Cool Project!

So it's that time of year again.  You know the one I mean.  Yes, the END OF SCHOOL.  I don't know whether to be excited or terrified!  I've become very comfortable having my son in school and my daughter in preschool, and having a few quiet hours to myself (though often at the grocery store)!  However, there is so much to do here for FREE that I think we'll have a great time!  Back to the project...

Along with the end of school comes gifts for the teachers.  This year our budget was even tighter than in the past (yikes!) so, I was looking for ECONOMICAL (not cheap) gifts!  I found a website that makes really cute personalized teacher note pads... but $15 for one pad wasn't quite what I had in mind.  So I thought to myself "Hmmm, how hard can it be to make a notepad??"  I Googled that and the answer is "not very!"  So I did.

Materials:
Paper
Printer
Paper Cutter
Cardboard
Binder Clips
Clamps & Blocks
Silicone Caulk
Cardstock
Rubber Cement
Ribbon
Hot Glue
Pens
Magnets

Wow that list looks longer than it seemed.  Lots of this stuff I already had on hand.  I think I only bought the paper and the pens.  

You can spend a lot of money and buy the real padding compound to make your pad, or you can follow Skip To My Lou's advice as I did and just use caulk.  I already had some thanks to a leaky shower.  (I also looked to Chica and Jo and EDPS for info on the process.)  I used Microsoft Publisher (my favorite!) to design the personalized bit and printed them 3 to a page.  Next you slice and stack with the cardboard (I used the cardboard that came in my pack of paper).  Then you do the silicone thing.  I stacked all of my stacks together and siliconed them at the same time.  Once they were all dried, I just pulled them apart carefully like you would peel a sheet off the pad.  I glued a small rectangle of cardstock to the back of the pad and added the ribbon to that.  I also used some cardstock to make the pen holder.  Voila!  Hopefully we'll have three happy teachers!  I'm happy because I spent less than $10 for all of them!  Yay!