D.I.Y. Mag Cover Notepad - Very, very easy!

I'll introduce to you my first D.I.Y. It's a notepad decorated with the cover of one of my favorite Japanese fashion mags (well, with a print of a cover, since I don't currently possess any fashion mag... and if I did, I certainly wouldn't cut one)

{As usual, apologies for the low quality. HQ is not really necessary to understand each step, so don't worry}

This is the finished notepad.

I placed it next to some pens to compare its size.

What do you think? Want to give it a try? Let's go.

It's very, very simple. So simple, actually I can't believe I haven't done this earlier.

First, let's see the materials you'll need.

Of course, you'll need a printer (not pictured) to print your mag cover of choice.

 * Print of mag covers. I chose two (one for the front, and the other for the back). The one to the left will be the back cover (this one, by the way, will have a more Japanese-mag-like look).
The size is half of an A4 (which, by the way, is called A5). The proportion of the magazines will allow you to put one next to the other and fill half an A4 paper if you print them vertically (so, basically I pasted one next to the other and adjusted settings to print vertically. That's it!). If you use MS Paint, like me (very unprofessional, I know. I have no Photoshop skills) you may want to adjust all margins to 0.

Note: About the paper: I used a special type of glossy paper, very similar to the one used to print magazines. It's not photographic paper, but it's not the average printing paper either. I did this to make the print more "water resistant" since I have a very old printer. Although, if you have a laser printer, you may not have this problem.

* Scissors: To cut A4 papers in half (horizontally).

* A4 papers cut in half (or A5 papers, if you have them). As many of these as you want, or as many as your staple allows you to staple at once. I used only 5 (plus the cover)

* Stapler: the biggest one you can get, since you need to fit half of the A5 papers in order to staple them.


Now, the steps:

1 - Fold the cover and the other papers in half

2 - Open, stack the cover and pages together (the cover on the "outside", of course) and staple in the middle, in the mark left by the folding.

I stapled it twice, about two or three centimeters from the edges.

3 - Close it and voila!

Front 

Back

That's it! I told you it was very simple. The hardest part for me was getting my printer to stop staining the pages :@ But, well, I found it on the street, so, I pretty much saw it coming! (If you look closely, you can see some marks :( but it looks pretty good, in my opinion)

Other options:
Of course you can use the same method with any picture you like. I've done some notepads with the cover of the book Alice's adventures in Wonderland.

This one :)

If you want to give it a try, here are the images I used:

It's quite big so the print has the best quality

(Needless to say, I don't own the two previous images. They're for personal use only)

Hope you've liked it! Tanks for reading :)