Personalized Binders for InterActive Notebooks

The school I will be working for has an AVID program and try to utilize many of the ideas from the program into all their classes. One of the techniques they especially like for the science classes are the InterActive Notebooks. I love the idea of incorporating both the left and right sides of the brain, and encouraging students to think through what they just learned and try to internalize the information.

I also like the idea of having all the handouts, homework and notes for a topic all in the same place so that students can see that they all go together; but I can't understand why it should be a notebook instead of a binder. To me, a binder makes more sense because then the students can keep everything together and looking good. The only drawback I can easily see with a binder is that the students could, theoretically, put in the information at a later date instead of right then and there, but if they're going to do something like that, I'm pretty sure they could figure out a way to do it with a notebook too.

I've already talked with the chair of the science department, and he doesn't see a problem with using binders instead of notebooks either. So that's my plan, use InterActive Binders instead of InterActive Notebooks. I will also want to keep a sample notebook for each of my classes, just in case a student falls behind, because to me, it seems more important for the students to have the information together in a useful way rather than not be able to use their notes, even if it isn't on time. I wanted to be able to easily identify the notebooks, but also have them look good, so-as usual-I found something on Pinterest and made my own. Here's what they looked like:

And here's how I did it:
I got two different pattern Stash Starter fabrics from Walmart (I got a whole yard of each, but you could easily use just a half yard, or maybe even a quarter yard), some Mod Podge (this was also my first time using Mod Podge, but everything I've read says to use the real stuff, not to make your own), a pair of scissors and a foam brush and I got started. I basically just followed the directions in the pin. The only thing I saw that she did, but didn't put in the directions was to cut a small area out around the edges for the binder rings and opener. I think this project cost me about $10 total for the binders (assuming they were new), the fabric (which could have been less if I'd gotten a smaller size), and the Mod Podge (the most expensive part at about $5 a bottle, but I hardly used any of it to cover the whole binder inside and out).