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!  :)