A little bit is better than naught...

I don't want to miss a week...I have to tell you. I really don't. So not much to show for creativity really, but I did manage to make a few books with my new Cinch 2. What is a Cinch? Voila - I will show you!

For more info on what it does - go HERE!

What I love is that I can use up smaller left over pattern paper to make the covers of books - any kind of books. I plan on making Art Journals, Notebooks (in all sizes) and when E. needs to bind a project for school - super easy and super quick. Looks Awesome!

So what you do is choose a size - only limit is the coils are max 12" long but I suppose if you wanted to go bigger you would just keep adding coils on the end. These notebooks I made were 5" x 6" in size. I had some chipboard I wanted to use up.

Pick Patterned Paper to wrap the covers with. I choose Bo Bunny cause they have lovely double sided paper and I have a ton of it so using it up in ANY WAY is a good thing.

Stephanie Pouliot showed me once how to wrap covers of a chipboard album (long time ago) and with a bit of trial and error, it all came back to me (like riding a bike?). I picked a neutral piece of cardstock for the inside of the cover in case I wanted to write on it. (Uniball White Gel Pen, in case you are wondering, is what I would use on black cardstock)

Then I found some old empty lined notebooks I had been hanging on to - don't ask me why. One of them had brown ledger lines so it fit perfectly with the colour scheme of the pattern paper I chose. So trim the paper down to just under the size of your covers. Maybe take a 1/4" off the dimensions so for this size notebook I made the inner pages 4.75" x 5.75".

Huzzah! We have just upcycled something that was about to get recycled out the door. I used left over strips of the Bo Bunny Patter paper to decorate along the top of select few inner pages. It lends some stability and is pretty. Put them every 4-5 pages.

Now you should have something like this...

Front Cover, Back Cover and inner pages! Checkity, Check check!

Now comes time for the binding - easy! Punch and bind the holes with the Cinch...how does the Cinch work? Since the fine people at WR made up a video to show us how, why not let them show us?

So here is how my finished project looks.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Inside view

I made yet another notebook and turned it into a Work Out Journal that easily fits into my gym bag and is super sturdy to write on with the chipboard covers. It's a great size to detail up to a dozen exercises and reps etc.

 

So there is my creativity for the last week - I spent 3 days in Cambridge visiting family and while there, I was able to visit The Art House Studio and meet the owner Karen Ellis. She does online classes and I was able to snap a pic of her latest class with the Silks paints (of which I bought a dozen or so).

here's a pic of my own good pile from that awesome store

Yes, I bought more ribbon. No, I have no shame. I love ribbon and will always have ":more than I need". Same goes for Washi Tape.

Next week! My middling steps in the organization of the chaos that is my craft room and hopefully something new and creative to show.

Thanks for checking in. =)