Memo Pad Project

A few days ago I held my (almost) annual "Girl's Crafting Weekend".  I clean the studio, turn the house into a B & B and invite family and friends for a long weekend of scrapping, card making and crafting.  Some times we'll have a massage therapist come in, sometimes we'll have a card challenge and sometimes we'll spend time collaborating on a project.  One thing we ALWAYS have (besides lots of food and no sleep!) is little gifts for each other.  I usually make something and this year it was these memo pads.  These are super easy to make, extremely inexpensive and lots of fun to personalize.  Here's how you can make your own:

1.  Buy a pack of Memo Pads.  I got mine at WalMart and you can also pick them up at the Dollar Store (3 for $1).  Since the back of the pads I used were white, I made that side the "front of the pad".  I then used Distress Inks or acrylic paint to make the area inside the coil match the base paper I applied to the cover.  Use a strong adhesive (tape runner, multi-medium, Glossy Accents) to attach the decorative paper to the covers.  Pay extra attention to all the edges.  Butt the paper up to the coils.

2.  Embellish!  On the sample at the top, I used yellow designer paper for the base and embellished with various stamps and Distress Markers.  The lower right circular stamp has a center that looks like a gem.  It's actually Glossy Accents as I didn't want anything that could easily fall off (since it will probably be carried in a purse).  I used the "things to remember" stamp on all the pad's fronts.

3.  Finish the back (or the former front) in the same manner.  I chose paper that would coordinate with the front and look okay with the color of the former cover.  Again I used stamps to decorate.

This one has doilies stamped and embossed with white embossing powder.

This one has the same paper on the back as on the banner.

I used Glossy Accents on the bee's wings to give them dimension.

Be sure and use a strong adhesive for any layers of paper added to the cover.  

I used Glossy Accents.

Entered into the following Challenges:

All My Crafts--#4 Anything Goes (except a card)

My Grafico--Anything Goes

Paper Playtime--Use A Bee

Pause, Dream, Enjoy--#6 Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp--Quotable

Drunken Stampers--For the Birds

Sugar Creek Hollow--An Altered State

Rhedd and Rosies--#2 For the Birds