I’m not a bookbinder. I have not learned traditional bookbinding, and I have no experience other than making the exact kind of notebook I wanted to use.
The whole thing was born out of notebook scarcity. I really wanted a Zequenz notebook, but would have to pay $60 in shipping just to get one to Canada. I did end up getting a small notebook for $25 on Amazon, but the stock isn’t reliable and I couldn’t get the size I wanted.
I had been watching Bitter Melon Bindery’s YouTube channel and thought, “maybe I could make my own.” $500 in materials and tools and countless hours later, I perfected what I wanted:
Faux leather soft cover notebooks
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A 4 inch x 6 inch option and…
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A pocket sized 3 inch x 4 inch option
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90 blank sheets of paper, smooth and excellent for fountain pens
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Rounded spine
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Rounded corners
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Bookmark ribbon
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Elastic closure
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A back accordion pocket
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Colorful endpapers, some featuring my artwork
Below I’ll tell you the thought that went into each feature.
Notebook Features Explained
The Sizes
I’ll admit, the 4” x 6” option was partly personal preference, but was also a restriction of paper materials. In order to have paper with the art printed on it, I needed the notebook to be smaller than 4.5” wide. I also needed to be able to trim excess off after gluing in endpapers (cutting things exact to size wasn’t working out). So, 4” wide it was, and 6” made a nice ratio to match.
Having a pocket sized notebook was more intentional. I wanted something that truly could fit in my pocket and modeled the sizing after a Pentalic Traveler’s Journal, which is my favorite pocket notebook (besides my own) that I’ve used.
The Paper
I spent hours researching paper. Even book binding websites left me stumped as to what kind of (affordable) paper to get. I eventually found a Reddit thread that mentioned Xerox Bold Digital paper, and after ordering a ream and trying it, I fell in love and knew it was the paper for me. A love story.
It’s a super smooth paper that handles fountain pen and other inks really well. It’s less ideal for mixed media such as watercolor or gouache, but can handle marker and colored pencil with relative ease. The ghosting on this paper is fantastic - only dense marker (like a Sharpie) is visible from the other side. That means you can utilize both sides of the paper!
The Round Spine
I really love Zequenz notebooks. Their main feature is that they can fold open like a newspaper. They can do this because they have a nice round spine that allows for that type of flexibility. I also just loved the aesthetic of it.
While my notebooks may not quite have the flex that those notebooks do, they can achieve a flat open, and the round spine looks amazing. (Note: they can fold in half like a Zequenz, but I’m not sure if the stress of doing that over and over will hold up over time - fold with caution!)
Faux Leather Soft Cover
I wanted to glue things into the journal and have the “puffiness” that it causes be accommodated. A soft cover allows for that. It also is more flexible for opening, and, again, I like the aesthetic.
Faux leather because I wanted to make these notebooks “vegetarian.”
Bookmark Ribbon
A ribbon that is attached to the notebook to keep your place. Simple. Necessary, in my opinion.
Elastic Closure
Re: gluing things into the notebook and the notebook gets puffy, an elastic keeps it closed. There’s also nothing worse than putting your journal in your backpack and it somehow gets caught on something and opens/gets bent. Not today.
The Back Accordion Pocket
Secrets, love notes. Whatever I needed to store back there, I wanted a little section for “loose” items. Perhaps a sticker I want to put on the cover. Or perhaps a little picture I want to glue in later. A pocket was non-negotiable.
The Endpapers
Endpapers are the papers that go at the very start and very end of a book. Open any book and they’ll be there, sometimes just plain white and sometimes printed on. The are structurally to help adhere the cover to the “text block” or the actual inside of the book.
I put a lot of thought into the endpapers. I wanted a pop of color and thought it might be nice to incorporate some of my art. So I printed high quality patterns of my art and used it for some of the endpapers. For the others, plain, but bright, colors.
If You Want One
I have them on my website now! Some have already sold but there are still some left. And I’ll be making more.
You can shop by size. 4” x 6” notebooks or 3” x 4” notebooks. A note that right now none of my notebooks repeat themselves: they’re all one of a kind!
If you like putting stickers on your notebooks, I sell those too!
(Paid members of my Patreon get a discount code to my shop, FYI).
That’s it for my sales pitch. Thank you for reading :)