It’s the first day of autumn and while the garden is already changing I’m not quite ready to give up on summer flowers. So today I decided to revisit the Bird Ballad suite but focus on one of the pretty floral designs in the Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. My regular readers will know that I love anything that helps me stay organised, so what better way to extend summer than with a pretty floral notebook.

A NEW NOTEBOOK

I began with an uninspiring 5″ x 7″ ruled notebook from Dollarama. First I cut a 1″ x 4″ strip of the floral DSP, wrapped it around a mechanical pencil and fixed the ends together using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow). Then I glued the ends of the pencil loop to the outside of the back cover on the notebook.

With the pencil loop in place I then used liquid glue to cover the whole notebook with a piece of the same floral paper. This sandwiched the ends of the pencil loop between the original cover and the DSP making it even more secure.

Although I liked the floral look, I though that so many tiny flowers were a little overwhelming. So I cut a piece of Petal Pink Card and glued that over the spine of the notebook. That was much better.

DEFINITELY MORE OF YOU

Now I was ready to create a sentiment for the front of the notebook and I found exactly what I wanted in the Free As A Bird Stamp Set.

Using Tuxedo Black ink I stamped “The world needs more of you” onto a piece of Whisper White Card. Then I cut it out using the #3 die from the Stitched Nested Labels Dies (counting from the smallest up).

To add a little extra interest to the sentiment I added a little flower cut from a scrap of the same DSP using Paper Snips. The flower I cut only had one leaf, so I cut a second. Then I used liquid glue to fix the fussy-cut pieces to the sentiment before attaching it to the front of the notebook.

Finally I wrapped some Petal Pink 5/8″ Striped Organdy Ribbon around the notebook, secured it with a knot and then tied a pretty bow. Now I can slide the bow on and off the notebook keeping it closed and pretty when not in use.

I’m really pleased with how this project turned out, and the card around the spine is a nice extra touch don’t you think?

If you love the Bird Ballad DSP as much as I do, here’s some other blog posts with project using this paper.

• Bird watching in the rain
• New Annual Catalogue starts today
• Introducing the swallow-tailed kite

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UPDATE 2020: Sadly the Bird Ballad Designer Series Paper has retired and is no longer available from Stampin’ Up!