Catching up

I would love to be able to tell you that I've been stamping too much to update, but truthfully, I got engrossed in a book the other night and did nothing but sit around and read. And last night, I was pricing items for my local scrapbook store's garage sale this weekend. So I haven't done anything, but I thought I'd show you one of my favorite "useful" projects.

This is a little book that someone sent me last year - they'd decorated it for Christmas, with a cute Santa on the cover. Unfortunately, it came on about the 23rd, so it wasn't much use for Christmas, but I thought I'd make a new cover for it to use at work.

I don't have a Bind-It-All, so I just cut the purple cardstock to the size of the book, and attached it to the top page after I took off the old cover - the two thicknesses together made it just fine for a new cover - and cut inside each hole with my little Fiskars finger knife. The PTI Guidelines patterned paper made a cute bottom half for my cover, and I was working on watercoloring techniques that week, so I watercolored this little butterfly from my Stampin' Up! Merci set. I outlined some of the butterfly with a glitter pen to make him stand out, and popped up the punched-out image on Pop Dots. Once I put the cover back on the book, I cut several pieces of black velvet ribbon and PTI's twill (my favorite ribbon EVER, in any color) in Lavender Moon and Plum Pudding. I tied those around the wires, and voila! A cute little book to take notes in at work. I love being surrounded by fun things I've made while I'm at work - it gives me inspiration to think up new things to make once I get home. One of my favorite for-work projects is a pencil cup shown here and here - I keep the template for the insert at home and re-do it every once in a while, just for fun.