Not only will covering your notebooks and text books protect them and help them last longer, covering them can also help you express your creativity. You don't have to spend money on boring, commercial book covers, you can easily create your own using the directions I provide below and either a paper bag or fabric scraps. Using my directions and step-by-step photos, you will discover how easy it is to create your own personalized books of all sorts!

• Fabric Covered Notebook
• Paper Bag Book Cover

So, what are you waiting for? Click on over to those tutorials and make a book cover like the one pictured here.
RELATED:
- Book Projects
- School Crafts
- Office Crafts

(Photo © 2008 Sherri Osborn licensed to About.com, Inc.)

Did I get your attention with the title of this blog post? You might think I typed it as a joke, but it is a serious question. I was walking around the Minnesota state fair this weekend and a gentleman at a booth handed me a business card for a company called Mr. Ellie Pooh. The business card he handed me along with the other products they had displayed are all made using 75% elephant dung. They had notebooks, stationary gift sets, and packs of paper in a variety of sizes. My daughter told me she has used this elephant dung paper before in her paper craft projects and loved it because it tears real nice. I am not sure how I feel about using paper made with elephant poop. How about you?

Would you make crafts and other paper projects using paper made out of elephant poop? (vote by clicking on your desired answer below)

• No Way, I wouldn't even touch it.
• Yes, I am open to any new experiences!
• I might try it, but I would be leery about using it.

See the poll results.

If you would like to share your opinion about this poll, please use the Comments option below. Thanks for participating and don't forget to tell all of your friends and family to cast their vote!
RELATED:
- Paper Crafts
- How to Make Paper
- Paper Folding
- Elephant Crafts

Using this fun, online special days calendar, you can find out what holidays and birthdays are celebrated during the month of September; plus, find ideas for crafts, games, and other activities to help you celebrate. It includes ideas for Better Breakfast Month, Library Card Sign-Up Month, Labor Day, National Grandparents Day, First Day of Fall, National Dog Week, and much more... Also make sure you take a few minutes to print out a free September calendar pages.
RELATED:
- More Special Days
- More Free Calendar Pages

One more week to go before Summer is officially over, well, atleast it feels that one once school start. I do always look forward to this time... I am not sure now since my youngest is now a senior in high school. Anyway, I have a few more school-related projects I am working on and then I will dive head first into Hallloween and Autumn crafts, with a few Christmas items thrown in here and there.

Here are this week's offerings from my crafty friends:

• About.com Cross Stitch - Stitch this free Have a Spooky Halloween pattern to add to your Halloween decor.

• Aileen's Musings - Meet Snaily the skateboarding snail, and check out the fairies in Aileen's gardens! Aileen has created free postcards for you to send to a friend!

• Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world - The glitter, fabric, fire and pens are flying this week at Craftside with cool lettering tutorials from Lisa Engelbrecht, lampwork beaded earrings, Modern quilt designs and patterns, knitting with fleece fabric and pictures of the Crafty Chica's Sparkle tour.

• Crafty Princess Diaries - Tammy has a new free metal clay project posted. This one is for the ID Me bracelet.

• Layers Upon Layers - Debe Friedhoff creates bottles of hope for those in need. "You can't sell hope!" Debe says. "You can only give it away!"

• Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery - You'll look fabulous coming and going this fall when you knit up this free pattern for a double sided cable scarf.

• The Impatient Blogger - Margot shares a project from her book Sparkletastic with Ana and Megan Araujo on this episode of When Creativity Knocks.

(Graphic is courtesy of morgue.com)