My 7-year-old has been on summer vacation for nearly two weeks and I only got around to sorting through her bulging backpack yesterday. She brought the bag home on the last day of school crammed with the contents of her desk and nine month’s worth of junk.
Given my frugal nature, I refused to dump all of her school supplies in the trash. Rather, I painstakingly sorted through the pile of used items to see which ones I could salvage for the upcoming school year. Obviously, I couldn’t save it all, but there were many materials that could either be reused or recycled; among them, my daughter’s composition tablets.
Whereas I can’t send the used ones back to school with her in the fall, I was able to breathe new life into most of them by ripping out the pages that were filled with math facts and journal entries. Then, with a little patience and a few scrapbook elements I transformed the old composition tablets into kid-friendly memory albums.
Here’s how:
Materials:
Gently used composition tablets
Plain or patterned scrapbook paper
Glue
Scissors
Ruler
Various scrapbooking embellishments
Clear contact paper
Directions:
Measure the cover of the tablet.
Cut the scrapbook paper to the dimensions you recorded.
Apply glue to the cover of the tablet and gently press the scrapbook paper on it being sure to smooth out any air bubbles that might surface.
Allow the glue to dry thoroughly.
Cut another sheet of scrapbook paper and glue it over the tablet’s spine.
Allow glue to dry thoroughly.
Trim off any excess paper.
Design a title for your scrapbook using stickers, rub-off letters or rubber stamps. You could frame the title with coordinating papers if you want to make it pop. You could also embellish the cover with die cuts or clip art. If you have extra pictures, you could make a photo collage on the cover by trimming prints in whimsical shapes and layering them to create an eye-catching design.
When you’re done decorating, cover the book in clear contact paper for added protection.
Related Articles:
Do You Have a Favorite Scrapbook Brand?