Note Pad Tutorial
1:21 PM
Since high school I have had a thing for note pads. I always had to have one handy, and I would either be doodling in it, writing poetry or making quick notes to myself. Yes, people, I had a "journal" before it became cool, I know, so hipster of me.
Anyway, I have been on a recycling kick for some time now, it's just hard for me to throw away something that I know can be recycled. I just don't want my water bottle or my can in some landfill long after I'm dead.
Don't worry, this is not a recycle or die post. This is a tutorial on how to make a note pad out of cardboard and an old almanac/desk thingy. So here is where we start.
Let me begin with where I work, I work at a hardware store and we sell carpenter pencils. They come 30 to a box and this is the box.
I won't be using the box because I can still use that for when a customer buys nails and instead of using a paper bag, we throw the nails into the box.
What I will be using is this, they actually cut these pieces of cardboard out to fill out the box of pencils. When I saw it I just could not throw it out, it had too much potential.
Earlier this year, I had volunteered at a book fair hosted by a local book store and they were giving these away.
Unfortunately, I don't really use them, put I had planned to use the back of them since they were blank.
I lined up a page of the desk thingy and marked out the width and the length of the pages.
Then I measured them and made a template as seen below. I used the front as I still wanted to use the template page in the actual note pad.
I then selected 11 sheets of the desk thingy and lined them up with the template sheet. Then with my metal ruler and a utility knife blade, I cut. Now for the safety issue: I am a pro (LOL). No seriously, in college I hacked off a piece of my left index finger doing crazy stuff like this. So for everyone else, a proper utility knife is your best bet, a guillotine is even better and please for the love of God, keep your fingers far from the blade.
I prefer to cut the width first as you will only have to cut once as oppose to cutting and then moving the ruler and cutting again. Also don't think that you will get a quick cut, you will have to go over it a couple times to cut all the sheets.
Then I cut along the length. This gives me 72 sheets of paper for my note pad.
The first note pads I made, I had used staples, the problem with that is the staples didn't make it through all the pages and they eventually rusted. This time around I'm using prong bases. I used the top part of the prong base to mark where I will be punching the holes on the front page.
Then with my trusty hole punch, I went to work. This is when I wish I had cable, comes in handy for the tedious tasks.
I then took one of the pages and marked where I will be punching the hole in the cardboard.
I poked the bottom part of the prong base through the pages and through the cardboard.
Then finish it off with the poking the bottom part through the top part of the prong base and folding the prongs in.....
and voila, a note pad
Now, you are probably thinking, "Well, I don't work in a hardware store and I won't find a perfectly shaped piece of cardboard." The truth is you can take any piece of cardboard and mold it to your ideal.
In fact, you can also take to independent pieces of cardboard and bind them together with the pages in between with the prong base. In that case, cut about an inch from the top of the front cover along the width but don't cut through, this will allow you to bend the cover up.
These note pads are great as gifts or you can use them instead of buying. Also how cool is it when someone asks where you got it and you can say, "Oh this, I made this."
Feel free to comment, share and like this tutorial.
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