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Thursday, January 22, 2009

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 :)

19 comments:

  1. I love making books and I think using the paint swatches is a brilliant idea! Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Oh this is way cool! I love the color that the paint chip brings. I'll be linking.

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  3. That's a really cool idea! It makes me wish i had some paint samples lying around.

    There's a really simple trick to making rubber cement last a long time: apply rubber cement to both surfaces, let them dry. Once they are dry, very carefully press the two surfaces together.

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  4. I love the ideas of may your own cute notebook vs. using the boring ones sold in stores. This is the easiest tutorial I've seen yet!

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  5. Thanks for all the comments. I'll keep trying to make some easy projects. ;)

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  6. a fellow columbus, ohioian? cool! you should make me one of these... :)

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  7. This is one of the easiest tutorial of creating a notebook. Good idea!!!

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  8. think this will be my TAD for today. Thanks so much.

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  9. I think stitching is nicer than stapling, and it's really easy to sew a basic spine with 3 holes and some thread. Just look up a pamphlet stitch and you'll find plenty of info.

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  10. I love this notebook! When I found the link I dove right in. Unfortunately I didn't have any notecards laying around, but I made my own version with an old greeting card. Thanks for the great idea.

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  11. Cool. Do the pages' ends look uneven? I bet you could fold each page individually and then glue them instead.

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  12. Hi Lizzard,

    Thanks for the tutorial. It looks simple enough to make. :) I've posted about this tutorial at my blog.

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  13. This would be great to do with kids, too -- so simple! Thanks for the inspiration!

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  14. Great tutorial and I agree with Joanne, it's a great project to do with kids!
    Thanks for sharing!

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  15. always frustrated with ugly notebooks, i googled something random like 'how to make a notebook' and came across your link. which took me to your portfolio. which made me realize we're both ou viscom alum (i'm actually more of a recent grad, baby alum, but anyway) just had to say i love your idea and am going to try it out right now ... because as a designer, i would have 100 poor little paint swatches under my bed that have been waiting for a reason to be used! thanks and go bobcats!

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  19. this is very helpful one day I hope to be a writer thank you! by the way awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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