I’ve been wanting to organize things just a bit… at home … on this blog. I’m doing a small series with ideas of what we do with watercolor paintings every Monday. This is Cami’s favorite type of painting & I can’t think of a more magical way to start the week.
This weekend Camille and I made some cute watercolor sketch books. Its pretty simple and comes out quite beautifully.
She painted:
Several sheets of watercolor paper.
I have a roll of watercolor paper that is already 8 1/2 inches wide, but you can use and size and then cut later the dimensions you want.
After the watercolors had dried, I created our little booklets. I took some plain computer paper and folded it in half. I cut the sheets of watercolor that we made to 11 1/2 inches in width.
We tied some of our crock pot yarn about them.
I simply stitched a line down the side to keep them together.
These turned out so beautifully and I love how economical they are. I had originally been inspired by Nicola’s notebooks & I made some similar ones to these for Noah’s birthday party last year. These watercolors give it such beautiful twist, and for my little Cami, there isn’t much better than a book of blank pages for drawing.
*A few notes on my blog. I’m moving all the previous widgets and tutorials to the top button. I’ve seen a lot of google searches of some of my posts and I want to make it easy for people to find, but I’m hoping to open my etsy shop up in the next few weeks and I wanted to clean up the front page a bit. I’ll be organizing the links by seasons and celebrations to make it easy for people to find what they need.








Carrie @ Oh Baby O
Feb 21, 2011 -
How very pretty!
Dawn
Feb 21, 2011 -
Am Etsy shop! Good for you! I can’t wait to see! These little notebooks are so cute. What a great idea. The thickness and texture, not to mention the beautiful colors that children paint on it, of watercolor paper make it perfect for so many projects.
Anna
Feb 21, 2011 -
I just want you to know Erin that I LOVE your blog and all of your wonderful ideas. Keep up the good work and keep all those inspirational ideas coming! Miss you guys.
Nicola@Which Name?
Feb 21, 2011 -
These are beautiful! Thanks for the link love and I am so excited to read you will be opening an Etsy shop!!
Nicola
Jodi
Feb 22, 2011 -
Those notebooks are great. Very artistic. And an Etsy shop — good for you. I started to set one up myself, but I got cold feet. You’ll have to let me know how it goes for you — then maybe, I’ll get brave.
Char
Feb 22, 2011 -
These are just FABULOUS! Such a great idea.
I may just have to try this with my babes.
HUGS and thanks for passing by with such sweet comments!
Char.x
mandy
Feb 22, 2011 -
We’ve made these before too. You can NEVER have too many projects for the prolific amount of watercolor paintings these little ones can make!
Sarah
Feb 22, 2011 -
Oooh… I love love love this idea! Thank you so much!
e l l a
Feb 22, 2011 -
What a cute idea for personalize a simple notebook. I know my daughter would love that – she doodles in my agenda all the time – it’s about time she got her own book
xo
kendra
Feb 23, 2011 -
these are beautiful, erin!!! and hello, why hadn’t i thought to use cans for paint/water receptacles?
Julia
Feb 23, 2011 -
These are a great idea and they would go down very well in my house too.
Looking forward to seeing your Etsy shop.
Kimberly
Feb 23, 2011 -
Oh I just adore watercolor! I bought some new paints awhile back but have yet to open them up. The sketchbook idea is super cute and looks easy enough to create. Great job reorganizing your blog. I liked it before, but it’s even easier to navigate now. That must have been some project!
dani
Feb 24, 2011 -
I love these. I wonder how hard these would be for my kindergarten class to put together for Mother’s Day?
tinytwistcreative
Feb 25, 2011 -
Dani, I think these would be perfect for Mother’s Day. You’d just have to take the paintings home after the process was done to stitch them really quickly.
twigandtoadstool
Feb 25, 2011 -
what a super idea…this idea will be put to good use here at my house!
xo maureen
Nadja
Feb 25, 2011 -
Lovely! We are forever making sketch books here…the kids like to write stories, make comics or just scribble in them, and as cheap and easy as they are, we do them frequently. And we have used “Repurposed” art for the covers, too!
AG Ambroult
Feb 26, 2011 -
oh! yay! I will be very much looking forward to your Tuesday posts
Those notebooks are so sweet. What a great gift, or even just to have a stack of them at the ready at home. My girls will love doing that.
Rosina
Feb 27, 2011 -
Oh the notebook covers look so pretty with the watercolor paintings
Congrats on opening up an Etsy shop to! I love selling and shopping over there
thefisherlady
Dec 30, 2011 -
off to try this one!
Jill
Sep 4, 2012 -
Do you need a special needle for the sewing machine for this??? I absolutely LOVE this idea! I have four boys and lot of paintings!
erin
Sep 7, 2012 -
hey jill, you don’t need a special needle. I would get stronger thread though. I’ve noticed trouble from my more flimsy thread when I make these.