Diary, Books and Pencil Case

I just wrote and deleted this post so here I go trying to remember everything I said.. :/

In my Uni bag I plan on having two notebooks, both are shown below. A while ago I decided that I needed a pocket-sized diary. I didn't feel like going to the shops, nor did I have the money to buy one so I decided to make my own. I therefore took a blank, unruled pocket-size notebook that I had had for years and ruled three evenly spaced horizontal lines across each page, thus dividing the page into four. After this I wrote each date in the calendar month (including February 29) in each consecutive space. My plan is to write in pencil so that I can reuse the 'diary' next year and save some money(!) even though I know pocket diaries are only ever a few dollars. Anyway I covered it in brown paper and some stickers and the result is below :)

The second notebook in the image, which I guess is actually the first, is just a random notebook I bought a while ago and covered in brown paper and pretty fabric. I'm not sure on the size but it's less than A5 and I think larger than A6.  As you can see, in the photo below , the fabric I stuck onto the brown paper was not sewn around and was therefore capable of fraying quite terribly. To combat this I lined the edges of each piece of fabric with clear nail polish (a great trick for a ribbon or anything that wants to fray). I am planning to use this book as a casual notebook and as a word bank. In my lectures I am sure that there will be words that I do not know. Should this occur I will write them down in the front (or back) of the book and, in my own time, will look them up and thus learn new words (Yay!)

I have also covered my Uni exercise books in brown paper. They are spiral bound though so in order to cover the whole book (including the section under the spiral) I followed the ideas from a YouTube video (which I don't have the link for so if you want to see it just comment and I'll find it for you :)) where the lady used a hole punch and diagonal slits to make the paper sit under the spirals. Apply glue to hold it there and your done.

Anyway to decorate these I used assorted wrapping papers; think Winnie the Pooh and Ballet  Bears etc. So Cute! 

I also made a diary cover from a pretty white fabric and decorated it with pink fabric (see the image below). I, of course, did things the hard way by sewing the lining onto the pretty white fabric before I had sewn the pink on, which meant I had to hand sew the pink fabric onto the white to avoid the stitching from being visible on the lining.  Oh well, I guess you learn from all these annoying and time consuming mistakes. 

Anyway to make the cover that bit more personal I embroidered my name onto it! Don't you just love the feeling of seeing your name on something? For this aspect I used two strands of a pistachio (ish) coloured thread. As a page marker I used a pretty pink ribbon and sewed this onto the lining. I had originally intended to use a green that matched that of my name but when I was at the shop choosing my ribbon I just couldn't pull myself away from the pink ribbons. I think it must be my favourite colour again...

I didn't cut enough fabric to make the little flaps that hold the cover onto the diary so to fix this problem I had to cut white rectangles of fabric and sew this onto the lining. (That doesn't make sense, I think, so if you want to see a picture just ask). 

I was going to mention my pencil case in a different post but then I found that it was too short and I didn't have much to say so I'll just place it on the end here.

I'm in love with this pencil case. Basically it is a double sided case with a creamy coloured zip. The interior is lined with denim but it's not reversible. If you were making your own it would be a completely viable idea to make it reversible and thus get three or four different fabrics into it. This would make a really cute and relatively simple project to make so why not have a go?