Jo's Crafty Place: My Secret Love - Notebook and Pen Holder

My Secret Love
Notebook and Pen Holder

I love the warm pinks and muted greens in these papers from Couture Creations "My Secret Love" collection. I've used them to decorate a notebook holder, but this could be adapted to make an album or memory book - you might want to make the spine a little wider to accommodate the page attachments if you are making an album or memory book. The one I've made is 5" x 7" with 1" depth at the spine.

Along with the beautiful papers I've use 300gsm white card (2 A4 sheets), some beige pearl card (3 A4 sheets) and some rainbow mirror card (2 A4 Sheets).

The notebook I've used is A6 - 10.6cm x 15cm (European size), but there is room for a slightly larger notebook.

You'll need to use 2 sheets of 12" x 12" patterned paper, including covering you notebook to match the holder. You may also want to snip out additional coordinating elements from your papers to add more decoration.

I've use the Couture Creations Mini Guillotine, the Couture Creations Scoring Board, the Couture Creations Mini Score Board and a small corner rounding punch. I've used pva glue applied sparing with a fine tip nozzle to stick my layers together, except when sticking the papers down onto the mirror card, where I have used double sided tape.

Please take a look at my video (link at bottom of page) to see which tools I've used and how I've used them.

Cut one of the A4 sheets of white card down to 11" x 7" and score 5" in from each of the ends. Burnish the folds to create the base of the notebook holder. See my video for tips on doing this using a small scoring board.

Next cut enforcing pieces from the other sheet of white card. The measurements for these are shown in the picture and they are slightly narrower than the spaces they will be stuck down in so that the fold lines are not covered. You will need 2 pieces 4 15/16" x 7" and a strip for the spine 7/8" wide, but slightly longer than 7" - it is easier to cut this piece to length after it is stuck in place

If you want to have rounded corners on your holder or album, use the corner rounding punch on the 4 corners of the base piece and on the matching 2 corners on each of the reinforcement pieces before gluing them together.

Glue the reinforcement pieces down on the inside face of the cover, being careful not to cover the crease lines - as shown below. Trim the piece reinforcing the spine to length after you have stuck in down.

The next thing to do is to decorate the front cover - matting and layering with the patterned paper. It's easier to do this now, while you can open up the holder/album and work with it laying flat.

Next, add the base mat layers inside the holder. I've used the beige card for this.

Then cut to size the pieces needed to mat and layer the patterned paper with the mirror card and stick those together using double sided tape - but DO NOT stick them down inside the holder yet, as a strip needs to be added to hold the notebook in place.

Once the paper and mirror card are stuck together use them to score a 2" wide strip of card that will wrap around them. Cut the strip to be 8" or 21cm (for A4 card) long as you'll need approximately 1/2" at either end of the strip to fold behind this layer and stick it in place

Wrap the strip around the layer length ways about 1/2" from the left hand edge and stick in place with double sided tape - I've used high tack tape.

Then stick this layer down on the base layer inside the holder, on the right hand side.

For the left hand side, where there is a pen holder, you also need to prepare the layers of patterned paper and mirror card, but DO NOT stick them together. Cut them to size and check that they would layer together - but the paper is going to be cut so that the bottom portion will cover the pen holder, and the top portion will be stuck down onto the mirror card.

For the pen holder, cut a strip of card 4 1/2" wide and 2" wider than your patterned paper - this will be approximately 6 1/2" wide - but do check how wide your patterned paper is. I've used some of the beige card for this.

Score at 1/2" and 1" at one end of the card and then use the patterned paper to mark out the width of the pen holder and make a score line. Then make 2 further score lines 1/2" apart. Trim the card off at the furthest score line.

You also need to make score lines on one of the long edges at 1/2" and 1" from the edge - or in from the other edge.

Burnish all of the scored lines, and then cut away the card at the corners as shown. I've cut a small "v" down the sides of the small flap that folds in to hold the sides in place.

Now cut the patterned paper into 2 pieces - make sure the bottom section is just the right size for the pen holder. Instead of measuring you might want to stick the whole piece in place, glued to the front of the pen holder and then trim off along the top edge.

Stick the top half of the paper down on the mirror card. If you want to add some elastic across the top half to help hold pens in place do this now, before sticking the mirror card down onto the inside of the front cover.

Add some double sided tape to the two flaps and fold the sides and bottom in and secure in place

Score a length of card at 1/2" spacing and fold and stick as shown - I've left a long section for a ruler or highlighter pen. These partitions are strong enough to stop pens falling over, but can still be flexible enough to accommodate pens that are a little larger than 1/2".