Post It....And Hide My Jewels....

Sooner or later, if you sit on a pile of post it notes long enough....You come up with something to make with them in miniature....At least Tessie does.

She has been plopped on this pile of notes for the past few days watching me work.


This morning she decided that she needed some place to hide her "valuables". She has valuables???

Anyway, she asked me, "You have so many of these note thingies. Why can't we make something from them. They are already stuck together. They would make a good start for one of those books that you hide things in. No mess. No fuss."

I thought about it for a while and decided to try it. I refuse to use those nice new notes to experiment, so I grabbed a partially used yellow pad. Now that I know it works, I am sorry that I didn't go with the parchment colored ones. I had to stick two pieces together with the used ones.

Here's what I did. I started with a very fresh, never been used blade in my Exacto Knife. I found a pencil and a ruler and measured a 3/4" by 1" rectangle on the edge where everthing is stuck together.....The method to my madness? If you use that side, you don't have to do any messy gluing to stick the pages together. OK...So I am lazy. Lazy but smart.

I then measured in 1/8" all around to mark the inside of my box. With my metal ruler as a guide, I started cutting out the center, a few sheets at a time. I went about 3/4 of the way down.

I then took a piece of paper that looked almost like mini marbleized end paper in old books and cut a piece 1" by 1 1/2". Then I folded it down the center, the short way.

I laid one half on the opening, face up and glued it flat on the top edges. Then I cut an X in the center and forced the four pieces down into the hole, creased them well, lifted them and put glue under them. That's what you see in the second photo.

Then I took a piece of paper and using the center measurements as a guide cut a lining paper with four flaps that would just fit inside. I glued this in place.

On to the next photo. Here you see a couple of pieces of card stock cut just a bit larger on three edges. The fourth edge lines up with the back. A third piece is the width of the spine and the same length as the outer covers.

I laid them out on a piece of fabric that I liked and left just a thin line between the pieces so that they would bend.

I trimmed the fabric as you see in the photo and glued all of the flaps to the inside. Make sure that you put a little extra glue in the corners. That way, if it needs trimming, it won't ravel.

After the glue is dry,starting with the back(bottom) of the book, glue the block to the cover, lining up the spine with the back of the block.

Then do the spine and last the front cover. That gets glued to the end paper. Make sure that the front cover will open and close.

I confess that this one was arguing with me about staying closed. I did win the argument with a bit of mini wax....Don't tell anybody I cheated. After all, this was just a prototype.

It does open and close and Tessie is already looking for valuables to put in it...."OK. Now you have to make me some jewelry."

I knew she didn't have any valuables. Why do I fall for these schemes?


The last step, Tessie did herself. She dug up some of my self stick gold paper ornaments.

Only Tessie would think that leopard skin was too tame a cover for the box. I tried to tell her that gold on the outside would be a signal for anybody looking for her treasures.

She's not having any of it.
She's keeping the gold. In fact, she just looked me in the eye and cheerfully announced, "I need an bigger book to hide the leopard skin book inside, so nobody will steal it.....

Somebody hide the gold paper! I have visions of building a series of boxes that look like books. Each one successively larger....This could go on forever! Does anybody know where I can get a pad of post it notes that are about 5 feet square???

See you tomorrow.