Pretty Composition Notebooks

We've come close to completing our first week and it has gone very smoothly.  I am pleased so far.  We did run into one little annoyance.  Some background first.  My third grader is very much a girly everything pretty type of person (just like her mommy).  I always have composition notebooks for my oldest to do any written work in so I let my younger daughter do the same last year.  Unfortunately, I think having regular lines without that middle dotted line did not help her writing.  (I know I should have gone with ruled paper from the beginning.)  Now, I need to work on forming the habit of nice neat printing from her.  I found the Mead Primary Composition notebooks with those lines at my local Target and was thrilled.  I purchased them for her to use this year.  One problem they look like this:

She didn't appreciate the look at all and immediately wanted to get the prettier ones instead.  In order to accomplish my goal and please her I've turned them into this:

(Sigh) Much better!  Here is how I did it, in case you like pretty things too ; )  You will need  the notebooks, your pretty paper, scissors and I used the Elmer's X-treme glue stick.

Step one:  Cut the paper to fit the outer covers of the notebook ( I made mine to fit up to the black binding tape because we wanted to keep that look.)

Step 2:  Place some glue on the cover and line your paper up.  I try to line it up as a right angle so I only need to trim from one side, in case the paper happens to be too big.  Try to leave the corners free from glue for the final step.  Press hard and let it sit for about a minute once your happy with the position.

Step 3:  Cut the corners or any excess paper on top or bottom of the notebook.  Then add some more glue to secure the corners at this time.  Repeat the steps with the other side if you wish.

The final look. It's so pretty.  She's happy and we will have nice neat writing all year.  BTW, This also saves me from printing my own StartWrite blank ruled line paper all year long for her ; )  I'll reserve my printer for actual copywork pages : )  I picked this up some where online, some one's blog; but I honestly can't remember who it was or I would link you to it too.

Edited To Add .... I found it, notice the pretty spiral notebook in the middle.  If you like pretty notebooks, read Jen's post.