This is too much fun and too easy. I love making little gifts for little friends. These recycled cereal box (snack box, pasta box) notebook is just too cute. They’re all drying right now in my kitchen because my basement crafting table is completely cluttered with other projects in progress. (This is why I think I have crafting A.D.D. but that’s for another time.)

So… I was cutting and breaking down all these boxes and saving them in a container (not cluttered). I’m sure my husband thought I was nuts, becoming a hoarder. (See honey, I’m using them!!) I took all the scrap paper I was using for computer printer paper (like backs of school notes, school homework, junk mail with blank sides, etc.) and cut them down to the sizes I needed. I tried to stay with either half sheets (5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″) or quarter-size (4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″).

My dilemma was figuring out how I wanted to bind the books. I actually tried handsewing one book. There are tons of how-to’s online (like here or here), but in the end, it just didn’t look the way I wanted it to. I could have (COULD HAVE) just gone to the office copy place to have them bind the books with a comb, but I really wanted to stick with an all-recycled type of project and, dare I say, I’m frugal. Here’s how I chose to bind.

Just pick your covers, take your sheets of paper and clamp together. I kept these to 25-30 sheets each so clothespins are perfect. White glue is an amazing thing. Just squeeze some down the side you want as a spine, let dry a little, and then do a second application. The book is practically done at this point, and that’s where I am in the picture. What I have left to do is to make a nice, skinny spine cover with solid colored paper like craft paper or maybe even brown paper bag? We’ll see what I have in my paper bin.

Happy recycling.