Four ways to transform a cheap notebook
A stack of plain notebooks and a box of scraps is all it takes — here are four ways to turn them into something genuinely beautiful.
Dear friend,
A bin of cheap plain notebooks is easy to walk straight past — until you've got a box of fabric scraps and scrapbook paper sitting at home with nowhere particular to go. Then you start to wonder what one of them could become.
That's exactly where this project starts. Four different methods, one humble notebook, and whatever you have on hand. At one end: a full fabric hardcover with a handmade belt buckle closure, a bookplate, pockets — the works. At the other: a scrap paper collage cover you can finish before the kettle boils. Both are genuinely lovely. Everything in between is too.
What I find most useful about working through all four is that the full version teaches you something the quick ones quietly rely on — how fabric moves across a spine, why a closure has to be planned before you glue anything shut, what brads can hide when you give them room to. Once you understand the logic, the simpler methods stop feeling like shortcuts and start feeling like choices. And after that, the possibilities go well beyond these four — a cover cut from an old favourite shirt, a series of notebooks made from the same scrap box in a single afternoon, something made to keep.
If you'd like to make one of your own, here's the whole thing — start to finish.
4 Ways to Transform a Cheap Notebook
What you'll make
junk journal·bookplate·closure·cover·inner cover panel·pocket
What you'll learn
quick·scrap buster·upcycled·attaching brads·binding·collage
What you'll need
belt·book corners·brads·card stock·cereal box·charms
Whatever you have in your scrap box right now is probably enough to begin. Pick the method that matches your afternoon — or your ambition — and see where it takes you.
If a friend forwarded you this — you can get the next one too.
Leave your email — I'll do the rest.
Your email is safe with me — and you can leave whenever you like.
Two more ways to be part of this.
Join the Facebook group
The daily conversation, and where the movement lives between videos. Share what you're making, find your people — and the bigger it grows, the further every new idea reaches.
Join the group →The Patreon inner circle
Private videos, weekly challenges, a closer view of the work — for those who've made this a real part of their lives. The place to go once you know this is for you.
See the inner circle →Or, if a video's helped you — leave a tip on Ko-fi ↗. The price of a coffee, no commitment.