Personalized Notebooks for Back to School

Make back to school more fun with some personalized school supplies. First, get older kids in on the act creating colorful backgrounds on Yupo paper using alcohol inks. Then add a design cut from adhesive foil for some sparkle and shine!

• Yupo paper
• Alcohol inks in colors of choice
• Cricut adhesive foil
• Spray adhesive
• Kamar varnish (optional)
• Decorative tape (optional)
• Composition notebook

If you’ve never worked with Yupo paper, you’re in for a treat! Though Yupo paper is not actually paper at all – it’s nonporous polypropylene, which makes it ideal for use with alcohol inks.

Cut a piece of Yupo paper slightly larger than needed to fit the cover of your notebook. You’ll be cutting the paper to exact size after gluing it to the cover in a later step.

Spread some alcohol across the paper using a paper towel.

Squirt several colors of ink into the alcohol and then have some fun! You can manipulate the inks in a variety of ways until you get an interesting background that you love. It’s hard to go wrong - but if you do, the inks can be wiped away with some alcohol and a paper towel.

Here are some things to try! Draw a texture tool through the ink or spread it with a straw. Blow through a straw to spread the ink. Tip the paper and let the inks run and drip across the paper. Spritz the ink with alcohol from a spray bottle.

If you’d like, after the ink dries, you can apply a coat of spray varnish like Kamar Varnish to protect the surface.

Apply spray adhesive to the back of the painting and glue it to the notebook cover. After the glue dries, open the cover, and trim the excess paper away using scissors.

Create your cut design in Cricut Design Space.

Cut the design from adhesive foil in the color of your choice. Weed the design and apply it to the notebook cover using transfer paper. If you’re accustomed to working with vinyl, you’ll notice that the foil is more brittle and (I think) a bit trickier to get onto the transfer paper. Take your time and the result will be worth the extra effort.

Add some decorative tape and any other embellishments to the cover that you’d like.