Re-made Book

Everyone knows of my addiction for notebooks and one of the many quests that fill my days is to find or make a notebook that suits my needs. It is for this reason that I have learned bookbinding and studied manuscript production of the medieval era - so that I could understand not only how books were constructed but why they took the size and shape they did. To this end, yet another project is sacrificed upon the altar of BOOK.

1) The first step was to take a regular graph paper (4 squares to the inch) notebook (from office max) and cut it down to a size 3 (roughly one sheet of paper folded in half). I matched the top edge for the first cut so that would make it easier for my printer. Thankfully, they don't mind doing my cutting for free since I'm the only hand bookbinder for several states and it takes them under a minute.
2) Next I took a piece of scrapbooking paper (usual size is 12 inches by 12 inches) and folded it in half. This would cover the front of the notebook and cover the original design.

3) Since the notebook is now 5.5 inches wide, there's enough of an over-hang to easily cover all of the surfaces with enough to tuck under.

4) To glue the paper down, I used some Elmer's glue all (thy name be praised) and some pop-cycle sticks. The sticks are so you can spread the glue out very thinly on the page. If you keep it too thick, the paper and the notebook cover will warp from the moisture and you'll have glue tripping out all over the edges and no one likes drippy edges.

5) Turn the notebook over and align the new cover page with the black strip that covers the spine of the book. Since that is designed by the company to be flexible, I'm not going to bother covering it and a black spine looks pretty nifty for a notebook. Align the page and draw an outline of the cover with a pencil. (Marker used for photographic purposes)

6) Lock the cats in the basement.

7) Apply a thin layer of glue to the cover page inside the lines you've drawn and set it on the front of the notebook. I normally match up the line to the edge of the spine strip and then press it out to the corners. This way you don't have a gap that shows the black and white marbling below.

8) Once I was happy with the setting of the cover page, I glued and turned the three edges leaving the last corners unglued so I could cut them for the last fold.

9) Angle the cut of the last fold so it doesn't create a lump on the edge of the book. Just eyeball it.

10) Once you're done it should look like this.

11) Since I want to provide some stability for the flimsy notebook, I added an half-page (a one-sided, end page) to cover the folds of the new cover. Just take a piece of card stock and fold it in half. Apply a thin layer of glue to the edge and the center of the half-page and set it in place. It may not be exactly the full size of the notebook cover so just eyeball it.

12) So, this is one side of the newly recovered notebook. This shows the three stages we've done so far. Original, cut and now re-covered.

13) Since I like to label my journals, I attached one to the front of the new notebook. To do this, I take the label and a ruler for spacing.

14) Rather than measure this and that for the front cover, what I did was to simply use the ruler as a standard width where I could align the label.

15) Well, this is the conclusion of the first phase of the notebook re-covering. Do the exact same thing (save the label) for the back. I'll add more information about how to attach a pocket flap and a belly band later.

Learn how to make the pocket flap in part two.

-Tom