Krisi's Kreations: You can bind your own Notebooks!

My mother used to tell me that being poor was the key to creativity. She was half joking, and she definitely said this with a blessed spirit. I could never consider myself poor, having so much to be thankful for. For me I would have to say that thriftiness inspires my creativity. I think I get more excited when I figure out how to do something without spending money, than I get about anything else.

In September of 2010, Krisi asked me if I wanted to guest on her CT team. At that time I was very new to hybrid. I sent her an email to let her know that as far as hybrid went, I was pretty simple. There are some ladies that are so elaborate and detailed and I love their stuff so much. But me, I have ADD and if I can't make it with a few cuts it will just have to be left to someone else. In addition this hybrid thing can be a trap with all the wonderful gadgets you can get. I told Krisi that I didn't even have an official pair of scissors (I was using my kids school scissors), and ask her what did she recommend for scissors. She said she really like the cutting bee scissors by EK Success (though she did warn me they were sharp). So I went to Micheal's that night with my 40 percent off coupon and picked up those scissors and have never looked back. Since then I have added a crop a dile. I use my kitchen paring knife for all my scoring. My husband also has a paper cutter I use often.

The hybrid I am going to do today is something I make often. Because it is so easy. I usually just make little notebooks, but my twin daughters are 10 and the girliness is just oozing out of them so I wanted to jazz up a little notebook for them.

Here is the Krisi template that fit the bill for this girlie goodness.

Of course I needed a kit too. This one was perfect for transforming this template into a notebook for my daughter McKinley to carry around to draw in and color.

And this is what what I made putting them both together.

Krisi's design is for an actual purse, but she designs her template in layers so it is easy to adapt them when you need to change things up just a little. I didn't need the sides, but I needed the front, back, and closure. Here is a picture of the printed page and other supplies I needed for the project.

The steps are pretty easy.

1. Twist the coil binding out of an old notebook. This is very simple to do, but you may have to bend the wire a little. You just continue to twist it until it is all the way out.

2. Then you just use the original cover as a template to puch holes along the top. If you have a Crop-A-Dile you will be able to do more at a time. I like to use a binder clip when I am doing several at a time. Sometimes I am just making a new personalized cover for an existing notebook. But for this project I just cut my own paper to the size needed for the project.

3. Last you just need to twist your coil binding back through the notebook.

That’s it, your done! This technique is so simple to do! A few year ago I took a project to Kinko’s and they charged me $7 to bind a mini-notebook and they even threw away the binding that they cut off the ends. I asked for it, since while watching them twist the coil in by hand I immediately knew that I would be doing it myself from that point. And they refused! Anyway, now I have my kids twist all the coils out of all their old notebooks!

Here are a few more pictures. I used double sided velcro so she can keep her purse notebook closed.