Back to School Chatting & DIY Notebooks

     I'm pretty sure most of you (if you're in school) are already back to school or are going back to school fairly soon. I go back next week, and I'm not exactly thrilled about it. Sure, I'm dying to see my friends again and all that, but I don't want summer to end :( I guess I can speak for most people when I say that,  haha.
     I've also heard from some of my friends who are a year or two older than me that the teachers I got assign loads of homework, and that is definitely something I'm not looking forward to. On top of all those honors classes, I'm going to be juggling weekly piano and guitar lessons, two hour tennis classes twice a week, and being a human and writing on this blog and posting Youtube videos. I guess you can see that I'm going to be crazy busy this school year, and I just wanted to give a quick heads up as to why I might be seeming MIA from my blog and Youtube channel.
     Saying this, I do realize that I haven't posted much on my blog or Youtube channel very much this summer, and I honestly have no excuse for that. I was really looking forward to having consistent uploads this summer, and I guess I just got kind of lazy. With school starting up again, I really wish I had uploaded a lot more during these past couple of months, but it is what it is. I will try my hardest to upload at least once every week or two weeks, but just bear in mind that I have a huge amount of work to accomplish this school year, so I might have to be out of schedule for a while. That being said...let's try to get a bit excited about school starting up again!

 I uploaded a video a couple weeks ago called "What's In my Backpack", and you can watch it here:

 
     One thing I quickly wanted to mention is that in the above video, I showed two blank composition books that I said I would DIY to make them look better. I did do this with one of my friends, and I wanted to show them to you. This is what they turned out like, and I'm so excited with the final result.

Left Notebook: Full Page Image + Text
Right Notebook: Collage Notebook
All Images Taken from National Geographic Travel Magazines 

   I also quickly wanted to share how I made these:

1. Find any magazine clippings that you like. (it could be a full page or you could make a collage) you could also cut out some text, or just anything that you find that you would like to be on your notebook cover. 
2. Arrange everything on the cover of the notebook so that you can see what it will look like once you glue it down. Make sure to trim everything to size so that your design completely covers the notebook cover and it fits perfectly. 
3. Glue on all your magazine clippings. I used Mod Podge, but any strong holding glue will work. 
4. This step is optional, but if you would like to make your book look a little more professional and make the cover less flimsy, you could put clear tape over the top of your design so that it looks laminated, and your clippings are less likely to peel off. 

     These are so customizable and I love how it turned out. They could easily look like notebooks that you'd find on Tumblr and have to buy at Urban Outfitters or someplace expensive, but in reality they cost less than $5 to make! 

     I think that having school supplies that you actually like are so important because you'll be encouraged to use them more. For example, with these customized notebooks, you might be more encouraged to actually take notes, which can greatly affect your study skills and test grades. Also, who doesn't like customized and cute supplies?