Introduction: DIY Recycled Notebook

About: Hey, I'm Muhaimina! A Craftaholic person (or Witch if you may say!). Obsessed with swirls and polka dots... and Instructables is pretty much my second home! Follow my IG Blog https://www.instagram.com/the_craf…

Inspire the kids to try green crafts / recycle crafts this summer. There are tons of ideas and the best thing about it is that you already have all the necessary materials. Gather all the leftover supplies, be creative and turn them into something useful and awesome!

Here's a quick recycle craft project. In this ible I'll show you how to make a cute notebook from leftover supplies. The best thing about this notebook is that you can use all the left over scrap papers, reuse cereal box to make something really useful and add more papers whenever you need or want.

Check it out!

Step 1: Materials Needed

To make this notebook you'll need:

  1. Empty cereal box
  2. Scrap paper
  3. Paper punch
  4. Ruler
  5. Ribbon
  6. Pencil
  7. X-acto knife or scissors

Step 2: Preparing the Papers

Gather all the scrap papers, it's better if they're all of the same size. But you can keep the paper
sizes random if you wish to.

Stack 4-6 papers together nicely and punch holes on them using the paper punch. I used a 2 hole paper punch.

Place the punched papers aligned with another group of intact papers and mark the area of the holes on them.

Now carefully punch hole on the marked area.

Similarly punch holes on all the scrap papers you want for the notebook.

Step 3: Preparing the Covers

Once you've punched enough papers for the notebook you'll need to make the cover pieces.

Unfold the cereal box and lay it flat on a flat surface.

Place any one punched paper on the cereal box and trace around the sides of the paper on the cereal box.

Cut out the traced parts from the cereal box. You will need to 2 pieces (front and back).

Place the back piece of the cover on a flat surface with its wrong side facing up and then place the front cover on the back piece, but the front covers right side should be facing up.

Now mark the areas for the holes and simply punch holes on them.

Cover pieces are ready!

Step 4: Comeplting the Covers

You can keep the cover pieces separate if you want to but I wanted to keep the papers safe so had to use this technique to join both cover pieces together.

Take out the duct tape according to the notebook’s length (do not cut the tape from the bundle) and place it on a flat surface (craft space/ table) and then attach at least 1 cm of the cover pieces with the duct tape along its longer edges.

The cover pieces should be attached with their wrong sides facing up. Press the edges to make sure they stick nicely with the tape.

Notice that the sticky side of the tape is open, we need to cover the sticky part with duct tape by taking out more and simply attaching it towards the other end.

So, we made the spine of the notebook with duct tape.

Step 5: Making the Notebook

Keep the cover open. Cut a long piece of ribbon (long enough to tie a bow knot).

Insert the ribbon through the holes on the back piece of the cover. Insert it from the outside towards the inside.

Now attach all the punched scrap papers through the ribbon.

And finally draw out the ribbon through the front piece of the cover.

Tie bow knot and it’s done! You can also add a label on the front cover.

Simply untie the bow knot whenever you want to write on your notebook.

Enjoy!