tutorial: the 5 minute notebook

A few days ago I moved into my new house. I now have a craft room/office, so the pressure is on to start creating. I finished my new portfolio site today. On Monday night while Alex checked his e-mail, I glanced at my craft table and saw two things: a note card made from recycled paper and some unused paint swatches. And in the spirit of the craft trend to reuse found items, I give you this recycled paint swatch notebook! (in under 5 minutes!)

What you'll need:
1. a paint swatch (or other decorative item of about the same size)
2. a notecard (or a sturdy paper grocery bag to create one)
3. scissors
4. notebook paper/white paper
5. stapler
6. rubber cement/strong glue
7. something heavy
8. 5 minutes

First, bend the paint swatch in half. You could use a fancy paper folder. I didn't. Again, this was all on a whim. Also, I don't have one.

Cut sheets of paper to fit. I basically cut a few sheets of notebook paper in half. Just make sure they fit nicely into your card.


Now, we staple.

I lightly coated the underside of the paint swatch to stick it to the note card. I wasn't wild about the look pre-gluing.

Finally, I found the heaviest item on the table and set it on top of the notebook overnight. I did this around 10:30pm so I was already heading to bed anyway. I'm not sure if you need to let it sit so long.

Enjoy your notebook and a sense of accomplishment! All that in 5 minutes! (This is the other side, just in case you were curious how that turned out) ;)

edit to add: posted on craftershock :)