Inspiration Nation//Design Your Own Stationery!

Are you one of those people who deliberate at the aisles of stores staring and dawdling at pretty stationery with your heartstrings tugging at you for the price? DIY to the rescue!Today I'm gonna show you how to rock two styles of notebooks and pads using faux watercolor effect and faux chalkboard effect! Here's cheers to a STUNNING, BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL workspace!

This is the second feature of the Design Your Own Series! You can check out the first fab feature at the end of the post!

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This is sort of a lengthy tut, so please, please, please stay with me because I wanted to explain this to you guys as simply as possible n' not miss out on any details! The notebooks itself take very less time to put together (esp. the chalkboard one) and for those of you who don't know how to design with photoshop, you'll be overjoyed to see the instructions I put together for you!Keep in mind that we use photoshop only to enhance the designs, the rest if gorgeously handcrafted!

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Let's start shall we?

For the first go we shall kindle is the faux chalkboard notebook!

You'll need:

-Black cardstock

-Colorful Laptop Decals

-Scissors and pencil

-White Color/water color pencil and a paintbrush

-Washi tape (optional)

-Stapler

How-To:

1.Gather all your supplies! In the below picture you can see the kind of decals I'm using. I'd suggest you buy those which have more of a matte finish though! If you have those like me (shiny which reflect back a bit of light), follow the steps!

2.I had an A4 sized cardstock, so I folded it in half. Next randomly go over the front and back of the cardstock with the white water color pencil that will represent *chalk scratches*. After that, dip a brush in a little water and go over the cardstock. Let dry.

3.Next, smooth on your decal onto the cardstock trying to avoid air bubbles as much as possible.I had to go an extra steps since my decal wasn't exactly matte.

4.I had to run the back tip of my brush to really make sure that the decal adhered well and didn't look too obvious. You can see below how the decal was before!

For the inside, I took a stack of A4 sheets and folded them in half.Then I just inserted them into the cardstock cover and stapled the closed edge.

Finally, to conceal the staples, add washi tape but you can even use regular colored tape!

For the Rifle.Co Watercolor Inspired Notebook:

You need:

-Watercolor Pencil Set (I use a 24 one from Faber-Castell)

-Paintbrush and a lil water

-Plain White and colored Cardstock

-Plain writing paper sheets

How-to:

The next few steps show you how to enhance your original doodle and make a beauty of a notebook cover!

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Time to scan your doodled image using a printer onto your PC!

You can download this nifty lil manual to enhancing your doodle's colors and duplicating your design to have it cover the whole notebook that I've put together here!

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Once you've printed out your image, punch holes through your writing paper, the colored cardstock and the freshly printed out cardstock.( I printed out mine half of A4 sized on an A4 sized sheet since the sheets I'm using inside were cut to half too) and folded 

Loop a ribbon through the punched holes and you're good to go!

For a bit of extra charm use a fancy pattern puncher along the edge of your cover!

This third notebook was made with the same faux watercolor technique but using darker colors!

These notebooks make great gifts for your buddies and family as well!

They are a brilliant splash of color and pattern to pump up your desk or pretty up your shelves!

Don't forget to tune into the next feature of the Design Your Own series where I show you how to create some super-swanky office-supply storage at zero budget, yet again!

I hope you dah'lins love today's tut and are motivated enough to pin it and share it with others!

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Don't forget to follow Craft A Doodle Doo on Pinterest, Facebook and subscribe to make sure you get to gulp down the next fresh-out fabulous feature here!

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Thankyou for joining me today, ^_^

Lots of love and bright smiles,

Nash!

PS:Check out the first feature of your Design you Own Series here!

{You can also tune into my other DIYs here and ravishing freebies here!}

*Graphic's note :It's not important to use Photoshop as the editing software, other similar online editing ones work as well!