A Fun Project for a Fun Bloggy Friend!

This Christmas I had the opportunity to help Darilyn of Thehighnotedotnet surprise her brother-in-law with a Kansas State University guy apron to wear while serving as the family chef. (See the tutorial tutorial here at The Purl Bee.) She was sweet enough to write a lovely blog post about it, complete with photos, that truly put a smile on my face. If you haven’t had a chance to visit Darilyn’s blog, please check out her creative projects! She also has a My Fave DIY’s page and an Etsy shop specializing in items made with vintage sheet music, like these paper Christmas trees that I used while making my snowflake garland last winter. Thank you, Darilyn! ♥

Mini Notebooks

The next best thing to pretty fabric is pretty paper! Although I don’t scrapbook, I love to walk through that department at my favorite craft/sewing stores and couldn’t resist buying this beautiful collection when I saw it marked down from $19.99 to $9.99. (Click on photo for a larger view.) Of course, then I had to come up with a project for it, so here it is! Start by buying some mini composition notebooks. (Target has two-packs for 99 cents.) Then . . .

(1) Use a notebook to make a pattern on a piece of cardboard. Leave a little extra on both sides to fold over the front and back notebook covers, and mark where all the folds should go.

(2) Use the pattern to cut out the scrapbook paper and to draw the fold lines on the back.

Inside Front

Inside Back

(3) Fold on the lines the wrong way and then the right way, making firm creases. Then glue the cover onto the notebook starting with the spine, then the covers, then the flaps.

Following are three additional options you can use to “dress up” your notebook . . . choose one, two, or all three. For me, what I chose depended on the cover design. For example, one has cute little birds on it and a spine cover would have hidden one of them, and another has words on it so I didn’t want to cover them with a label.

OPTION 1: BEFORE gluing on the cover, put a colored brad about ½ inch from the middle of the edge on both the front and back cover. Put a small coated ponytail rubber band  around the back-cover brad and fasten the brad as tightly as possible. Leave the brad on the front cover a bit loose. Then, after you glue the cover onto the notebook, pull the rubber band from the back and loop it over the front brad.

Back

Front

OPTION 2: Choose a contrasting or coordinating strip of paper for a spine cover, prepare the folds, and glue it onto the spine, holding it for a bit until the glue dries.

OPTION 3: Make a small name label out of another scrap. If you like, make “stitches” around the edges with a colored pen.

Your notebook is now ready to toss into your purse or give away . . . perfect for a small hostess or gal-pal gift. Or, turn it into an extra-special greeting card by writing a happy birthday/get well soon/congratulations/thinking of you message on the front page of the notebook for the recipient to discover and putting it in a colorful envelope.  Now, what to make with the rest of this fun paper . . . ♥  UPDATE: Click here for MORE mini-notebook!

New Year’s Resolutions

As writers, we know all about the “magic of three” . . . beginning, middle, end, The Three Bears, three adjectives, three wishes, three clues.  Three items create a pattern but don’t produce a mundane list. Comedians set up jokes with two scenarios and use the third for the punch line. Decorators use three candles on a mantel, and chefs use three garnishes on a plate. Even military officials use the “Rule of Three.” According to neuroscientist Tina Sellig, “The military has found that people can only track three things at once . . . when they experimented with a ‘Rule of Four,’ effectiveness dropped precipitously.”

Based on this real-life evidence, I decided I should stick to three New Year’s resolutions this year:

(1) Walk 10,000 steps a day. This may be a bit of a challenge since I work at a desk now instead of an elementary classroom, but check out my new pedometer! 

(2) Start a “Year of Homemade Gifts” project, with photos, links, and tutorials posted on PILLOWS A-LA-MODE. (Hopefully those are cheers I hear, not groans! :))

(3) Host a resource-sharing gathering for women sometime this year . . . more on this to come.

These, along with time spent with my family and friends and writing projects fill me with anticipation for 2012. Happy New Year, and may God bless you and yours! ♥