I am a prolific list maker and idea jotter. I am constantly grabbing a sheet of notebook paper to quickly write my ideas. It gets a bit chaotic with some many pages of half crossed lists laying about. I started thinking that if I could have a smallish notebook with me that I could keep everything in one place.

This idea, like so many others, has been rattling around in my head for a while. Lately I was inspired by an image of a stack of small pamphlet stitched notebooks on Pinterest. That in combination with a Readers Digest Condensed book cover I had in my stash and thinking of the function of a travelers notebook I put the three together to create my own version to better suit my needs.

As I said before, I constantly have papers to jot ideas or work things out visually. Such as this drawing on how I wanted the elastics to work in the spine. Originally I was going to have 3 signatures to my book but after drawing it out I realized that I’d need 4 to have the elastics at the same end of the book.

I used my new book cradle to assist in the binding process. 

Mr. G 3D printed and assembled this very sturdy tool for my bookmaking. In the past I’d used an old phonebook for this process with very mixed results.

This book cradle makes it a breeze to accurately make holes in the spine with an awl. The results are perfect.

I added a but of reinforcement to the spine of my gutted Readers Digest Condensed book.

Then used eyelets to reinforce the holes for the elastic cording.

A bit of lace covered the unsightly bits quite nicely. All that was left was assembly.  And the glamor shots.

Anyone remember Glamor Shots at the mall circa 1990s? Oh yeah… I have some cringe worthy photos from that place. Faux fur stole and white gloves…geesh. Sorry…ADHD squirrel moment!

The glamor shots…