.

Using a Scoring board or Bone folder, make 1” marks along the upper and lower edges of both pieces of cardstock.

Notes from the Author:  when creating an accordion binding, go slowly and make sure the folds are even and neat, resulting in a sturdier book.

Since I have 8 envelopes, and I’ll need a back and a cover that makes a total of 10 spaces, that is why I cut two pieces of cardstock, I joined them to add the four extra spaces I needed.

For the Back Cover cut a piece of cardboard to the same length you did your accordion cardstock, for the width measure your envelope and cut it little longer.

To make the back part of the gate fold cut a piece of 12X12 cardstock to your previous Length, you’ll be scoring two folds that will make the flap of the album, one  will be part of the closing and the other will go over your pages. Since a 12X12 was not big enough I added an extra piece of paper using a border punch to decorate the part where I glued them together.

Adhere your envelopes from back to front, starting with your back cover; I rounded the corners of the accordions two edge parts to give it a nicer look.

Decorate your envelopes before you add them to the accordion, each accordion fold is 1”, to prevent me from decorating that space I marked a line with the same paint I used around the edges of my pattern paper.

Very Important, Score a 1” line on all your envelopes, this is to make it easier to flip the pages, I forgot that step and ended up with a stiff album.

If you have been following my work you’ll know I like to use envelopes on a lot of my projects, this is because where ever I go I save what I can use as memorabilia, in this case I just tucked in each envelope what I kept from the day.

I used glue to adhere my pages to the accordion; you can also use Binding Snaps.

Next glue your pages to the accordion, it is very simple, just add glue to one fold, adhere the page, add glue to the next fold and adhere it to the page, add glue to the back of the fold, repeat.

For the cover I used a thinner piece of cardstock to give it more flexibility.

To make the closing of the fold gate I used two brads and layered them on scalloped circles.

I adhere and extra piece of cardstock to the flap to make it sturdier, the circle scallop you see on the flap is hiding the metal pieces from the brad.

To decorate my pages I used a lot of pattern paper scraps, fabric squares from Basic Grey, decorative tape, punched out shapes and assorted embellishments.

Here is a view of the open album.

As always I hope my monthly tutorial was inspiring and that you’ll soon be making one to keep your memories.

Have an amazing day!

=Di

Thank you Mickey!

 I was looking for a simple design to repeat on several thank you cards to send out to our family and friends after our wedding, and really liked the circular patterns on this button mask by Creative Expressions.

which I felt matched well with the roundness of the Mickey shape (our wedding was at Disneyworld so the invites also had this shape on them).  I sponged Poppy Red Impress ink onto the card through the mask and punched out circles of black card in two different sizes for the Mickey shape.

When I also found a curved 'thank you' stamp in my stash I loved the way it seemed to curve around Mickey's ear!  I stamped the words using black StazOn.

I added some gold Stickles to the buttonholes to give it some sparkle and I'm ready to go!  It was easy to do a batch of these to send off quite quickly and I just had to leave the Stickles to dry.  Now I just have to pick a nice picture of the wedding to pop in the card for our guests that weren't able to share our special day - that'll be the hard part! :)

Happy scrapping

Gayle xx