Made some souvenir notebooks for a couple of upcoming games I’ll be running.
Have any old spiral notebooks lying around? You know, the ones the kids used in school, colored on every other page and then didn’t want to use the next year? Well, turn them into some mini notebooks.
First, cut the notebook pages out. I have a circular blade paper cutter that really makes this work well. However, a standard paper cutter or even a razor and straight edge would probably do the trick as well. Cut the pages into 7″x4.5″ strips. This allows you to trim off that big white space at the top, the left-side where the spiral and holes are, and the rounded edges.
Next, lay out your covers and print them on card stock. I use PowerPoint. You can change the size of the slides to letter and it’s easy to use for simple projects like this. I created a shape in PowerPoint that was 7.1 x 4.6. This gives you a little extra room so that when you cut out the cover you can trim it just inside the coloring, avoiding a white border. I save the finished cover file as a PDF. When you print the PDF be sure and use the “Actual Size” setting.
Finally, fold the pages and the booklet and then use a regular-sized stapler. It takes a little practice to get the staple just right, but you can do it!
Souvenir Notebooks
