Crafterday: Notebooks

Here’s a simple tutorial to make your own notebooks out of recycled paper. This is a great way to reuse the one-sided printouts that we tend to accumulate, especially if we work in an office.

Ingredients:

• A stack of one-sided printouts with a blank side
• Heavy card or cardboard for backing. Think cereal boxes, Post Express envelopes, etc.
• Pretty paper, postcards or even photographs for cover
• White glue
• Clothes pegs or paper clamps
• Box cutter & Cutting mat
• Ruler
• Pencil

Decide what size you want your notebook to be in. This can depend on the size of your available cover. You might wanna trim the paper to fit the cover rather than the other way around, especially if it’s a postcard or photograph.

I wanted to make a notebook that fits in my hand when I write, so I cut A4 papers in thirds crosswise. Do the same for your cover and backing. It’s okay for the cover and backing to be a teeny bit bigger; it’ll look tidier from the outside.

Here’s my cover, paper and backing.

Stack them together, keeping the blank side of the backing facing out. Make sure the side you want to glue (the spine) is even. This is important. The rest of the sides will likely be uneven unless you want to measure things to precision. But handmade means it will be imperfect anyway, so don’t sweat the small stuff.

Clamp them in place near the spine with your pegs or clamps.

Apply a generous amount of glue to the spine. Make sure you get it into every crack. Pay special attention to the cover and backing.

The paper tends to expand around the middle once it’s wet, so I usually put another clamp in the middle. This will depend on how long your spine is. Just make sure it stays flat while the glue dries.

This is probably a good time to mention that your notebook shouldn’t be thicker than how far your pegs can reach.

Leave to dry. Ideally, it should dry standing up. Never flat. Glue will sink with the direction of gravity so make sure it’s sinking into the spine instead of on the table. You can wedge it between books on the shelf or find something you can stand it in.

Once it dries, it should open up flat without falling apart. Give it a quick flip through to make sure the pages are staying put.

Now you need to cover the spine of the notebook. Use light but durable paper. Paperbags work. I’m using one that I got from Starbucks. They encourage recycling so this is a great way of doing it.

Decide how much paper you want to overlap both sides and cut out a strip across the bag. Snip open one end and measure out enough paper to cover the length of the spine. Cut and spread glue evenly on the inside of the strip.

I find it easier to put the strip down on top of the spine like this so I can make adjustments and make sure both sides get enough paper. Optionally, you can try it on before you put glue, and score out the paper where it folds over the edges so you have a guide.

Smooth the strip over the spine and make sure the edges are all glued down.

You’re done!

Of course, give it some time to dry before actually using it.

The pretty paper I used is from Moof and is the only component here that was bought new. You can use anything suitable. The last time I made these notebooks, I used my photographs.

Have a fun Crafterday!

Crafterday: Jewellery Display

My craft project last Sunday was a jewellery holder, which took me about a half an hour to make. Most of the material is already lying around the house somewhere, and the only thing I had to buy was the embroidery hoop. RM3.40 at the craft supply shop.

I didn’t shoot the process because I was so intent on working on the project. Anyway it should be fairly easy to figure out.

What you need is to stretch a piece of porous or loose-weave cloth over the hoop. Cross-stitch fabric will probably work well. I used a piece of leftover curtain from one of our first projects. Instant earring hanger!

The necklace hooks are made from wire thick enough to hold its shape but skinny enough to be manipulated by hand. I used a pair of pliers to speed things along, twisting it into a wavy shape, then turning the ends up. I reinforced the upper part with another strip of wire and used a ribbon to hold them together.

Then I just tied it to the embroidery hoop, made loop on top with the ribbon, hung it up and piled my jewellery on.

The necklace rack is subjected to gravity so I made the hooks deep enough for my necklaces to stay in if the thing tilts a reasonable amount.

Easy afternoon project!

Crafterday: The (sweat)shop

On my day off, Peggy brought her sewing machine to my place and we got some work done on the baggets and on the shop. Yes, we have a shop, as those of you on Facebook would have learned by now. But we’ll get to that later.

The first order of business that Pegs wanted to try is making our labels. She devised a method of using reverse-printed then photocopied text to transfer on ribbons with the help of thinner. Since we didn’t have enough, she ended up using my nail polish remover.

After several trials and errors, she concluded that she may need to use plain ribbon next time because the transfer won’t stick to the pattern.

But she managed to get a few labels out before it was time to sew!

Since she had an electric sewing machine that does more than one stitch, I got her to sew the pockets down with a zigzag stitch. We made about five baggets before calling it a day.

Here’s the material we worked with that day. I have to add that we have plenty of material in the design on the far left!

The label says CrafteRafter.blogspot.com but the blog’s not ready yet. Meanwhile, you can join us on our Facebook page.

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