New craft project

I was asked to make a small gift for three ladies - there weren't any restrictions on what I should make except that they should be approximately $5.  I could have made a few cards for each recipient, but I was in the mood to try something new so I decided to try making paper pads.  The photo above shows the finished product!

Making these little paper pads was really quick and easy and I think I'll make some more using left over patterned paper.  I made them at night so couldn't photograph the process, but I recreated the steps in order to show them to you.

If you want to make personalized paper pads like I did here the first thing you will need to do is come up with a design.  I made my template in Microsoft Word; you could use power point or Photoshop too.  I'm still learning Photoshop so didn't use it for this project but I think it would work great.

Once I had my design I made copied and pasted it so that it appeared twice at the top of the page, then I ran the paper through the printer with the other end first so that I ended up with the design on the page 4 times.  Next you could print as many copies as you want, but since I wanted 40 and I didn't want to use all of my printer ink I photocopied them.  If you do this you want to make sure you get nice, clean copies.  Once I had all of my copies I used my paper trimmer to cut each sheet into 4 equal pieces.

Next I cut chipboard to match the size of my paper pieces to use as the back of the paper pack to make it sturdier.

Once I had each paper pack complete with the back piece I used binder chips to hold each pad together.  I folded some scrap paper to go under each binder clip so that the clips didn't leave any marks.  I put one binder clip near the top of the paper pad on each side.

Next it was time to add the adhesive to hold the whole thing together.  I used Pad/Book Compound which I found at a craft store.  I poured some of the compound onto a paper plate and used a foam brush to brush the compound across the top of each paper pad.  I applied the compound liberally and I brushed some on the front and back (just along the top) of each pad as well.  I set the pads on the edge of the counter to dry leaving the top portion hanging off the edge of the counter.

Once the compound was mostly dry I laid the pads on the counter, covered them with wax paper and then laid heavy books on top to keep the notepads flat as they finished drying.  I let them dry over night, and then in the morning I peeled off the top sheet of each paper pad since they had some of the compound on them.

Once each paper pad was ready I put them in some cute little gift bags, added some tissue paper and then tied a small tag that said "thank you" on each bag.

This was a fun project that I will definitely try again!