Fun Notebook Inserts

The pandemic gave me so much time in the studio to sift and sort all of my piles of [hoarded] paper! I made one pile for making notebook inserts and vowed to NOT stash it away, but rather to go ahead and make the notebooks. So here it is in progress.

I’m making two sizes—Midori travelers notebook 4.5” x 8” and Moleskine size 5.25” x 8.” The main paper inside is wonderful old ledger paper I’d saved for some time. Then every two or three pages, I put in an old book page, envelope, sweet calendar image or other ephemera paper.

I have yet to craft the covers: that will be another deep dive into my stashes. Then I’ll do a quick 5-hole pamphlet stitch on each notebook (probably in front of a TV show or two) and save them for the art shows. They work wonderfully in my refillable journals and often people want something handmade and a bit more unique than the Moleskines that come standard inside my journals.

Below, a few of the cover patterns that were featured in a previous round—card-weight coloring book paper, file folders, and pages from a disassembled Audubon book.