• Categories

  • Archives

cassette tape notebooks

Last week I told you that flowers are in, very in. Well vintage is also very in, along with retro and old school. And though it might sadden you to realize it, cassette tapes are entirely old school these days. How many of us even own a tape player anymore? I sure don’t, though I refuse to get rid of a handful of my favourite old tapes.

What with your iPod or your iPhone or even your non Apple brand mp3 player (I hear that some people have those??), you sure don’t need to carry around cassettes, but they’re kind of fun to remember fondly. Here’s a project that combines the charm of such an outdated piece of technology with different functionality – notebooks!

What You’ll Need:

  • cardstock (black, white, brown and possibly a bright colour)
  • scissors
  • pen/pencil
  • gluestick
  • coloured markers
  • silver paint pen or sharpie
  • blank or lined printer weight paper
  • a paper cutter
  • cassette tape notebook template – number 1. under “Paper patterns and templates” (or you may want to design your own)

Putting It Together:

1) Make your template. Mine is based off the size of an actual cassette tape. You can draw your own, or print and cut out the template linked to above.

You need two rectangles (2 1/2 by 4 inches), one smaller rectangle with the top corners rounded and a round-ended rectangle cut out of its middle, two small circles (about 1/2 inch across), one small rectangle (about 1 inch by 1/2 inch), and one rectangular shape with inward-slanting ends – that center bit along the bottom of the cassette.

2) Trace the components of your template onto the various paper colours and cut out.


Here’s a tip for getting really neat lines when cutting with scissors: use the back of the blades. Do your cutting towards the back of the scissors, closest to the handle, and you’ll have more control and get cleaner lines.

3) Take your silver sharpie and draw a line around the edge of each piece A and of piece B, and also of each small circle (piece E). I use this technique a lot with my cards and other paper crafts. I find it gives a nice definition to the edges of things. Just run the tip of your marker carefully beside the edge of your paper, bumping up along the edge.

Do the same in a complimenting colour with piece C.

4) Take piece D and trace it onto your brown paper. Draw a slightly curved line across either end of the rectangle, then cut out these two ends.


5) Glue the brown shapes onto piece D. For detail, draw some fine pen lines on the brown paper to imitate  lines of wound up tape.


6) Take your two piece Es and draw six little silver rectangles from the edges, facing inward, at evenly spaced intervals.


7) Glue piece B to the bottom center of one of piece A. Glue piece C above it. Glue pieces D and E into place.


8) It’s all about the details: using a dark pen, draw a small “A” box on the top left of the cassette, with 2 or 3 lines across the top of the tape. Using your silver pen, draw small circles and rectangles on piece B, as shown.


9) Using your paper cutter, cut a stack of printer-weight paper the same size as piece A – 2 1/2 by 4 inches. Stack this paper between both piece As (front and back cover).


10) Take your pages and covers to a print shop to have them bound. I simply got the print shop to punch the holes for me, since I already had coil binding at home, recycled from old notebooks and calendars.

Be sure to explain to the print shop employee exactly which edge you want to have bound. They have a ton of things on the go for customers at any given time, and lack of clarity on your part might lead them to punch the wrong side. As happened here. Not that it’s a BIG deal, just kind of a pain.

They may also have to bind the short edge, depending on their machine. The first print shop I used was unable to bind the top long edge of my cassette notebooks, as this made the paper too short for them to feed into the machine. So there may be that limitation. You might just want to try another print shop, though; the second one I went to was able to bind the top edge just as I wanted.

You can do the hole punching yourself, by tracing an old spiral bound page and punching holes in the appropriate spots. You’ll have to repeat for every few pages though. This is what, in technical crafting terms, is known as a massive pain in the ass. I’d just use the print shop.

And enjoy! Write yourself some old-school notes.

Share
Previous Post
Leave a comment

29 Comments

  1. I love this! I thought that on the back you could do another casette cover but call it side B. I’m also proud to say that I still have my tape player, and a bunch of casette tapes.

    Reply
  2. Alright, Heilke, I challenge you. Cassette tape notebooks are cute and all that, but why couldn’t you make them out of actual cassette tapes? You would need to cut it in half (or rather, unscrew it), and maybe cut off the edges, plus put a couple pieces of plastic or heavy cardboard on the insides to give an even surface. And you would have to cut the grooves for the binding into the cassette yourself. But it would be legit in a way that a cut paper cover isn’t. Plus, what else would you do with all those cassettes — listen to them? No way.

    Love,

    your little brother

    PS. If you’re going to make cut-paper notebooks, you could do a series: a full-sized notebook with a vinyl LP cover, a couple small-sized ones (an 8-track tape and a cassette), a medium-sized jewel case (CD), and another small one as an iPod. That would be cool.

    Reply
  3. admin

     /  July 17, 2010

    Carmen, that’s a great idea! I’ll have to try it.

    Matthias – who says I hadn’t thought of trying such a thing…? Your comment fleshes it out, though. Right then, you’re on. [Eventually] I will try this, and send you one, and you will cower in its awesomeness. In return, I want a storage unit built from an old Mac. Hmm… that should actually be possible with the right tools.

    Oh, and I did make an iPod one. I’ll post some photos at some point. I also plan to do a VHS notebook. Your vinyl LP cover notebook would be huge – I bet it could be a good sketchbook.

    PS: Some of us bought cassette tapes with music still well worth listening to. :P

    Reply
  4. King Kool

     /  July 18, 2010

    Your little brother calls you Heilke?

    Also, this is killer. I’m holding out for the one shaped like a 5 1/4 floppy.

    Reply
  5. Wow, those are really cute! And my stereo actually does have two tape players in it but I got rid of all my cassette tapes! haha. Pretty soon CDs will be old school I’m sure.

    LuckyXIII from swap-bot

    Reply
  6. admin

     /  July 24, 2010

    Thanks Lucky, glad to see you here! You should try these out yourself – we could start a swap-bot trend. :)

    King Kool, my brother is from the same family as me, after all; no one said he was in any way normal. But yeah, he’s, um, a special guy. Love the 5 1/4 floppy idea – must try it! (And I haven’t forgotten about that book safe, I promise.)

    Reply
  7. These are such an awesome idea! Love it! I miss tapes, they were great.

    Reply
  8. These are fantastic and so much fun! Great ideas!

    Reply
  9. Great idea!!! I love your blog! I’m reading all!!

    Reply
  10. Wow,
    Amazing
    stuff.

    Reply
  11. Fun fact, I sewed the pages together and used some recycled plastic of the plastic cases that were once used for casette tapes, to hold it :O

    Reply
  12. admin

     /  July 4, 2011

    Noris, that sounds brilliant!

    Reply
  13. hanz

     /  January 2, 2012

    just made it for my dads birthday! amazing!!!!

    Reply
  14. Link exchange is nothing else but it is simply placing the other person’s weblog
    link on your page at proper place and other person will also do same in favor of you.

    Reply
  15. オメガ コピー – オメガ コピー
    ★2016最高等級新しい商品大量入荷!
    ■在庫情報随時更新!(*^-^*)
    ■信用第一、良い品質、低価格は。
    ★★超人気質屋★★
    販売ルイヴィトン、グッチ、シャネル、エルメス、コーチ、
    ボッテガ・ヴェネタ、バリー、バーバリーなどのブランドバッグ、財布、アクセサリ、
    時計、靴、などでございます。
    製品はブランド品を中心としてやっており、
    主なお輸出先は欧米、日本、韓国などでございます。
    弊社は「信用第一」をモットーにお客様にご満足頂けるよう、
    発送前には厳しい検査を通じて製品の品質を保証してあげますとともに、
    配送の費用も無料とし、品質による返送、交換、さらに返金までも実際にさせていただきます。
    また、従業員一同、親切、丁寧、迅速に対応させて頂き、
    ご安心になってお買い物を楽しんでくださるよう精一杯力を尽くしていくつもりです。
    弊社の製品とほかに関して詳しくは、ホームページを一度ご覧になって
    シャネル時計 ダイヤ 2014 http://www.newkakaku.com/lz2.htm

    Reply
  16. This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!!
    Finally I’ve found an issue that helped me.
    Thanks a whole lot!

    Reply
  17. With havin so much articles do you ever come across any issues of
    plagorism or copyright infringement? My website has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either written myself or outsourced
    however it appears a lot of it is popping it up throughout the web
    without my permission. Have you figured out any techniques to
    assist stop content from being stolen? I’d really appreciate it.

    Reply
  18. コピー優良店
    ブランドコピーブランド優良店、偽物時計n級品海外激安通販専門店!
    ロレックス、ウブロをはじめとした、
    様々なブランドコピー時計の販売サイズ調整をご 提供しております。ブランドコピーブランドなら当店で!
    N級品ブランドコピーブランド偽物は業界で最高な品質に挑戦します。

    Reply
  19. Major thankies for the article post.Really looking forward to read more. Want more.

    Reply
  20. Some truly good stuff on this website , I it.

    Reply
  21. I enjoy the interactive elements some online stores have, like 360-level views of products. Best sellers 2023 products

    Reply
  22. Kopen een echt en geregistreerd rijbewijs van onze website zonder examens te schrijven of de oefentest te doen. alles wat we nodig hebben zijn uw gegevens en deze zouden binnen de komende acht dagen in het systeem worden geregistreerd. rijbewijs kopen belgië, rijbewijs kopen belgie, rijbewijs kopen in nederland, rijbewijs b belgie, rijbewijs kopen met registratie.
    https://rijbewijskopenbetrouwbaar.com/

    Reply
  23. sportbootführerschein binnen und see, sportbootführerschein binnen prüfungsfragen, sportbootführerschein binnen kosten, sportbootführerschein binnen online, sportbootführerschein binnen wo darf ich fahren, sportbootführerschein binnen berlin, sportbootführerschein binnen segel, sportbootführerschein kaufen, sportbootführerschein kaufen erfahrungen, sportbootführerschein kaufen schwarz, sportbootführerschein see kaufen, sportbootführerschein binnen kaufen, sportbootführerschein see kaufen ohne prüfung, bootsführerschein kaufen, bootsführerschein kaufen polen, bootsführerschein kaufen erfahrungen, bootsführerschein online kaufen, bootsführerschein tschechien kaufen. https://sportbootfuhrerscheinkaufen.com/

    Reply
  24. gdzie mozna kupic prawo jazdy z wpisem do rejestru, kupić prawo jazdy, legalne prawo jazdy do kupienia, kupię prawo jazdy, jak załatwić prawo jazdy, bez egzaminu, jak kupić prawo jazdy, czy można kupić prawo jazdy, legalne prawo jazdy do kupienia 2022, pomogę zdać egzamin na prawo jazdy, prawo jazdy bez egzaminu, gdzie kupić prawo jazdy bez egzaminu, gdzie kupić prawo jazdy na lewo, jak kupić prawo jazdy w niemczech, gdzie kupic prawo jazdy legalnie, kupić prawo jazdy b

    .,mn

    Reply
  25. motorrad  führerschein kaufen , lkw führerschein kaufen ohne prüfung österreich, bus führerschein kosten österreich. führerschein online kaufen, auto c ohne prüfung köln, führerschein klasse b kaufen, deutschen registrierten führerschein kaufen berlin, österreich führerschein kaufen legal in deutschland, führerschein in deutschland kaufen, PKW führerschein kaufen österreich, deutschen führerschein legal kaufen in österreich, kaufe deutschen führerschein, eu-führerschein kaufen,wie viel kostet der führerschein in österreich.

    ‘;lkjh

    Reply
  1. Tweets that mention cassette tape notebooks | I Could Make That -- Topsy.com
  2. {Friday Finds} | The Scribbles of GirltaristHan
  3. {Friday Finds} | The Scribbles of GirltaristHan
  4. Volviendo a los orígenes, libretas cassette « Ojos de Papel

Leave a Reply to Sol Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *