When Something Sentimental Begins To Fall Apart, Simply Turn It Into Something Else

The Hubby and I were engaged in Paris. I’ve mentioned that before so you’re probably asking why I’m reminding you. Well, because it ties into today’s craft post…I promise. So, we got engaged on the last day of a two week London-Paris trip and on that day, before the proposal, I bought this brown faux-leather bag shown below. Clearly, I did not spend a lot of money on it. But it was very sentimental to me given I brought it back from Paris and I got it on the day we were engaged.

Fast forward to six years later and my Parisian faux-leather bag has begun to fall apart. No worries though, I’ll just turn it into something else 😉

So…as a blogger and photographer, I always keep a notebook with me in case an idea for a blog post or some kind of shoot strikes. But who wants to carry a boring old composition book around? Sure you could go buy a fancy covered journal or notebook from any store, but why not make a cover for a notebook that’s sentimental to you like the one I made here out of my Parisian faux-leather bag? It’s really easy. Here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Gather your materials. I knew I wasn’t going to have enough of the faux-leather to make an entire notebook cover, so I chose some fabric from my craft room that I’d been wanting to use and looked great with the leather. I also grabbed some blue and orange ribbon as I thought they’d look nice as accent colors.

Step 2: Here’s where I have no idea what I want to do and I often just stare at all the items until inspiration strikes.

Step 3: After brain storming for a while, I decided to make the base of the notebook cover with the patterned material, then take it from there. Cut the piece of fabric an inch bigger on all sides than the notebook. Fold a 1/2 ” at the long end of the fabric over and sew a zig zag stitch at both ends. Do not sew the bottom or top together yet as you need to sew in the leather and ribbons first.

Step 4: Lay the fabric out flat. Place the piece of faux leather where you want it and arrange ribbons in a pattern you like around the leather.

Step 5: Sew the ribbons onto the fabric and faux leather with a straight stitch at each end of the ribbon.

Step 6: Once the ribbons are sewn in, then sew in part of one of the straps to use as the notebook closure. Then place it over your notebook to pin where you need to sew the top and bottom sides together. Sew a zig zag stitch on the top and bottom sides.