From composition notebook to FREAKING AWESOME composition notebook

So, I was talking to my mom the other day and she told me about this amazing idea for a project that her friend had started doing: taking scrapbook paper and other odds and ends and covering composition notebooks. I thought this was probably one of the coolest ideas I had ever heard, especially since I love comp notebooks so much. I have quite a few that I haven't even written anything in.

I'm not much of a craft person. I draw, and that's pretty much it. But this idea sounded so cool that I had to try it out. I went to Michael's and bought a ton of paper, various adhesives, stickers, ribbon, and... those thingies... I can't remember what they're called. But they're neat. ^_^ To my delight this project required a minimum of labor and time to create something that's actually really cool.

First, take a look at the original, unaltered form of the Composition Notebook:

Now, behold: My first attempt.

This is pretty boring. I liked the sober paper paired with the bright, slightly glittery smiley face stickers, which are actually brighter and glittery-er than you can tell from the photo. Anyway, it was the original experiment that I did in about five minutes so I could get a feel for what I needed to do.

Now, behold: The first REAL book.

I wanted to do something very simple with contrasting colors. The sticker says "beauty".

Now, behold: (I promise I'll stop writing that! ^_^) The second real book.

Letters! I like this one.

Two more to come later. Blogger is messing up or something, I'm having some trouble uploading images.