Notebooks

I'm not sure why we need so many notebooks around here, but we do.

The kids draw, write journals and diaries, and I don't know what else.  I have a notebook in my purse for ...well, for notes.  And book lists.  You don't ever want to forget the book recommendation that someone in the grocery lineup might pass on to you.

We're wanted to try book binding for some time now.  I used to make paper and wanted to bind some of that properly.  And we always stop to admire interestingly bound books at markets and bookstores.

So, this week we finally did it.

 And it wasn't even hard.  And it didn't take many tools.  Just an awl, exacto knife, paper and covers.
 
And you need this easy YouTube tutorial.  She was really easy to follow and we just kept in online as we worked.

Here is my new notebook. I used an vinyl album cover from the thrift store as my cover.

I'm pretty proud of my stitching on the side, but you could cover the spine if you wanted to with book binder tape.  I like the unfinished edge.

And I love how flat the notebook opens up.  It's just about perfect.

The only thing that would make these books better would be to figure out how to use lined paper in them.  Alice is practicing writing with no lines, but would prefer lined pages.  The page has to have a crease on the spine to sew through, so that would make the lines sideways if you folded a regular school page in half.  Any suggestions?