Brutus Bucks Program
Check your Rewards Here!
Foiled Notebook
Hi crafty friends! Lauren here, bringing you a fun project with some of the new Brutus Monroe DecoFoil and the new toner sheets. I love foiling!
A lot of my projects in the last few months have involved foiling. This particular project is a little bit difficult to write up for a blog post, so I'm going to do my best, and I'm working on filming a video of the process. If you follow me on Instagram (@SonoranStarfishDesigns) you may have seen a few of these notebooks that I've made as gifts. The ones that I've been making are 5x7, but today I decided to make a smaller version. For this project, the most important things are to use a fine glue tip, and to have a bone folder handy to burnish everything really well. I have not tried making these with double sided tape, but if you have some really strong tape that you trust, you can certainly try it!
1) I started with a sheet of thin chipboard, but I have also used cereal boxes to make these! I trimmed the chipboard down and made two pieces that measure 4.25" x 5.5", these will be the front and back covers. I also cut 5 strips that are 5.5" tall by about 1/8". These strips will make up the spine. I ended up only using 3 of these strips; when I make larger sized notebooks I use all 5 strips.
2) I trimmed two pieces of the white (opaque) toner sheets, one Crosshatch and one Kaleidoscope, to measure 5.25" x 6.5". The are about 1 inch larger than the front and back cover chipboard, because they will eventually wrap around.
3) I also cut some of the Loopy and Cobblestone toner sheets to 7" x 4.5", so I could foil them at the same time. These will be the covers for the little notepads on the inside of the notebook.
4) I ran the front cover toner sheets with the Purple Sketch foils, the Loopy sheet with the Green Sketch foil, and the Cobblestone with the Silver Sketch foil.
5) I use a fine tip glue bottle with the glue, because it is important not to have globs of glue that might warp or wet the paper too much. (The toner sheets are nice and thick, but I've done the technique with thinner scrapbook paper and the amount of glue matters more!) I place the chipboard piece on the back of the foiled toner sheets, and I use the long side of a bone folder to really press it tightly into place and spread the glue out.
6) When the glue has had a minute to dry, I clip each corner of the foiled toner sheet as shown in the picture below. This will help make a clean corner when we fold in the sides.
7) I put thin lines of glue on the side flaps and fold them down, burnishing them really well with a bone folder. I do all four sides and then set them aside to dry.
8) I cut a strip of Alabaster cardstock that measured 6.5" x 2" and I glued the strips of chipboard down onto the cardstock, allowing a little bit of space between each one.
9) I glue the front and back cover pages on either side of the strips, again leaving a little bit of space and burnishing with the bone folder. I put glue on the ends of the book spine strip and fold them in, also burnishing them down. I slowly pick up the front or back cover and roll it towards the middle so that the space between each chipboard strip creases a little and makes the spine of the notebook curve.
10) To finish the notebook shell, I cut a piece of Alabaster cardstock to cover the whole inside of the the notebook covers. I start by gluing the spine area, and using a scoring tool to run down the creases so that the notebook will still open and close smoothly. Then I spread glue on the covers and smooth down the sides, burnishing with a bone folder.
11) Once the notebook has had a couple minutes to dry, I use a crop-a-dile to punch four holes in the top and four holes in the bottom, and set eyelets. I also have a long-armed crop-a-dile that will reach the middle of the notebook, and punched two holes and set eyelets there. If you don't have the long-armed crop-a-dile, you can experiment with different poking tools, or even a hammer and nail if you have a safe surface to work on. There are also eyelets that you can buy that will set with a pen or a little tool so that you don't need the long-armed crop-a-dile.
12) I run the elastics through the notebook in the following steps: Start at the very top eyelet, from the inside going out. Go down to the next eyelet and back inside. The elastic then runs down the inside of the notebook, back out the next eyelet and back in through the very bottom eyelet. It runs back up the inside of the notebook and ties in a small knot inside. Repeat the steps on the other side of the eyelet sets, and you end up with four elastic strings on the inside of your notebook to hold whatever inserts you want.
13) The last thing I did was to make the small notepads inside. I foiled the 7" x 4.5" sheets earlier in the steps, and all I did was cut up some computer paper to staple inside them. You can really get creative with the inserts; if you google "planner inserts" there are a ton of different things like calendars, habit trackers, etc., that you can print and make foiled covers for. You could also make inserts with watercolor paper to make a mini art journal, or thicker paper for stamping.
Please feel free to leave a comment or message me on Instagram or Facebook at Sonoran Starfish Designs if you have questions about the process! I would be happy to walk you through an steps if you would like to try it too!
Have you tried the new foils and toner sheets yet? Post pictures of your projects and don't forget to use the hashtags #BrutusMonroe and #CreateYourOwnEnding so we can see what you make! Have a great weekend.
Leave a comment