A Brightside Jotter Pad!!

Good Morning ...

YAY..... it's the first weekend of the summer holidays which meant this week I have been making gifts for my lads teachers, being a special needs class he has three members of staff to make gifts for.

I had bought three of the shopping list jotter pads and wanted to give them a decorative cover so I used the Lawn Fawn Brightside Collection papers for one of them.....

I took some photos whilst I was making the cover...apologies for the quality of some of the shots, my craftroom doesn't have the best light for photography :0)

To make the cover rigid I used thick card board (the sort you find on the back of A4 refill pads)

The pads were 7x21cm so I made the front and back panels 9x21cm and the spine 14mmx21cm

I chose my patterned paper from the 12x12 Brightside pack and stuck the card down like so....the gap between the three pieces should be as wide as the thickness of the card you're using :0)

Trim around the piece leaving yourself at least a 12mm border.

This is how I trimmed the paper so as to fold in the edges neatly..... remember those days of covering your exercise books at school!!!

I used a contrasting paper to line the cover which I cut about 3mm smaller all round.

To glue it down only apply tape or glue around the four edges of the lining piece otherwise you will have trouble with buckling paper when it comes to closing your cover...... don't ask me how I know that *wink*

 When it comes to closing and bending your cover you need to ease the paper into the folds with a bone folder gently and help the lining paper crease.

I made two strips by folding a piece of the paper three times for strength. These held the back of the notepad in place whilst allowing it to be removed and replaced at a later date.

I also incorporated a loop of ribbon in the lower strip to hold a pen in place.

The front fastening is made with a button from my stash and Lawn Fawn twine which I attached through the front cover with a small knot.

Sorry for the long post but I hope the tutorial helped.... the fun, bright colours and patterns in the Brightside paper pack are just ideal for projects like this or the  6x6 pad would work for smaller projects too :0)

Thanks for looking today and have a great weekend :0)

Jenny x