Tuesday 25 December 2012

Make your own custom paper notepad

How would you like a notepad of monogrammed paper? Or maybe a 'From the desk of...' pad? It's easier than you might think. Here is one I made today.


Start by creating your design. You then need to duplicate, position and rotate the design so that your page ends up looking like this:


You can use either A4 paper or Letter paper and should place the top designs as close to the edge as your printer will allow. Each should be about a quarter of the way in from the edge, perhaps a millimetre or so less. They should be positioned at the bottom in the same way. If you want to you can download my MS Publisher template.

Print ten of these to build a 40-page notepad.

Carefully fold a page in half and then in half again so that it ends up one quarter size, like this:


Do the same with all ten pages. Then with a very sharp knife cut away the folded edges. Position the straight edge so that you only shave off a millimetre or so:


When you've cut away both of the edges, here's what you'll be left with - four small pages and some offcut strips:


Do the same with the other pages until you have 40 mini sheets. Draw around a sheet onto a piece of stiff card and cut the shape out of the card.

Carefully position the pack of pages together with the card piece at the back. I've learned to put one piece of paper behind the card so that later I can remove this once the sealant has dried so none ends up stuck to the back of the pad.

You now need to clamp this all together tightly. I did it with two cork-backed melamine coasters (one at the front, one at the back, cork sides facing out) and two binder clips.


Put the clips on each side so that the whole top edge is free and protrudes just a couple of millimetres above the edge of the coasters.

You'll now need some of this stuff:


It is silicon sealant, the same stuff that you use to seal the edges of baths and kitchen work surfaces. Squeeze a very little onto the exposed top edges of your paper and card, wet a finger and smooth out your sealant gently along the top of the pack. You're going for something that looks like the surface of a roughly-iced cake:


Now stand the pack upright somewhere and give it a couple of hours to dry. Then you can unclip it. Once you've removed the extra piece of paper from behind the card and the top sheet, you should find there's no messy sealant.


Your notepad is now ready for use.

3 comments:

DEM said...

I didn't realize just how easy this can be! What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing it, Ray!!

pattygardner.com said...

Awesome! I love being able to make my own stuff especially since the pads sold by FC are SO expensive! Thanks for demonstrating this.

Tina said...

Love it!

Also my best friend has the exact same R but as a stamp, it's quite cool, have his journals have it :)

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