Stamp Simply #100 - Happy Birthday!

It’s a Birthday Party! — Yes, today is Stamp Simply’s 100th Challenge, so that’s good enough reason to celebrate for me!!! Thank you ALL for coming to read our challenges, check out our projects and play along with us over the last 100 weeks — we’ve loved every minute of it!!! So, it only follows that today’s challenge is to make a birthday card — that’s it — how simple and how fun!!! Above you can see my gift chicken birthday card, that matches one of the projects I have to show you below! (My "gift chicken" stamp is from Whipper Snapper, and my card design was completely inspired by this card I saw on Kendra Wietstock's blog!)

And going beyond the challenge, we at Stamp Simply ARE having a Birthday Party, and YOU are invited!!! Today many of the designers who have worked with us in the past in any capacity — Retired Designer, Guest Designer, Party Participant — have been invited to join in our celebration to bring some fun projects and ideas to YOU!!! We have a wide variety of things going on. My post today is quite long, so instead of listing all the blogs that are participating today, I invite you to hop over to Sharon's blog for the complete list! Then I hope you can find some time to sit down with a nice cup of coffee or tea and start cruising to see what you can find — have fun everyone — and THANKS for coming!!!

For my project today, I decided to create a birthday reminder book using my Bind-It-All. For making as many cards as I do, I'm terrible at getting them sent out! So I thought maybe a little notebook that fits in my purse would be nice to have for reminders of not only birthdays, but thank you notes and other greetings. So many Sundays I sit in church and make notes in my bulletin to remind me to send cards to people who are in need, and then what happens to the bulletin when I get home? Yep... in the trash without another thought! So hopefully my new little notebook will help!

To start out, I chose some fabulous new paper that I just got from My Mind's Eye, and some chipboard coasters. In this picture there are 2 rectangular coasters, but I've also used some 4x4 coasters, too. (My coasters come from ecletic Paperie.) Here I have enough paper to cover both sides of 2 coasters, and a scalloped embellishment.

I used a foam brush and Modge Podge to adhere the paper to the coasters.
Once the Modge Podge is dry, I used a heavy-duty emery board to sand all the edges.

After sanding (and creating a LOT of dust!) my paper is nicely rounded to the edges of the coaster, and ready for a final coat of Modge Podge.
For extra layers and my scalloped border, I apply more Modge Podge to adhere, then another coat to seal it down.
Done, and dry! The coasters on the left are the 4x4's that will be in the next photos.
I line the coaster up in my Bind-It-All evenly, and cut my holes for the binding.

Ooooops... excuse me while I take a momentary break! Hubby brought me a fudge sundae from the Dari-ette!
OK, back to business! I cut some filler notebook paper to size for the inside of my notebook as well as 3 pieces of designer paper for dividers within the book. Here's everything with the binding holes cut.
I have some old white coil binding, shown here that I use to bind both of my notebooks. You'll see the finished product below.
A great alternative if you don't have a Bind-It-All is to just punch some holes in the chipboard coasters with your Crop-a-Dile, and use some binder rings instead!
And here's my finished product! I'm lovin' this new MME paper! My scalloped border is made using a Martha Stewart punch available at Hope Stamps Eternal. The crocheted flower is hand-made by my boss' Mom (and available at Toyrifix!)
I have the inside divided into 3 sections and figure I'll label them "birthday", "thank you" and "other" (for get well wishes, thinking of you, and other cards), and used my SU! round tab punch to make the dividers easier to find on the right side.
And here's the 4x4 version, also using some yummy new My Mind's Eye paper, and some Zva crystals and and a Zva flower for embellishment (also available at Hope Stamps Eternal)! The scalloped border punch used here is from EK Success.
Since this one is smaller, I alternated two tabs on the right and one on the left!
Would you find a little notebook like this handy? Well, guess what? To celebrate the 100th Stamp Simply challenge, I'm giving this 4x4 notebook away! Leave a comment here, and tell me your best birthday memory! I'll draw a winner on Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. EST! Only one comment per person, please and make sure your contact information is included with your comment (either by including your email address in the comment or make sure your Blogger profile has it... please make it easy to find!) so I can let you know that you won! (*Please note, the contest has ended!*)

Good luck, and thanks for stopping by today! Remember, you can find links to all the party girls projects and prizes by stopping at Sharon's blog to view the complete list!