DIY Notebook Makeover

Today I want to show you how you can turn an ordinary spiral notebook into a really neat personalized notebook.

All you need are a cheap spiral notebook, some scrapbook paper, pliers, a small hole punch, scissors, and a pen or pencil.

Start with the spiral notebook (any size). I chose a small memo notebook.

Take the pliers and carefully unbend the wire at one end of the notebook. It helps to make it curved. Then simply spin the wire until it twists out of the notebook pages leaving the pages completely undone.

 

Using the cover page as a template copy the shape and holes onto a piece of scrapbook paper. Cardstock works the best, but I've also glued a thinner piece to the cover when I didn't have cardstock paper on hand.

 

You can get creative and also use the cover to make decorative divider pages, too.

Another thing you can add are envelopes for storage. I found a great envelope template here that I shrunk in size to fit my notebook.

Here's one that I made out of cardstock scrapbooking paper.

Next, line everything up and punch holes in all the pages you are going to add to your notebook.  It helps to use a pen/pencil and copy the location of the holes from your cover page as a template. Notice the punch is smaller at 1/8" circle size not a standard hole punch size.

Once everything is punched,  just line it all up in the order you want it and fish the wire back through the holes. Continue to twist the wire until it reaches the opposite end. Then using the pliers gently bend the wire down to stop the pages from unwinding.

All done.

You can get really creative by adding tabs, pockets, divider pages and more. Plus, this works on any type of spiral notebook, so long as you can bend the wire and put it back once you're done. It's a wonderful way to decorate all those $.10 notebooks from Walmart during Back to School sales that so many of us bought.

I'd love to see how you decorate your notebooks. Feel free to share by leaving a comment below.