Fall and Winter Altered Notebooks - Christmas Gift Ideas - Part Three

Hi friends,

I'm here with my final notebook gifts tutorial to share with you all, this time using a 3D tree chipboard in a different way than intended!

So here we go!  As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to make some custom notebooks for some Christmas gifts and I thought the notebooks would be easy to post and easy to customise to each person.

Here are the notebooks I'm using, which are A5 size, and a popular size with bullet journalists so you will probably know the size I mean.  It's approx 5.5 x 8.x inches. The process is the same so I started by painting the covers with black gesso, to give myself a good, primed base especially as these are clothbound books.

While that was drying, I sorted through my chipboards and selected a few that I might potentially use, keeping in mind the person for whom they were intended.   I had already made this notebook and this notebook and also this notebook. For these final two notebooks I am using fall and winter inspired chipboard elements and sharing this 3D tree chipboard between the two books.

This chipboard has two parts that slot together to make a standing 3D tree, but I decided to cut both parts down the centre and then line up the matching pieces to make a double thickness and glued them together. If you didn't want them as thick as this, you could actually make four tree notebooks, using one half tree on each.  I wanted a little more dimension, so I doubled them up.  You can see the double thickness in the photo below.

For the winter notebook on the left, I also used three snowflakes from the Snowflake Shape set, and some die cut letters using some cereal box cardboard and glued everything down.  Then for the fall notebook, I also used two words from the Fall Words set - FALL and MEMORIES - and glued everything in place.

On the back cover of the notebook, I used an A5 sized wood slice stencil and some paper texture paste to create a dimensional pattern on the Winter notebook...

and the Fall notebook...

Leave the paper texture paste to dry and then paint everything with black gesso.

Now it was time to start painting!

I painted the Fall notebook with this gorgeous golden brown metallic acrylic, then used a Metallic Russet to paint the words.  Here is a look at the back cover which is stencilled with the texture paste and then painted.

The fall cover - complete or not complete?  I can't decide!

I felt like it needed something more in the cover so I die cut these leaf clusters and painted them with a variety of gold and copper metallics.

Then I cut them into smaller leaves and drew some veining on them with a dark brown pen.

I kept two leaf clusters whole and stacked and glued them together.  Then I punched a hole near the top and attached it to the bookmark ribbon which is part of the notebook.

And here is the finished Fall notebook.

Now it was time to focus on the Winter notebook.

For this notebook, I used this great icy blue metallic paint for the cover, and then used silver metallic paint for the snowflakes and a dark teal metallic paint for the text.

I hope you enjoyed this project and that it has given you some gift ideas for reasonably quick and customisable gifts that can be used all year round, but are perfect last minute Christmas gifts that can be tailored to the recipient.

Till next time,

Elle
Empire of the Cat


PROJECT RECIPE:
GSL Cuts - Snowflake Shape Set D38A, Fall Word Set D81E, 3D Chipboard Tree 6" C1B,
A5 clothbound notebooks
Black gesso
Finnabair Metallique Paints
Jacquard Lumiere metallic paints
Tim Holtz Handmade font dies
Glue
From Stash: cereal box cardboard