As an Independent Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator it’s helpful to have something to keep track of my journeys. One year I bought a book specially made for this purpose but it didn’t really meet my needs. So now I make my own, and every year Stampin’ Up! provides the inspiration. My latest notebook started with the camper van piece from the He’s The Man specialty paper. By the time I was done I’d also used three different products from the Boughs of Holly suite, but still avoided including any holly boughs.

BACKGROUND BOUGHS

So with the camper van in my head that’s what I reached for first. All I had to do was find it on one of the two specialty die-cut sheets in the He’s The Man Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack and pop it out.

Next, after finding a spiral bound notebook in my stash I needed to find something to go over the boring cover. Apart from the camper van I really had no plan for what I was going to do. So I began looking through my packs of DSP for some inspiration. Finally I found it in the Boughs of Holly 12″ x 12″ DSP pack.

One of the sheets was just covered in evergreen trees and that gave me the idea for a little scene. So I measured the covers of the notebook at 4″ x 5-1/2″. However I didn’t want to have to fiddle around the spiral binding so instead I cut the DSP at 3-1/2″ x 5-1/2″. In fact I cut two of them. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached the DSP to the back and front covers of the notebook.

Now I needed some ‘ground’ for my camper to stand on and initially thought of using some grey card. That was until I noticed another of the patterns in the Boughs of Holly DSP pack. To be honest I’m not sure if this Sahara Sand and white coloured piece was supposed to be something specific, but that didn’t really matter, today is was going to become an unpaved road.

Using my Paper Trimmer I cut a piece of the DSP at 1-1/4″ x 3-1/2″. Then I trimmed the top edge at a slight angle with my Paper Snips to create a rough slope. With that done I lined up the DSP with the bottom edge of the front cover and glued it into place.

TRAVELLING SENTIMENT

Now the background was complete I used more liquid glue to add my little camper van.

While I loved the scene so far I did think that I needed something to break up the large expanse of fir trees. So I began to look for a suitable sentiment. I was hoping to find something travel related, and as it turned out I noticed two in the Leaves of Holly Stamp Set. I could have chosen “From our home to yours” but instead I went with “To friends near and far”. Then using Evening Evergreen ink I stamped it onto a scrap of Thick Basic White Card. Now I just needed to decide what to use to cut or punch it out.

The Leaves of Holly Stamp Set has a coordinating set of dies called Holly Berry Dies and so that seemed like a good place to start. In fact I didn’t have to look any further as a perfectly sized die was right there. After cutting out the sentiment I simply fixed it onto the notebook with liquid glue.

One last touch was needed and that was to edge the left side of the DSP background, just to give it a finished look. So for this I cut a 1/8″ x 5-1/2″ piece of the darkest colour in the Brushed Metallic Cardstock Pack. After adding a thin line of liquid glue to the back I fixed the strip up against the left edge of the DSP. Once the front cover was done I repeated the process with the back cover and my project was complete.

I love how this notebook turned out and look forward to recording the details of my travels in the months to come.

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Leaves of Holly Stamp Set in a bundle with the coordinating Holly Berry Dies. Using the ‘bundle’ item number meant I saved 10% off the cost of buying the two items separately. I’ve included links for both options below so you can compare them if you wish.