A Look at My New Happiedori!

Hello Friend!

     My final online purchase arrived in the mail yesterday!  I say final because she really is the last thing I am going to order online for the forseeable future.  The holidays require much practice in self control and budget dieting.  And dieting in general for  that matter. 

     I bought this lovely Happiedori from Sam (@happiescrappie).  Sam is a paper crafting creative genius, and this Happierdori is her version of the Fauxdoris out there.  If you are not familiar with what Fauxdoris are, they are based on the Midori Traveler's Notebooks.  These notebooks are beautiful and typically handcrafted covers for...notebooks.  That may sound odd to a lot of people, but for journal and notebook enthusiasts like myself, it is another fun way to house our thoughts, drawings, lists, and braindumps.  So without further ado, I invite you to scroll along with me as I introduce you to Peach, my new Happiedori!

     Here she is!  Is she not a beauty?  Sam has a great online shop where you can customize your own Happiedori.  You can pick the colors of the outside, the inside, and the elastic.  I chose peach for the outside to represent a softer version of orange, patent yellow for the inside, and a purple elastic.  Orange, yellow and purple are my blog colors.  These three colors represent the bird of paradise.  

     Here is a "spine shot" of Peach.  Note the cute heart charm at the top.  I am planning to find a great charm to add to the bottom as well.  That will require me to re-thread the notebook, but Sam has a great YouTube Video which shows you how to do this.

     Sorry for the poor angle of this shot, but this shows you the open side of Peach.  I had a notepad booklet that I bought a while ago from Target's clearance section which fit perfectly inside Peach.  I am using the notebook as a guide to cut down patterned paper that I have collected over the years to create my own journal pages (see below).

     This shows you where the binding elastic originates.  You pull this around the entire notebook to keep it closed when not in use.

     One of my lovely penpals sent me a two year monthly calendar for my birthday, and I decided to keep it in Peach.  I can never have too many calendars.  I had to use my first passport sized Traveler's Notebook by @jonelifish (top left) to hold it down since it does not lie flat on its own.

     This is what Peach looks like beyond the two year calendar.  The left side is half of the notepad booklet, and the right side is the start of my DIY journal.  I made the journal by using the notepad booklet as a sizing reference, folding the paper in half, and then cutting it down to size so that nothing stuck out.  The width of the paper (standard 8.5 inches) was perfect for Peach, so no trimming was needed.  

     Here is the center of my DIY journal.  You can see where the elastic holds everything together.  There is a way to bind the notebooks with more elastic so that they do not sit on top of each other like they do in mine.  Please refer to Sam's video for tips on how to do that.  The plastic you see was included in Peach.  Most gals as well as myself are using it as a Dashboard for sticky notes.

     This is the back of  Peach.  The left side shows the back of my DIY journal, and the right side shows the other side of the notepad booklet.  

This shows how the elastic is tied into the back flap of Peach. 

     

     So far I am loving my new Happiedori.  I have been using her since Saturday, and she now houses my daily to-do list.  I usually take a lot of planning, reading, and writing material with me to work so that I can catch up with things on my breaks.  Peach will allow me to keep my planning material at home on my days off.  The only thing that I do not like about Peach is her smell.  I am not sure if the smell is from the adhesive that was used to glue the different material together or if it is coming from the actual material.  I guess I have been spoiled with the lovely leather smell of my passport notebook shown in the previous pictures.  That is a minor detail for me though.  I hope you found this post helpful!  As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!  

Until Next Write,

Teresa

@sentimentalitee