When Post-Its Aren't Enough

I read organizing books for fun. (Yes, a bit nerdy but I really do enjoy it.) Julie Morgenstern is one of my favorite authors so I was excited when I got her latest book from the library: When Organizing Isn't Enough, SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life. The cover design is pretty boring but what got me the most was the pitiful post-it notes. So here's how to create some better post-it notes:

1. Create a new document in Photoshop.
2. Draw a square with the rectangle Shape tool and fill it with light yellow.
3. With the Convert Point tool (under the Pen), manipulate the 4 corners of the shape. Turn up the corners and add movement.
4. Duplicate the yellow shape layer and move the copy below the original layer. Fill the copied layer with light gray. Choose Edit > Free Transform (Cmd-T) and expand the copy by 110%.

5. With the Convert Point tool, manipulate the gray shape so the bottom corners show and top corners are hidden beneath the yellow post-it layer.
6. Duplicate the gray shape layer and rasterize it. Apply Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur of 5 px. Turn off the original shape layer. (I always keep the original vector just in case.)
7. Add a light yellow to medium yellow gradient above the yellow post-it layer and on the fly-out menu on the Layers panel, choose Create Clipping Mask.

And the book has been interesting, helpful and well-written so far. I just couldn't help commenting on the design.