DIY With Debi: Decorated Notebooks & Planners
Happy DIY Wednesday friends! I'm Debi Adams and I have been playing in my craft room now for weeks. What about you? If you are off from work, are you creating anything special? With the free time I've had, I was finally able to tackle some things I had been putting off for a while and it's been really nice. I made three cards this week for friends, "just because", and that felt so good. I rarely find time for that. I also got to making notes about what I wanted to share here each week. And you know the saying about "the best laid plans…"? Yes, that. Well I had an idea for today and put it onto paper and then I sent my daughter to the store to get me a few of those spiral bound, mini-notebooks/planners. I thought it was the perfect time to make a notebook for writing down plans for the future once everything gets lifted and back to the "new normal". I figured it would be fun to rework a notebook cover by putting a really nice background on top of the plain ones that I see and then layer it up real pretty. Well, my daughter came home with these gorgeous notebooks from the dollar store and I could not bring myself to cover them! Would you? Lol.
So, I decided to keep one of the beauty ones, as is, and simply add to it and I would rework the second one, for the sake of variation. (I hope to make the third one soon.) The nice part about stamps, and dies for that matter, is that you get to decide the style and color to fit your vision. So here is a bit of each.
Supplies for the Butterfly "as is" planner:
Hero Arts
• CM372 Tropical Leaves
• CM320 New Day Butterflies
• CM413 Affirmation Messages
• AF345 Intense Black Ink
• AF426 Pool Party Reactive Ink
• AF429 Blue Hawaii Reactive Ink
• MI002 Sponge Daubers
• MT310 MISTI Mini Hero Black
• PS325 Dove White Cardstock
Other Supplies
Small notebook or planner, gold feather (optional), gold string, gold cardstock or poster board, foam dots, Copic markers of your choice, hot glue gun and glue stick, adhesive, gold sequins, gold tassel (optional), gold paint marker (for coloring in butterfly parts)
Everything gets stamped, colored and/or cut as seen below.
Now it’s time to layer everything using adhesive, hot glue and foam dots. Tip: If you plan on using the elastic that goes around a lot of notebooks/planners, make sure to allot space for it with your designs.
For the second notebook I covered the front with patterned paper. To help hide the area underneath the spirals, I cut a small strip of the same patterned paper, slipped it under the spirals and adhered it in place. *FYI, This particular notebook would not allow me to take off the spirals so I could cover the entire front in one piece. However, there are notebooks with removable spirals and then you will be able to cover the front with one piece of paper.
Supplies for the “Hello Beautiful” notebook/planner:
Hero Arts
• DC277 One Thing At A Time Stamp & Cut
• CM413 Affirmation Messages
• CM432 Flower Bouquet Pieces
• DI732 Flower Bouquet Pieces Frame Cuts
• PS325 Dove White Cardstock
• PS323 Pitch Black Cardstock
• AF345 Intense Black Ink
• PW110 White Embossing Powder
• AF419 Clear Embossing & Watermark Ink
• PW200 Heat Tool
• MT310 MISTI Mini Hero Black
Other Supplies
Notebook/Planner, patterned paper of your choice, small gold garland (optional), Copic markers of your choice, foam dots, small strip of ribbon
Here's all the parts and pieces to the second notebook. I LOVE the Affirmation Messages set. It screams happy.
And again, layering and assembly…
Once I got started, I didn’t want to stop! Oh and here’s a good tip to remember...When you are stamping any project, stamp a few extras images and die cut them out. When you are ready to work on a notebook like this, you can just pull out the pre-made pieces. I like to keep my parts and pieces in a cupcake pan.
So that’s it my friends. Hope you are all well and have found some time to create.
XO,
Thanks for your ideas on how to use stamps and dues to make everyday things look more beautiful!
So beautiful!
Gorgeous notebooks Debi, a lovely idea. This would be great as a little gift.
Thank you so much for sharing your inspiration, stay safe and have a wonderful week.