Life changing compound.
It’s hard to resist the back to school aisles this time of year and this year I managed to just pick up this padded index card notepad. (I can’t seem to find it online.) It got me thinking about making notepads and the glue that held these index cards together–because it was just a stack of index cards glued together. But I love it! Along with my spiral bound list maker, I use this notepad all the time. So I figured how hard can it be to make a notepad and you know what? Not hard!
I ordered a quart of this life changing padding compound (comes in red + white) from here for $13. This is the glue you just brush on the edge of your stack of paper to make a notepad. So simple. The compound is so thick it’s really easy to work with and you use so little of it this stuff will last forever. (I did find this Ebay seller selling smaller quantities but you get so much less for half the cost so I say go for the quart.)
Or long enough to make a thousand and forty-two notepads. I got my feet wet just making a notepad with scrap paper which I hand stamped the pages with this cute stamp set I picked up from cottonblue’s Etsy shop a bit back.
(Photo of stamp set from cottonblue.)
The only trick is to cut all the pages the same size. I have a paper cutter so it made this pretty simple but without a paper cutter, I can’t imagine trying to cut them all the same size with scissors. Then you need a backing board. I used some tagboards I had around from packaging up artwork. Though I have also used a cut up portion from a sketchpad or even a thicker food box would work. You stack it all together, keep it tight with a rubber band and then brush on the compound. So simple! I found that I could keep the pad the tightest but slipping it into a clipboard after brushing on the glue to keep the pages all good and tight together. All right so after I figured out how easy it was, I knew next would be a fill-in-the-blank note pad. A grocery list!
I have been using this grocery list notepad from Kathleen Habbley and have been silently freaking out because it’s almost gone and she doesn’t have anymore for sale right now and I don’t know why I didn’t buy two. So I decided to replace it with my own grocery list. I sized it so I could fit four pages to a sheet and went over to my local copy store and made 30 copies to make a 120 page notepad. I glued it all together and added a magnet to the back and it’s awesome!
They’re so great cause it costs so little to make them but I think they will be awesome gifts. I’m so excited about this. Updated to add: I put together some Do-It-Yourself Notepad Kits for the shop with instructions, our Meal Planning Notepad and supplies to make about 50 more notepads. You can find it here.