I love to use steno notebooks to jot things down at work. I love that's it's large enough to get substantial info on just one page, but compact enough to limit the space it takes up on the desk, especially if you tuck the cover page underneath. I finally reached the last page of the one I'm currently using yesterday. With good quality ones, I would usually turn the pad around and start using the backside of the pages but this particular one was pretty cheap and you can see the ink through the pages, so I knew I had to find myself a new one. I didn't want to make a purchase and I had in the back on my mind the idea to make one of my own. I have the Zutter Bind-It-All machine, purchased years ago along with spiral bindings tucked away in my closet, ready to pull out for projects like this. I also have this paper I got from the office last year when we changed the company logo. They were going around the floors, gathering all stationary with the old logo on it and I asked what they were going to do with the paper. I know some offices are okay with employees using the old paper at home to print on or to give to the kids for them to draw on. I had a feeling they might not want the letterhead to circulate out of the office, but I got a nice surprise when I came in a few days later and found a stack of paper sitting on my desk, ready to take away with me! Actually, I got two surprises, because it turns out the paper was not 8½ x 11 anymore...! They had cut the logo off, leaving me with 8½ x 9½ sheets. I was both touched that they had taken the time to prepare the paper for me and also miffed that the new size couldn't be printed on, which is what I was planning to do in the first place (just for informal docs to use around the house). Well, once I got over the initial disappointment, I decided this could be used to make cute notebooks, possibly to give away as little gifts to my colleagues.
Then COVID happened and since we're all working apart, gifts are not a top priority right now, but getting a new notebook for myself was, so I got working on my idea tonight. I initially tried cutting one of the sheets in two to get the most out of the paper stack, but I found the resulting pages to be too narrow, so I measured the steno notebook I had and cut the page to 9½ x 6". To decide how many pages to include in the notebook, I pulled out my spiral inventory to look at what I had. I found a white "leftover" piece, meaning I had already used part of the spiral on another project and the leftover piece was just the right width for my notebook - and the right colour, so that's what I went with. It seemed fitting to use the Office Hours line from PinkFresh. I've been sitting on this one for a couple of months and I was happy to finally dive in, as I love this fun little collection.
I used a thick piece of chipboard for the back (as I love being able to walk around with a notebook and have it sturdy enough to write on it while standing up - not that relevant when working at home, but very much so when working in an office, especially back when I was an assistant and would constantly be writing stuff down while standing in someone's doorway) and a lighter weight chipboard for the front. The front is still pretty sturdy now that I've added patterned paper on both the front and the inside (mostly for my own pleasure.) I picked the tab paper design to use on the front and added a strip of blue wording to the side to break up all of that pink. I used double-sided tape and I unfortunately started putting the paper piece slightly crooked, so when I added the blue wording, which was straight, the plaid pattern gave that away! I hid the seam with a piece of sparkly washi tape (which incidently, doesn't come from that product line, but is a dead-on match to the shade of blue used on the patterned paper).
I wanted to add an overlay, but keep it very flat, so I layered a couple of paper scraps and I picked the "Hello my name is" cut-apart, which worked perfectly to add my name to the notebook! I was tempted to use the alpha stickers that go with the collection, but I had a feeling they would come off when the notebook was handled over time, so I went for stamping instead. I have my full name up on a block already to stamp on the back of my cards, so I hid the "handstamped by" part and my last name and inked my first name with Night of Navy ink and added it to the die-cut. I stapled the papers together for texture and added a small little puffy stickers that says "Noted" because I couldn't resist. I'm really loving that the puffy stickers are having a comeback. Maybe because it's reminding me of my sticker collection from my childhood, which I was really proud of.
I was trying to decide whether to round the corners or not with the Corner Chomper and I ended up deciding to do only the bottom right corner, which looks great with the shape of the tab image. The only thing I could improve on in my next version would be to cut the pages slightly smaller than the cover pages so that the pages are more covered. I only realized that once I was done assembling it. Small detail, but those are the kind of things you improve on when you move to version 2.0.
I don't know how long this new notebook will last me, but I'm thinking because I have the Bind-It-All machine that I might be able to simply pry the spiral apart, take out the used pages inside the notebook, cut and punch some new ones and bind it again using the existing cover pages if I want to get more mileage out of my work. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to start using it at work tomorrow. I'm really happy with the result!
Supplies
Chipboard and White Paper: Upcycled
Stamps: Faire la différence
Ink: Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers and Puffy Stickers: Office Hours (PinkFresh)
Accessories: Blue Sparkly Washi Tape (Unknown Source); Stapler (Office Supplies);
White Spiral, Bind-It-All Machine (Zutter); Ticket Corner Punch (Stampin' Up!);
Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers)
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