30 Nov 2011 by 1 Comment

Marcia gets crafty 4 – scrapbook paper noteboooks 1

It’s no secret that I love notebooks and paper 🙂

I’m not a scrapbooker but ever since I bought my first pad of scrapbook paper, I’ve been hooked.

The colours, the sturdiness, the ease of using it…

I decided to make some scrapbook notebooks after I saw a tutorial for something similar on a blog (in the days before pinterest) otherwise I’d link to it.

What you need:
scrapbook paper
hole punch
twine
gift tag (if gift)

How

  1. Take 4-5 sheets of scrapbook paper
  2. Fold them in half and tear down the middle. This is a great craft for recovering perfectionists. You will twitch at first at the thought of not cutting neatly but when you put it together and see how cute it looks and how the torn edges add to the cuteness, you’ll smile.
  3. Fold all the paper in half again.
  4. Punch along the folds (spine of the book) as far in as your punch will reach.
  5. Thread the twine through the holes (I’m afraid I was experimenting mostly and I still don’t have the exact method…) – keep going until your book feels secure. I don’t like flimsy so once I think it’s okay, I thread one more loop through.
  6. Make sure the twine is on the outside.
  7. Tie a lovely big bow and call it a day.
  8. I tie a gift tag to the twine with a “made for you by Marcia” note.

Quick, easy and very, very pretty.

What to use it for:

  1. A standard notebook
  2. A book of lists
  3. a year in review book (I’m keeping one this year and it’s been fabulous – I will blog at the end of December)
  4. Little scrapbook
  5. Journal

(all of these for you or a friend, of course)

Do you love notebooks and scrap paper too?

What do you use scrap paper for besides scrapbooking?

Filed Under: Intentional living Tagged With: , , ,
23 Sep 2011 by 6 Comments

Relieve your scrapbooking guilt

I see mothers all over the internet feeling guilty about how they’re always behind with their kids’ scrapbooks.

A large part of that reason is that all our expectations are too high.

If you are a scrapbooker, why do you do scrap? (is that the correct word?)

Is it to preserve a memory?

If that’s true, then relax your standards somewhat and just get the memories down.

If it’s to foster your creativity, then by all means get fancy but remember the reason you got into it in the first place.

I am not a scrapbooker by any means (I lack patience and “fiddliness”) but I do want to preserve some memories.

One of the things on my 37 things list is to do two crafty/creative projects a month.

I’ve done a couple of projects and thought I’d show you my first attempt – a pseudo-scrapbook :

For those of you who are TRULY crafty, don’t laugh – this is HUGE for me.

  • I bought a brag book.
  • I used some of the party printables for the front and back covers.
  • Printed TONS of pics from the party.
  • Arranged them in an order that made me happy.
  • Put in some of the leftover cupcake toppers and tented food tags.
  • Realised I still had space for about 6 pics.
  • Went back to the photo shop to print additional pics.
  • Rearranged a little bit more.
  • Called it a day.

Am VERY happy with the results.

I showed the people at work and (just goes to show what kind of people I work with) they were all SO enthusiastic and encouraging about my efforts that 3 of them want me to do their kids’ party.

Um, no thanks 🙂

If you’re stuck in scrapbooking guilt, just go get some brag book, put your pics in, journal on the opposite side of the book and call it a day.

I guarantee you’ll feel so much better.

What do you think of my little project?

 

PS would you like me to show you some more of my very low-maintenance attempts at making cute things?

 

 

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