Sunday, October 19, 2008

A new cover for a favorite notebook

I love these notebooks and have done all of my "Miss Em" drawings in them. I like the separating pages of drawing paper and I like the watercolor paper in here, just enough tooth to make line drawing a tiny bit squiggley but not enough to make major bumps. But I don't really like their black plain cover. So I made my own cover.

I removed those black squiggley holder things and actually took more than one books worth of paper to put into a new book. I covered the inside and outside of the black notebook with a combination of homemade paper and store bought paper

This one has a sort of purply and tan color, it's a paste paper and if you look clearly, you can see images of a cat stamped into the wet colored paste.

I used another hand made paper for the inside - can't remember how this one was created. I had Tony drill three holes so that I could figure out how to secure the whole thing - right now I'm using the 1.5 inch holder..I also tried covering the binders with cloth - but that didn't work well.

This one you've seen, but the whole book is now filled with Miss Em and sometimes Mr. T.

And this is how fat it's gotten, there are lots of stories in this book.
I started two more covers, and plan on keeping them open and closed with the book ring binders - unless someone else has a good idea.


11 comments:

sukipoet said...

Mim, this is a great idea, taking the bks apart and setting it up to be suitable for your needs. I like the covers (I am often decorating dull notebook covers). I think the ring binders work well. Cant think of anything much better unless you want to take the bk to Staples and they can put in a spiral binding like the original bk had.

Debra Kay said...

I love how you honor your art.

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of taking the books apart to create your own.

Did you know that you can use fabric starch to attach fabric to just about anything? Try it - I used it to cover a wall with fabric like wallpaper. The benefit is you can pull it off later without damaging the surface.

Lynn Cohen said...

I like the freedom of movement that the rings give you. spirals sometimes come undone, these will not.
Fun covers!

Cris, Artist in Oregon said...

Great idea. You do all this nice work inside and the cover doesnt make you want to go in and see it.
Like your ideas.
You can decoupage things onto the old covers too.

Teri said...

OMG, you SO creative!! What a great idea. I have two of these for vacations but really don't care for that paper in between so I got a Canson Journal (watercolor) but I could do the same thing. Gosh, you have inspired me.

Mary Richmond said...

love this idea! what a fun book!

ElizT said...

Your energy makes me tired; but full of admiration.

Mim said...

Maybe that's why I fall asleep at work at boring meetings.

soulbrush said...

i love the cover/s. aaaah mr t as well, now what has em been up to? naughty naughty!but nice!

Trish said...

love this!! I just found your blog, look forward to coming back:)