And just like that, it's March.
Not only is it March, but we're a week in already, and we just lost an hour. I will let you know when that is ever ok. Especially this past week, when I seem to have gone from unable to stay awake to completely and totally incapable of falling asleep. Thank you, Lyme disease and adrenal fatigue. I see a nap in the very near future. Hopefully. Maybe.
Aaaaaaanyhooter.
It's Sunday! Let it be a lazy day, shall we? The snow will be melting around here, thanks to predictions in the 50's for most of the week (with one day in the 60's!), and I'm just really hoping that spring is, in fact, right around the corner. Winter is always rough for me; it wreaks havoc on my body, and I'm through with it.
Yesterday, I got my scrapping mojo back, and decided to stop hoarding paper and make something to make the day a little brighter, since it's still pretty damn cold out there.
For Christmas a year or so ago (probably more, because, you know...hoarder...), as part of my gift, my sister got me a few sheets of gorgeous fine paper from Paper Source. It's seriously gorgeous. So pretty, I would unroll them all, just to look at them, ponder about making something with one of them, and then roll them up again, not wanting to ruin the perfect rectangle by cutting them all up to use in projects. Which is totally normal.
After having to pack up and move my entire craft room this winter, I decided it's high time I quit that nonsense and use the damn stuff already. My sister didn't get me that paper for it to be just looked at, she wanted me to use it!
This week, after having a few meetings to go to, and hating the wide-ruled (which, ugh - can't it at least be college-ruled?? seriously.) Gov't issue notepad the size of my entire arm that I had to use, I decided I needed something way cooler than that to have with me to take notes. Not wanting to spend any money on something like this, I went rooting through my stash to see what I had in order to make something. I found two Moleskin kraft notebooks I'd totally forgotten I had (they come as a set of three...so god only knows where the third one is...), which are perfectamundo for this project, and unrolled those fine papers my sister got me for Christmas all those years ago.
And because I want you to be able to make your own gorgeous notebooks everyone will be jealous of, I'm gonna show you what I did. It's wicked easy. Ready? Here we go.
Take the notebook, open it up, and lay it face down on the wrong side of the paper. Trace the outline of the notebook, and then cut about 1/2 inch - 1 inch outside the traced line.

Using a paintbrush, quickly brush Mod Podge all over the cover of the notebook (I had to work quickly, so I couldn't take a snapshot of this stage.) Carefully place the traced and cut paper on top of the Mod Podged notebook spine, and smooth out both sides from the center. The edges of the paper will hang over the edges of the notebook. Let it dry for a few minutes. This shouldn't take long - Mod Podge dries relatively quickly.

Once it dries, flip it over, so the front or back flap is showing. This is the back flap. Cut the overhanging paper at the spine and at the corners, so you can easily flip it up and over to glue it down. Since this particular notebook has a pocket in the back for hiding super-secret-on-the-down-low stuff, I had to make sure I also made a cut at the top to allow me to tuck the overhanging piece under the pocket, so the pocket could remain open.

Do the same thing on the front flap, until the entire book has the overhanging edges secured on the inside. If you're making more than one notebook, like I did, just repeat the process. Both books took me a total of 30 minutes. For realz. It'll take a few extra minutes if you choose to also cover the inside flaps of the notebook. I wan't really concerned about having them covered, so I decided to just cover the outside for this project.

Below is a shot of the back of the finished book on the left - this paper was made from strips of various fine papers, so the front is different from the back.

Now, this paper is pretty enough to have that be the end of the project. But, we all know I can't let it end there. I didn't want to do anything that would be overboard, but I wanted a little something extra on these books. So, I got out my Versamark ink pad, my "j" stamp, and my favorite gold embossing powder. I stamped the "j" on front, embossed, and viola! You can see the "j" on the above pic, in the lower right-hand corner. I did this on both. Took all of 1.5 minutes to stamp and heat emboss.
Then, on the inside, I decided to stamp only on the first page from a roller stamp from Kate Spade I got a while back (WAY more than I ever spend on stamps like this, but I loved the sentiments, so I splurged...):

Simple. Awesome. Total win. People will be totally jealous when I show up with these beauts to boring meetings.

That's it, friends! Two gorgeous notebooks that took a mere 30 minutes! And they're totally personalized, and the best part - they're in my favorite color. Purple.
I hope you have a fabulous Sunday, and that you're able to find time to create something today!
