An altered journal

It's gifts week over at SP & Company and I decided to make a notebook for my little niece. Well, actually this was my third idea after the others weren't gonna work!

I took a standard composition book and covered it in scrapbook paper. The first thing I did was get rid of the ugly inside cover.

I simply adhered white cardstock to both inside covers. But before I glued down the backside, I stapled a few lengths of twine (you could also use ribbon) to the cover.

These twine will now be book marks for her. I attached beads to the ends to weigh them down.

Next, I took some scrapbook paper (not cardstock because you want it thin enough to wrap around the cover) and adhered it to the front and back. Make sure to cut enough to wrap around the cover to finish it off. Then to cover the spine I just glued on some thick ribbon.

Now finally you get to decorate. I kept it fairly simple since she is only 5. All of my papers are from Echo Park's So Happy Together line which was part of SP & Company's June monthly club kit (and just so darn cute!).

I added twine and then fussy cut flowers from the Garden pattern paper. I used the sign from the Boutique Sign mini stamp set to stamp the label onto the Diagonal Dot paper. The banner behind it uses Happy Stripes and Road Trip paper.

I added her initials using foam stickers. And now she has a cute little book that she can practice writing her alphabet in! Maybe by the end of the year she'll be writing letters to her favorite aunt ; )

Thanks for stopping by today!