Paper doilies make some of the most beautiful little booklets I've ever tucked into a junk journal — delicate on the outside, layered and interesting on the inside, and surprisingly quick to put together. In this tutorial I'll show you how I make a small doily booklet using tea-dyed pages, a few fabric offcuts, and some bits of lace and gauze, plus how to build the embellishment cluster that sits on the front cover. And because I hate waste, I'll also show you how the paper scraps left over from cutting the pages become a tiny companion notebook.
What we cover
This is a short, practical tutorial covering two things: making a sewn doily booklet with waterfall pages, and building a layered embellishment cluster to glue on the front. Along the way I show how to get the most out of your paper offcuts by turning them into a matching mini notebook — same session, almost zero waste.
What you'll learn
How to fold and prepare a doily as a booklet cover, including why I always use two doilies stacked together rather than one — they're fragile, and the extra layer gives the whole thing enough body to hold its shape once the pages are sewn in.
How to create the waterfall page effect inside the booklet — using two shorter pages and two longer pages so that each one steps out slightly beyond the one above it. It's a small detail but it gives the booklet a lot of visual interest when it's open, and it's just a matter of tearing your tea-dyed paper to two different depths.
How to ink the edges of the doily and the pages using distress oxide ink — I run it lightly along the folded edge of the doily to give it definition, and along the torn edges of the pages to make them pop. The effect is subtle but it's the kind of thing you notice when it's missing.
How to sew the signature into a doily, including:
- Using a needle and thread with large, spaced stitches through the centre fold
- Why stitch size matters here — too close together and you risk the thread pulling right through the lace
- The stapling alternative, for anyone who'd rather not sew (I link my mini notebook video below for the full stapling method)
How to build a layered embellishment cluster for the cover, including:
- Starting with an inked book page as the base layer
- Adding a strip of dried, opened tea bag for a soft vintage texture
- Layering in a small piece of gauze or cheesecloth
- Adding a frayed fabric scrap and a strip of lace on top
- Finishing with a few strands of burlap fraying saved from another project
- Stapling all the layers together before gluing the cluster to the doily
How to glue the embellishment cluster onto the doily without seeping glue through the lace — I use quick-drying glue applied only to the back of the cluster, not spread across the doily itself, and I always check underneath before it sets.
How to use your leftover paper offcuts to make a tiny companion notebook — round the corners, ink the edges, staple it shut. It sits tucked inside the doily booklet or clipped alongside it, and because you're working in the same papers and palette, everything reads as one cohesive piece.
Tips & gotchas
Stack two doilies rather than one. I can't stress this enough — a single doily is just too fragile to hold up to stitching and gluing, and it'll start to pull apart at the edges over time. Two stacked together give it the structure it needs without changing how it looks.
Keep your stitches large when you sew through the doily. Long, spaced stitches distribute the tension across more of the lace. Short, tight stitches concentrate the pull in one spot, and the doily can rip free entirely. If you're not confident about this, the stapling method (through the centre of the folded pages, just like a standard mini notebook) is a perfectly good alternative.
Apply glue to the back of the cluster, not to the doily. The doily is open weave — glue spread onto it will seep straight through to whatever is underneath and dry in visible patches. A small amount of quick-drying glue on the back of your stapled cluster is all you need.
Save your dried tea bags. Once my tea-dyed papers are done, I open the bags, brush out the leaves, and keep the paper. The texture is wonderful for layering — it has this thin, slightly wrinkled quality that you can't replicate with anything else. The used tea leaves themselves can go straight into the garden; they're brilliant for the soil.
Keep every paper offcut. The scraps that fall off when you tear your pages to size are exactly the right dimensions for a tiny notebook. Round the corners, ink the edges, staple once through the centre, and you have something that feels completely intentional.
Once you've made one you'll find yourself looking at every doily differently, and all those little fabric offcuts and tea bag papers you've been saving will suddenly have an obvious home.
