Can we take a minute to talk about notebooks? I’m pretty sure you’re all like me and can’t resist a good notebook… No? Just me then? Fine. I have a huge collection of beautiful blank books just waiting to be written or drawn in. Aaand a lot of them will stay that way! I don’t want to ruin their crisp perfect pages with my horrible handwriting or a drawing that didn’t turn out… I have a problem, okay! (Don’t judge me.)
One of the ways I’ve found to combat this problem is to make my own notebooks. They are the perfect size to carry around in your bag for making lists and notes, and they are super light so you can take a couple with you.
You will need:
These books are crazy easy to make, I made four different ones in around 20 minutes. Each book has around 30 - 40 pages (15 - 20 A4 pages folded in half). You can definitely use more pages if you have a better stapler than I do. Test out your staplers capacity before you start so you can see how thick you can make your books.
01 Measure your cover piece against your paper leaving a few millimeters extra around the edge.
02 Fold the cover piece around the paper making sure that your fold is even the whole way around. Take out the paper and fold again to ensure the fold is firm.
03 Place the cover back on the paper and open book to the center pages.
04 Carefully staple along the crease (2 or 3 staples should be enough to hold) Ensure your staples are aligned properly along the spine fold or else your book wont sit flat. (My stapler didn’t staple very well against the table, so I stapled against a piece of foam and pressed the staples down by hand.)
05 Turn the book over and press down any staples that aren’t sitting flush to the cover.
06 Run a piece of patterned tape/washi tape down the front side of the cover spine, lining it along the fold. Fold the ends into the inside cover or run the tape along the inside until it joins up with the front again.
07 Run a second line of tape on the back cover over lapping the first line of tape so that it covers the staples (no one wants to hurt themselves on sharp staples!)
08 Decorate the cover as you like. I wrote a quote I liked and cut out shapes from the matching tape for one, and created stripes with the tape on another. Experiment with cover designs and colour combinations until you find styles that you like
super cute and do-able :)
how cute is this?! i love it! i bought some washi tape yesterday to do some stuff for my wedding and i’ve never had it before, so i’m excited to see how it turns out! wonderful diy!
drop by allister bee soon!