Plastic Table Mat Books

I found these plastic table placemats in my local supermarket reduced to 30p!!! bargain and I thought I could use them for something. I see a lot of plastic covered notebooks in the shops and its quite handy for shopping lists etc to stop them getting messy. So here is my selection of notebooks. You can get about 3 from one mat depending on size obviously. They cut very easily and go through the Bind-it All, Cropodile and cutters like a dream. You need to avoid the ones with a ridged finish smooth is better and these have a white back, some are brown but you could cover it over if thats the case.

So to start you need

• a table placemat
• Bind-it All and spine wires
  
• A pack of Record Cards from an office supplies stationer (Staples etc), this will make loads of books. They come in a variety of sizes and colours, some plain some ruled so choose which ever suits you best or just cut some pages from cardstock
• Brads and embellishments, flowers, ribbons etc if you want to use those
  

The mats have rounded corners so I trimmed about a 1" strip from each short side, use these for the closures, I have used a rounder to finish the books off but mine is smaller so thats why I trimmed the original ones off.

I cut some of the record card in half to make pages they measure approx 4" by 5", then cut 2 covers a little larger to protect the edges. From the spare strip I cut a piece to make the closure piece that the strip will slip under. I rounded the 2 outer corners on each piece and punched holes to put brads in to assemble the pieceslike thisCut a further strip to join t the back cover, this comes round and under the front closure piece. Do not attach it till you have punched your covers with the bind-it all as the brads will get in the way :-)
This is how it will work as a closure. Now put pieces through the bind-it all and the assemble onto the spine, Fix your last closure piece with brads and add any embellishements and your done. made this in about 20mins and thee second one took about 10-15mins so they are nice easy projects to do. Great for Stocking Fillers, Party Bag gifts etc.For this handbag shopping list I cut the record card into 3 pieces 2 1/2" wide, and the covers are 2 3/4" wide, round the bottom corners only, punch across the top this time and bind it. I made a strip that goes round the whole thing, fastened with a brad flower combination. This slips over the whole thing to hold it together in your bag.Hope you like them
xx