Collaged Notebooks

As it was back-to-school time when my programs started off, I decided to kick off my teen programs with a collaged notebook. It was after the major sales, but Office Max still had some crazy sales going on, and I was able to nab several packs of notebooks (3/pack - only $2)!

This is a really easy craft to do, of course, and it requires very little work on your part! All I do is give them the notebooks, paintbrushes, glue, magazines, and scissors and let them go to town. Note: this may need to be a two-parter b/ it takes a long time to pick and cut out the pictures you want. The kids may have to leave the notebooks behind so they can dry.

For those of you not familiar with collaging, the process is simple. Once you have your pictures cut out, take a small amount of water and add it to some regular, white glue. Paint the glue solution onto the area you want you pic, lay

the picture down, and then do another coat of glue on top of it (this helps seal it in). You can buy official Mod-podge at craft stores, but the glue and water works just as well. The only difficulty I had this go-round was that the glue/water solution wanted to bead up - which is an issue I've never had before. I just kept running my brush over it to spread it out, and eventually it dried alright. If you look at my notebook really closely, you can see where the glue is. I also had a problem with my paper wanting to wrinkle up, but again, I just kept smoothing it out with my brush, and didn't seem to turn out too badly.

The kids really liked it, but they ran out of time. Most of them got their notebooks done, they just had to leave them here to dry.