Calendar

The green table is moving! I'll begin posting again after we're all set up in our new home!






Friday, October 7, 2011

Love Ledgers




This post was featured in the blog, My Favorite Finds!


Are you a list maker?  I am! Shopping lists, packing lists, cleaning lists, wish lists, idea lists, prayer lists...you name it, I list it! What is better than crossing to-dos off that list?!  And I'm always running out of paper because someone likes to fill my notebooks with happy faces and her lists! Andy depends on lists too.  He keeps of running ledger full of notes, to-do reminders, phone numbers, etc as he meets with clients throughout the day. 


This week we made "Love Ledgers" - that is customized legal pads, made for each other to bring a little brightness to our task lists.  We made them by increasing the size of the top of the ledger with cardboard scraps, then covering it with scrapbook paper and adding a dash of personalization.  Fabric or wallpaper scraps would be neat too.


Materials:
cardboard scraps
colored duct tape
glue sticks
white school glue
scissors
ruler
ledgers
pens or markers
scrapbook paper (or fabric, wallpaper scraps)


Start with a piece of thin cardboard, the same width of your ledger.  Ours were 8.5" wide, but smaller babies would be very cute too!  If you need thin cardboard, use a cereal box.

Left, thin cardboard cut to size and marked at 2.5". Right, cardboard glued in place
Position the cardboard behind and extending about 2 1/2" above the top of your ledger. We'll call this the "overhang", but it will become the top of the ledger. Glue the cardboard in place.


Meanwhile, cut cardboard scraps to the size of the overhang; in our case this was 8.5"x2.5". 






Place these cardboard rectangles on top of your overhang to build it up to approximately the same height as your ledger. I found that one rectangle of corrugated cardboard and one rectangle of thin cardboard (both 8.5"x2.5") did the trick.






Wrap strips of colored duct tap, about 10" long, over and around the cardboard to adhere the cardboard rectangles to the overhang and cover the exposed cardboard on the sides. You could just leave it like that, especially if you are using really fun duct tape.  We took ours a couple steps further.








Cut a 8.5"x3" rectangle from thin cardboard and cover it with a 9.5"x6" piece of thoughtfully selected scrapbook paper. Position the cardboard on top of the paper and mitre the corners. (Note, that hole in the top of the paper serves no purpose; it's not going to show, so I didn't bother to cut it off.)






Glue (with glue stick) and wrap the paper around the cardboard on the bottom and sides, but leave the top edge open.  Glue this covered piece down to unite the top of the ledger to the overhang portion that you just created. Flip the top of the scrapbook paper up and over the top of the ledger, and glue it to the back using white school glue.






Finally, decorate the top of the ledger as desired for the intended loved one. Or just write them a nice note on the back.  I thought Adelae might find the alphabet helpful on the top of her ledger.






For Andy, something more subtle, to remind him that why he works so hard - family and vacation!






Adelae did such a good job on the ledgers she made for us!  She put dots all over mine so it would look like it was sparkling!  Charming!






I love that Andy just wrote a note on the back of mine.  He picked the perfect paper for me!  And, as you can see, I'm already using it!






I think our to-do lists just got a little bit more pleasant! It's good to be loved.



Adelae, still in PJs, sending Daddy off to work with his new ledger



1 comment:

  1. Oh Sarah, I love all of these ideas! and. . .PUBLIX! melts my heart! thanks for sharing :D

    -Becky (Wrase)

    ReplyDelete