Twin Size Pads Tutorial

Recently I made these notepads and took some pictures of how I did it, hoping to turn them into a tutorial of sorts.  They were made "two-in-one", which may sound confusing, but it will all be made clear in the tutorial."Tutorial" may be too big a word for it, by the way, but "This-is-how-I-make-stuff-through-trial-and-error-and-I-hope-you-find-it-useful" seemed a bit long for a tag...

Find out more after the jump and please click any image to zoom.
Have fun :)
What I used:

The papery stuff:

Paper (1), all cut to the same size

Two pieces of coloured paper (2), cut to the same size as the rest of the paper (to cover the notepad with)

Cardboard (3), fairly sturdy, two pieces, also cut to the same size, which made up the back

Decorative paper (4), cut into two strips, each slightly wider than the notepad and roughly 5 centimetres high

The sharp stuff:

Craft knife (8)

Craft scissors (9), with a scalloped edge

The sticky stuff:

Wood glue (6)

Double-sided tape (5), five centimetres wide

Other tools:

Ice-lolly stick (7), to apply the glue with

Cutting mat (11)

Ruler (not in picture)

Pencil (not in picture)

Glue clamps (10), I used three

What I did:

First, I made myself a nice paper sandwich, starting with one piece of cardboard (the "nicest-looking" side placed down-wards). Next, half of the white paper, one piece of coloured paper, with the "good" side facing upwards. Then, the second piece of coloured paper, with the "good" side facing down(!!!). And finally, the second half of the white paper, and the second piece of cardboard with the good side placed upwards. 

Paper Sandwich

Stack clamped together, with view of coloured paper in the middle

Then came the tricky part; aligning the lot so it all looked nice and even. When I was finally happy with how things looked, I took two glue clamps (whilst trying to grow an extra set of hands) and positioned them on either side of the "sandwich". I put them as close to the top of the notepad as possible, but still at a big enough distance to not have to worry about getting them covered in glue. 

Applying the wood glue

Then it was time for the wood glue, which I applied with the ice-lolly stick. I put on a layer that wasn't too thick, but would still be thick enough to get the paper and cardboard covered properly. A third clamp was added to the middle of the note pad and the glue was left to dry. Then I repeated the process twice (removing the middle clamp for easy access), except that I applied more glue for the last layer.

Now as fascinated as I normally am by watching glue dry, I decided to get the decorative paper ready for use. I cut the paper a few centimetres wider than the notepad, and slightly higher than the double-sided tape. I carefully placed the paper on the tape and cut it at the right length (the width of the notepad). The paper was slightly higher than the tape so I used the edge of the tape as a guide line to cut the excess paper off.

Sticking the paper strip to the tape

Cutting the scalloped edge

 The other side I cut with the the craft scissors, which I fortunately remembered to hold the right way just in time, or I would've ended up with an inverted scallop... Of course there's nothing wrong with that if you do it intentionally, but this time that wasn't the look I was going for, and I didn't feel like having to lie to you all that it was ;)
And then I made another one...

The clamps have been removed

Cutting the "spine"

After the glue had dried I used a craft knife to cut the stack in half. The easiest way turned out to be just opening the notepad up in the middle, which was easy enough with the coloured paper there, placing it on a cutting mat and carefully running my knife through the middle.

Putting notepad on top of sticky strip

Turned upright to stick to "spine"

Cutting off excess sticky strip

Tadaaa!

And that was all there was to it really :)

I didn't have enough paper to make a thicker stack, but with these glue clamps I reckon it would be possible to make them as thick as 5 to 10 centimetres!

If I'm not mistaken I should have quite a bit of recycled paper in a box somewhere, I think I might just give it a try... I'll post some pictures if and when I do :)