If you've got a box of paper scraps and offcuts sitting around from previous projects — the little strips and folded bits you can't quite bring yourself to throw away — this tutorial is exactly what to do with them. I show you how to make a small hand-bound notebook with a laminated bookmark and a charm dangle, packaged up as a complete handmade gift. The whole thing comes together in about sixteen minutes, and the materials are almost entirely leftovers.
What we cover
This tutorial covers making a mini notebook from scrap paper and scrapbook paper offcuts, binding it with a three-hole pamphlet stitch using embroidery floss, creating a laminated bookmark with a fussy-cut collage and an eyelet-set charm dangle, and packaging the finished notebook as a gift. I also show how I package everything into a cellophane bag with a small pen for a complete, gift-ready presentation.
What you'll learn
How to build a mini notebook from leftovers, using whatever paper you have on hand — graph paper, tea-dyed paper, book pages, or any mixture of scraps. My folded signature here runs four by four-and-three-quarter inches with ten folded sheets, giving forty pages, but the size is really whatever your offcuts dictate.
How to cut and fit a cover from scrapbook paper offcuts, including how to leave a small reveal on all four sides and how to use the trimmed strip as your bookmark panel so nothing goes to waste.
Three-hole pamphlet stitch binding with embroidery floss, including:
- How to align and eyeball hole placement without measuring — for a booklet this small, approximate spacing works just fine
- The stitch sequence: centre hole out, top hole, bottom hole, back through centre, finishing with a double knot
- Why I use embroidery floss here rather than waxed thread (it's lighter and more suited to a small, simple bind)
Rounding corners and inking edges for a finished look — both on the notebook cover and on every element of the bookmark. Rounding the corners makes everything feel cohesive; inking the edges seals the white cut lines and gives the piece a finished border.
How to glue a decorative label onto the cover without lifting edges, using a glue stick for the main surface first, then a stronger adhesive just along the perimeter. The two-step approach is what I've found actually holds.
Tying a ribbon bow on a small booklet — including how much ribbon to cut (around 66 centimetres / 25 inches) and the folding approach I use to get a reasonably neat bow when perfection isn't required.
How to make a laminated bookmark with a collage front, including:
- Trimming the bookmark panel slightly narrower before laminating to account for the thickness the laminating sheets add on each side
- Building a simple collage from a book page background and a fussy-cut focal image, with inked edges throughout
- Using just a tiny spot of glue in the centre to hold collage elements in place while the sheet goes through the laminator
- Cutting unused portions of laminating sheets to save and reuse — nothing wasted
Setting an eyelet and attaching a charm dangle, including:
- Using a silent setter (available from eBay) as an alternative to a cropper dial for punching and closing eyelets
- Attaching a charm via a jump ring and closing the loop cleanly
- Choosing a slightly larger jump ring so the charm hangs and moves freely
Packaging the finished notebook as a gift — slipping it into a cellophane bag (50 for three dollars) with a small pen, and sealing it for a complete, gift-ready presentation that costs very little but looks considered and handmade.
Tips & gotchas
Trim the bookmark panel just a little narrower before laminating — both sides of a laminating sheet add a small amount of thickness, and if the bookmark is cut to exactly fit the notebook before laminating, it will be fractionally too wide afterward. A tiny trim beforehand keeps it sliding in cleanly.
When gluing a label or decorative piece to the cover, don't rely on a glue stick alone. Apply the glue stick across the whole surface, then go back with a stronger adhesive just around the edges. The edge is what lifts first, and the glue stick alone doesn't always hold long-term.
Laminating sheets are too useful to waste. If you only need a portion of a sheet for a small bookmark, cut out the unused section and store it for next time. I keep already-cut remnant pieces ready to go, sometimes with a tiny stitch across the open edge to hold the two halves together until I need them.
If you don't own a cropper dial for eyelet setting, a silent setter from eBay does the same job. It's not as quick, but it works — and it's what I use. You don't need the dedicated tool.
For hole placement on a small pamphlet, don't bother measuring. Eyeballing the centre and placing the two outer holes at roughly equal distances either side is accurate enough at this scale, and it's faster.
Once you have the laminated bookmark and charm approach down, you can work through a whole stack of paper remnants and end up with a set of them — each one slightly different depending on the scraps you had, but all sharing the same quiet handmade quality. They pair naturally with anything else you'd give alongside a journal: a nice pen slipped into the cellophane bag alongside the notebook turns a small handmade piece into something complete.
