Project #1? Check! We are leaving in 2 days for our road trip to Florida. I thought it might be a good idea for my kids to have travel journals since they’ll be seeing some pretty cool things that they’ve never seen before. I saw somewhere that it was pretty easy to alter composition books, so…. Here’s the “Ewwwww”
And here’s the “Ahhhhhh”
My son’s was first. He wanted something “cool” with “sculls and stuff”. I still need to embellish it a bit, but I didn’t have any spare blood or decaying animal parts laying around.
Next (and more fun) was my daughter’s. She picked out a kitty notebook for her journal, but I over-ruled her and made this. Yes, I notice the missing button. I couldn’t find the other one–typical.
Then…just because I was having so much fun, I made this. My supportive husband’s first response, “Huh..what are you gonna use that for?” Me, “Oh! Uh…well…hmmm…I don’t know, but isn’t it CUTE!?”.
Since I LOVE tutorials, I thought I’d attempt to give one on these. Let me preface this by saying I suck at tutorials. I kept forgetting to take pictures!This is what I started out with. I bought a new glue called Zip Dry that is specifically for paper projects. It worked great!
I ripped off the binding so there wouldn’t be a larger bump at the seam, and simply glued my paper to the cover. I trimmed off the excess with an X-acto knife. Notice I simply used a plastic placemat as my cutting board. Much cheaper.
Next, I glued the coordinating paper to the binding. Just make sure you hold it down and really push down at the seam for it to adhere.
After that, embellish to your liking. I swear this project only takes about 15 minutes unless you’re like me and you can’t decide how to decorate it. That part took me about three hours. I bought a bunch of the composition books at Wal Mart for .70 cents. Then I went to another Wal Mart, and they were .97 cents!!! WTH?! Regardless, these will make spectacular teacher gifts and Christmas gifts for my secretaries next school year! Oh, the joy!
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Wow, your embellished books are gorgeous! I particularly love the skulls! It’s difficult to make crafty things boyish. Luckily I don’t have to worry about that yet, with only a baby girl so far 😉
Those are perfect!!
The boy one is great!
We always kept a list of license plates we saw (from all the different states) when we were on road trips. We never got all 50, but we got close!
O.K., loved the new blog design and now I’m loving these!!!! We are taking a two week camping trip into the U.P. and my daughter and I are going to scrapbook our trip as we go (thanks to the kodak easy share small printer and the fact that I’m a cheater when it comes to camping. I’m going by way of a 28 ft. 5th wheel with electricity, rather than a tent!!!). These books will be something fun to do in advance for the kids to jot their thoughts in along the way and then we can transfer them to our scrapbook pages. Thanks for the great tutorial. Enjoy your trip to Florida.
Really cute! They remind me of pledge books back in the college sorority days only those were made with the journals already covered in fabric. I will definitely borrow your idea sometime….adorable!
Now THIS is a project I CAN do! Thanks so much! I’ll definitely be making these for sitter gifts, etc. What a wonderful idea! I don’t think even I could screw this up. This was a great tutorial.
Love your daughter’s book! Such a neat idea! They will have something cool to remember their trip by!
I’ve been thinking about having a contest over at my place…you could totally do a raffle kind of thing and give the winner one of your made over books. They’re so cute!
LOVE the travel journals. I have just gotten into covering paper pads like that. Love it.
LOVE THESE! I wish I was crafty. Or had more time to figure these things out. I do love your instructions, that is a big help!!! I might be able to make these!
VERY cute! I bought a lot of those composition books last year when they were on clearance at Target.
Have a great vacation! Wave to me as you pass by on the way to Florida!
Look at YOU Miss 10 comment girl! (Make mine 11) !!!! You need to celebrate with a special treat today! Love the tutorial – the books turned out so cute and what a great way for the kids to keep memories of fun vacations! I might do this for my boys even just for their pre-handwriting pictures when we go to Disney this fall!
What a great little project! I’m not much of a scrapbooker but I LOVE scrapbook paper. And here’s another great use for it!
Just found your blog…love it. Just had to say that I have had that conversation with my husband, I busted out laughing when I read it!!
Bit late to the party here, but wanted to say thanks for the tutorial. We’ve had a bunch of fun making some of these this week. I posted a couple pictures of ones we made on my blog.
Have a great day!
-Jenny-