Greeting Card Kids Notebook

I am SO sorry that I forgot to post something yesterday. That is a first in all of these years of blogging. Our Christmas is always so busy and crazy. I try to post a couple of days in advance (secret is out now!!!) so I can tend to the holiday things and not have the blogging on my mind or my long list of things to do. We have a busy Christmas eve with going to extended family stuff. Then we have Christmas day here with the gifts and dinner which always follows dishes and messes! And then the 26th is hubby's birthday so there is more celebrating too. So today is my day to recoup, regroup and supposedly relaxing. My plans for the day (which began at 4:30 am because I could not sleep! - great way to start the day!!!) are to pick up the living room for starters. It's such a mess with bits of wrapping paper, boxes and gifts all over the place. A load of laundry must be done or I'll get behind on that. But remember I LOVE to do laundry because that means I get to be in my workroom until it's done!!! Nothing like being sent to your room to escape and have fun while doing the laundry! Then there's dishes and cooking (UGH!). I need to clean up my workroom. Someone sure made a mess in here! I'm such a messy stamper! I REALLY want to finish a bracelet I started and I'll share that with you when it's done, it's SO cool!!! And the last thing I would like to accomplish today is a graduation card. My niece graduated from college on the 23rd and I had to take a card from my stash. On a normal occasion that wouldn't be such a big deal but it was the only graduation card I had on hand!! SO I do need to make some new samples and put them in the samples drawer. Wish me luck on completing all of those tasks. Oh and the Christmas celebrating isn't over yet. We still have one more Christmas party/get together to attend. Then maybe we can relax and enjoy the remainder of the holiday season! I do LOVE seeing the Christmas tree in the living room and all of the decorations and wonderful red and green colors. The living room always looks so drab once we put all of the Christmas stuff away! And the living room sure looks a lot bigger too!!!

But for now I want to show you a fun notebook I created using my Zutter punch binding machine, the "Greeting Card Kids" set and the new "Love Impressions" decorative papers. I LOVE notebooks and I LOVE to alter notebooks too. It was actually fun to create the notebook from the ground up! I am going to be selling my Zutter punch machine. I have only used it twice so if you are interested in the details please email me.

I started out with some really firm cardboard. I think it came on the back of my watercolor paper tablet. It's very thick and firm. I cut it 6" x 6". Don't ask why, I have no idea why I wanted to work with a square. I'm not a big fan of squares as it is!!!

On the front piece of cardboard I glued a piece of Real Red card stock. While that was drying I cut some copier paper to fit the notebook.

Next I decorated the front of the notebook by adding a layer of Basic Gray card stock. Then I added the soft pink dotted decorative paper from the "Love Impressions" pack. On top of that I added the heart border strip and another piece of decorative paper from the pack. After I got those pieces in place I stamped and colored the little girl and worked the layers to fit.

The words came from a custom made rubber stamp. I punched it out with the oval stamp, added a larger oval layer behind it and then the scalloped oval layer. Then I punched the cover and back. I added the paper and then the wire binder.

This was a very fun notebook to create and personally, I think I like creating them from the ground up as opposed to altering an already made one.

Don't forget the annual New Year's Day Blog Candy!!! It will be extra special this year because I am celebrating a belated Blogoversary, the New Year and my birthday!! We won't discuss how many candles but I'll give you a clue - the fire extinguisher is a good thing to have on hand with that many candles!!!! LOL

Thank you for visiting today,

Wanda