Very pretty altered notebook

I know that I just did an altered notebook a couple of weeks ago but I found a different size at Michael's, still for a dollar, and decided that this is what I'm going to teach at my Close to my Heart party in Battle Creek, Michigan this Saturday. I always love showing people different ways to use their scrapping and stamping supplies so here we go again.

For this particular notebook you will need: trimmer, scissors, ruler, $1 book, sparkles, smokey plum ink, olive ink, creme brulee ink, Bella paper set (so gorgeous), acrylic blocks, sponge, smokey plum marker, glue, tombow, Endless Friendship stamp set and Make It Count stamp set. All these supplies can be found for sale on my Close to my Heart website, here. Remember that there will be a drawing for a $22.95 stamp set this month amongst all people who bought from my website. Now, look at these colors in this gathering of supplies, aren't they beautiful?

Here are your cutting dimensions: colonial white, cut one piece 4 1/2" by 6 3/4", one piece 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" and one 2 1/2" by 1 1/2". Using your plum pattern piece from the Bella set, cut a piece 4 1/2" by 3 1/2". Cut the patterned floral paper 4 1/2" by 3". Cut olive cardstock 2" by 4 1/2" and 2 1/2" by 2 1/2". Also you will need some extra colonial white to stamp on. Now, I understand that whatever notebook you might want to alter may not be the size like mine so just adjust your cutting measurements to fit yours. Once you've cut them all, distress. My picture shows a lot of cut paper because I am making mine for several people to play with!

Now take the gorgeous flower from the Endless Friendship set and stamp it in smokey plum on your colonial white paper. Next take your solid circle stamp and stamp "off" once to the paper before stamping inside of your flower. This is called second generation stamping and it makes the color lighter obviously. I showed you a little diagram in this picture. Once you've stamped the solid circle, get that little starry-like center and stamp it in the ink then directly onto the center of the flower, no stamping off this time. See what a nice look that makes!

On the Endless Friendship stamp set there is a set of three flowers together, stamp them in creme brulee too.

On a piece of olive cardstock, the long strip, stamp in olive ink the little curly vine. Sorry about the quality of this photograph.

On the 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" colonial white square, stamp the vine with the two leaves near the top.Those two leaves will be the leaves of your flower.

Cut out all the flowers, the large and the three small, put a dot of color in the center of the small flowers with your smokey plum pen. Stamp sentiment from the Make It Count stamp set on the smallest colonial white paper block and then attach one of the small flowers.

Glue the smokey plum large flower off to the left bottom side of your colonial white 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" block so that it looks like the two leaves are coming out from under it as pictured. Add the two yellow flowers for accents.

Attach that whole piece to the olive 2 1/2" by 2 1/2" olive cardstock.

Now get your notebook, put the large colonial white cardstock piece centered on your notebook, use Tombow, it's the best! Put your olive cardstock strip down first, flush with the bottom of the colonial white cardstock. About 1 1/2" inches down from the top of the cardstock, glue your plum patterned paper, it should be flush with the olive at the bottom. Attach the flowered print right in the middle of that.

Put your flower embellishment square on the upper left hand side about 1/4" down from the top.

Now put your sentiment down about 1/2" from the right hand side of the page, centered between the olive cardstock and the floral patterned paper. That's all there is to it, so much prettier than before!