Here’s a cheap little project for girls, who often like frills and ribbons, diaries and notebooks..  I saw some variation of this in a magazine years ago.  I made two of these for my 10 year-old granddaughters in a half hour yesterday.

I took a small $1 spiral-bound notebook from the dollar store and tied little pieces of ribbon along the spiral binding   This can be done in all one color ribbon or a few coordinating colored ribbons, but since I have tons of ribbon, I used a different ribbon on each spiral.  As a put-together craft kit gift, you could give the notebook, some ribbon and pens for the girl to do herself.

Tip: I worked at Wal-Mart many years and their holiday stuff is much of the same junk, just different colors and printing on it for each holiday.  That includes the $1 ribbon.  Wal-mart after-holiday sales are 50% off first and then 75% off.  In my store, that ribbon was often still around for the 75% markdown and that’s a great time to stock up on ribbon.  The spools contain 3 yards of ribbon, so 25 cents for 3 yds.  Those $1 ribbon boxes always contain some solid colored spools of ribbon, not just holiday prints.