How To Make a Very Simple Notebook

Recently in the MadeStuff house there has been a tidying up effort.  Many of our supplies have been stored in the one room that we really need to renovate so Alasdair has been busy boxing up supplies and moving them to another room while I’ve been busy making new things out of old supplies!

Last year we had a load of photos printed for sale at craft fairs and spent many hours mounting them.  There’s only so much mounting that you can stand so naturally there were some left over.  Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been making notebooks with the leftovers and I want to share with you how to make them.

The first thing you need to do is find a nice size of photo (ours are 6×8) and remove any white space from the top and bottom.

Then you need some paper that is cut to be bigger than your photo height and width, quite a bit bigger or you’ll struggle to cut the pages square.  You need several sheets of paper (I had 7 to give my book 28 pages).

Fold the photo in half widthways and mark 1cm intervals right down the middle of the fold (on the unprinted side).  Try and leave the same amount of space at each end.

Fold your paper in half and place each sheet of paper on top of the other, with the photo on top (wrong side up).

Take a large book such as the phone book, or I used the Screwfix catalogue and open it towards the middle.  Place your pile of paper and photo so the the fold of the pile sits in the spine of the book.

Take a dressmakers pin, or drawing pin, or any sort of pin (you might have the proper tool, I don’t) and stick it through the pile of paper at the marked 1cm intervals.  Make sure each hole goes all the way through.

Once all of the holes have been made take the photo from the top of the pile and put it on the bottom, photo side out.

Take a long length of strong thread and start sewing a running stitch through the holes to sew the pages together.  When you get to the last hole, sew all the way back to the top again.  Secure with square stitches and cut the end off.  You could also attach beads to the ends for a decorative bookmark.

Close the book over and use a paper cutting knife to trim the edges square all the way through.  If you’ve got access to a guillotine then I suggest you use that to save your hands the pain of cutting through pages and pages of paper.

Put the closed notebook under something heavy to encourage it to stay closed.

That’s it…seemed easier to do than to write down so I hope that’s easy enough to follow.

I added some nice cellophane and button packaging which you could do if you want to give one of your hand bound books as a gift.

wise little owls

I made some more little owls for a commission (actually for an old school friend of mine).

These are made from ecospun felt.  I found that wool felt is too thick and it made them a funny shape – it’s probably just me, but it does feel good to make something nice from all those nasty plastic bottles.

Anyway, these are destined for a group of nursery children and I really do hope that they enjoy playing with them as much as I enjoyed seeing their little characters emerging.  Looks like the start of a beautiful owl relationship to me.

I am more than happy to make more of these to order…you can buy them through the shop.

Vintage Button Pendants

I’ve been busy making layered button pendants today from some of my vintage button collection.  These buttons have been collected from various elderly relatives over the years and there are some amazing buttons within that collection, some of which make great pendants within themselves.

I’ve not even scratched the surface of the buttons I have, which makes it really time consuming to come up with combinations.  There must be millions of possibilities.  Here are a few that I’ve made this morning that are now dry.  There are others just waiting for the glue to dry.

All but the last one are available in our Coriandr shop.  I’m not at all happy with the quality of the last one…you can see the glue under the heart button.

a new bird design

I made a new bird.

The process has been somewhat arduous and there have been many poor deformed creatures along the way.  It’s taken me such a long time of thinking before I finally plucked up the courage to create a new design.  It seems so silly now but I was so pleased with the original bird design (for the fabric finches) that I was scared I wouldn’t be able to produce anything even approaching the quality and that would be a waste of my limited time and materials.

I finally arrived at a flying bird that I am reasonably happy with.  It’s supposed to be a goose but the kids think it looks like a seagull.  I’m pleased that it even looks like a bird at all!

I’m thinking about making a mobile with a whole flock of them.  I think that would be cool.  I say thinking but there’s always a huge gap between thinking and doing so please don’t hold your breath.

Meanwhile, Alasdair has been busy and has been making some very funky paper and wire birds; more on those when they’re finished but in the meantime a picture of them drying following the first coat of paper.

wire bird

I spent an hour or two this week ogling at Joel Henriques’ blog and artwork.  I was particularly struck by the simplicity and beauty of these wood and wire toys:

So inspired was I, that I had a go at making my own wire bird…I think it’s ok for a first attempt.  I’m pondering a range of wire owls…

I had to take it outside for a photo opp.  It’s still so dark and dreary here despite us being south facing.

Good news though…the daffs are pocking their heads out…spring will be with us soon enough.

wedding cake toppers

A few weeks ago I posted about my Music Print Bird that was an idea for wedding cake topper “love birds”.  It was ok as far as ideas go but not quite lush enough.  I set off in search of something a little bit special and came across some dupioni silk from India.  I couldn’t resist using it to make a set of love birds.

The groom is entirely made of the silk.  The  bride is silk with a lace and seed bead detail.  I’m really please with this pair and I’m sure they’re all set for many years of wedded bliss.

She’s thinking about the pimms!

Knitted Sheep (with link to pattern)

Ages and ages ago I knitted this sheep from the pattern on the Flutterby Patch blog.  It’s taken me this long to get photos of it.  This is such an easy and quick pattern that anyone with half an idea about knitting can make one.

So, anyway, this particular sheep is called Mary.  One day Mary was out walking and came across the most beautiful felted rock and spiral basket.  Mary wished that the rock was in the basket and hey presto, her wish was granted (she’s a magic sheep don’t you know).

Mary climbed on top of the rock to get a better view of the valley below.  She smiled as she spotted some of her sheep friends frolicking through the fields.  Mary wanted to get down to join them but she worried that she might slip and fall.  Suddenly as if by magic (told you she’s a magic sheep) a pile of stones appeared.

Mary was overjoyed.  She climbed down the stones…very carefully…

… and toddled off to meet her friends and tell them all about her mini adventure.

Mary says while you’re having a look at the pattern, check out the rest of the Flutterby Patch blog…it’s very uplifting.

Valentine Fabric Finch

Hmm…wonder what these are

If I turn my back will they move?

Nope…but they did get shinier…you saw that, right?

Oh well, best be on my way now.

In the shop now

Tartan Owl Ornament

This tartan chap was created as a commission this weekend.  In keeping with our attempts to reduce waste, he’s made from a piece of tartan that would have otherwise been binned and some ecospun felt.  Stuffed, as usual, with reclaimed polyester stuffing.

He’s got a bit of a problem though.  Whilst out for his morning walk, he came across a very strange object.  It looked like a grassy mound but he couldn’t be sure.

At first he stood next to the mound, he thought it enhanced his green wings and the green stripes in his tartan, but after a while he became suspicious that the object wasn’t a grassy mound at all but an owl eating alien so he made a hasty retreat to his new home.

MadeStuff News

For a long time now we’ve been frustrated and, in some cases, downright exasperated at the increasingly poor performance of Etsy.  To start the year we decided to make a few changes and this weekend we’ve started by opening a new shop with Coriandr.

Not only is Coriandr easier to use, more reliable, and nicer to look at than Etsy, but this move means that we can now list our crafts for sale in UK currency, which is a massive bonus for us. Payment is still through Paypal, which is one of the most secure ways to pay on the web and we are now also able to accept personal cheques for those who would prefer not to divulge credit or debit card details to a computer.

To coincide with the move to Coriandr, you might have noticed our new banner and updated colour scheme, well the start of it anyway.

As if that wasn’t enough, Alasdair and I have had a confab and a brainstorm, engaged ourselves in some ‘blue sky thinking’ and a series of other overused business cliches and have decided on a number of intentions for the year that we’ll share in due course…all of which will be worth the wait.

We hope you like these changes but please feel free to comment if there’s anything you’d particularly like to see here.