Last of the Ministerial Notepads

I needed to finish the last of the notebooks for Ministerial, and I ran across the coolest idea while I was browsing the gallery at Splitcoaststampers the other day. It was perfect for my purposes, so here it is ...

I'm sure you remember the other mini legal pad holders, right? These are mini legal pads cut in half (down the long way). Well, Nichole Heady figured out a way to add a pencil/pen holder! Check it out here.



The only problem is that I don't own a 1/2" circle punch, and I'm not going to go out and buy one special for one project. If I've lived all these years without one, it's unlikely I really NEED it anyway. So I got a little creative. If you look at the peach one above, you'll see that I tried to handcut my own 1/2" square with my x-acto knife. I didn't like how that turned out.

Then I got to thinking - Do I really need the top part of the holder? (See the post I referenced above if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) So I cut it off and tried it - a pen/pencil fits snugly inside the open-topped rectangle. Not only did that save me having to buy a circle punch, it also saved me quite a bit of paper.

Doing it Nichole's way, you can get three holders to a sheet of 8.5x11" paper (if you creatively bump them up right next to each other). Using just the bottom part of the design, you can get six holders to a sheet of 8.5x11" paper. Not only that, it's a lot easier since I didn't have to trace the template anymore. I just stuck it on my scoring board and ran with it. :)



So how do you modify it the way I did? Easy. Cut your paper to 2-3/4" x 4-1/2". (As I said, you can get six of these to a sheet of 8-1/2" x 11" paper.) Then score the 2-3/4" side at 3/4", 1", 1-3/4", and 2". Turn the paper and score the 4-1/2" side at 3" and 3-1/4". Now simply cut away the two sides at the top (including side seams). You'll have a long, skinny part sticking up in the middle. Then just fold it up to make a box and glue it to your project with the hole at the top.



And here's what it looks like inside.

I used decorative paper that looks good all by itself since I was running out of time and needed to finish 25 of these in a hurry. I think they still look nice, and I'm sure the ladies are going to love them!

Oh, and please don't ask me why I didn't put pencils or pens into the slots for the pictures ... I don't know what I was (or wasn't) thinking! :)