DIY Personalized Felt Notebooks

I was very recently discussing with my mother and nephews the importance of pretty office supplies, namely notebooks. We decided that the bulk of available “pretty” notebooks just didn’t float our boats. Now my youngest nephew really digs “Justin Bee-bah” but he doesn’t want to carry around a notebook with the Beeb’s mug on it either.

At the grocery store, we saw composition notebooks for fifty cents apiece. Everyone looked at me like I’d gone crazy when I scooped up a whole mess of them, I guess around 8 or 9. But I tossed them into the cart and reminded everybody that I was crafty. We then discussed the possibilities including googly eyes, glitter, our names, and, of course, our names in glitter with googly eyes.

After a quick trip into the craft store, raiding the wearable art section for appliques and the general craft section for colorful and printed felts and we were ready to rock out some awesome new notebooks for the little ones to take to school and for us older ones to write grocery lists and blood pressure records!

For this project you will need:

• Composition notebooks
• 2 pieces of felt (per book)
• applique
• spray adhesive
• no-fray or any clear glue (I used Aileene’s Fabric Fusion because I have a whole mess of it)
• pair of sharp scissors

Now I’d like to act like there is some sort of a science to this because that would make me feel special, but there really isn’t…

Spray your adhesive onto the backside of the felt, align with the black strip of tape on the spine’s binding and stick onto the book’s cover. Use your hands to smooth out any weird bubbles or creases. You have some play, so remove and replace in the right spot if necessary.

There’s going to be some overlap that needs to be removed. To save your scissors, allow the glue to dry completely, then trim as close to the cover as possible.

Use your no fray or glue to seal the edges of the felt. Typically felt doesn’t fray, but the edges of my notebooks take a beating so this is a precautionary step more than anything. Cover both sides with felt.

Take your applique and remove it from the packaging it came in. Play around with it and see where you want it to be permanently glued down.

Spray the back with adhesive and smack the applique down on its new (permanent) home!

And this one is all ready to go!

We also found some teeny composition books at Dollar General…

and my oldest nephew got a whole set of monster notebooks!

My youngest nephew is nuts for sock monkeys. Well, he technically digs any monkeys at all!

Gah! Isn’t that just crazy cute?

And here are a few more…

So, to break it down, the notebooks cost 50 cents, the appliques $1-3 (the monograms were $1.20 per letter), colored felt was 25 cents a sheet, and patterned felt 50 cents a sheet. All in all the cost per notebook was pretty great. Plus, there’s gonna be no question of which notebook belongs to my kin!  Think you’ll make some, especially for the little ones you know going to school here soon, or even yourself?

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.