The other day while perusing the Target merchandise, I fell madly in love with these gold polka-dot binders. I do have a legitimate use for them. My recent purchases of some e-books need a home and the more I like the binder really will affect my use of them.

gold dot binder target

Fabulous, right?

But I did not need to be spending $6.00 (times 3 or more) on a new binder when I have a dozen white plastic ones leftover from grad school sitting in my closet at home. I couldn’t get the binders out of my head and almost went back to get them, but it suddenly occurred to me that I could make a similar version using my old white ones, some scrapbook paper, and a paint pen.

So that’s what I did.

Binder supplies

1. White plastic binder with clear front, back, and side pockets

2. 12×12 scrapbook paper (2 of each color)

3. Metallic Gold Paint Pen

I bought 2 pieces of each color of scrapbook paper – navy, teal, and hot pink – and a gold paint pen. I made sure it was legitimately metallic gold as some of those gold pens are very dull.

One night while we were watching a movie I got out my supplies and started polka-dotting my paper. I didn’t use a grid, but if you’re not sure you can keep the grid even you might want to. If it’s important to you to have perfect circles you might consider getting a circle stamp and gold ink pad. I personally like the look of free-hand circles. Perfectly imperfect!

Binder dots

After I finished the grids I measured and cut the paper to size. For my binders that was 9.5″ x 11.25″ plus a 1″ x “11.25” for the spine. I slid the papers in and oilá! Polka-dot binders.

Binder Cut and finish

All in all I spent less than $7.00 for 3 binders instead of $18.00. Love that!

Binder Final

I’m thinking of cutting the leftover bits into strips and then adhering them to cardstock to make page dividers that match the binder. I’ll give an update if/when I get that project finished.

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