I'm taking part in Ali Edward's The Art Of Noticing project this week!
The size of the finished notebook is 11 cm x 21 cm (4,33 in x 8,25 in). The easiest way to print it is on A4 paper, because it's width is the exact height of a classic Traveler's Notebook refill (8,25 inches or 21 cm). Here's what it looks like printed on one side:
If your printer prints double-sided, just do it, and you're good to go. My printer doesn't, so I have to turn the sheet clock-wise:
Then turn it back and insert it into the printer:
I found it easier to fold the sheet first, and then to trim it. The red line shows where I ran my bone folder to fold the sheet (using a scoring board):
Run the bone folder over the fold a few times to make sure it lies nice and flat:
And then trim it:
I printed 4 sheets total (3 double-sided and 1 single-sided for the title page), which will give me 7 spreads, one for each day of the week.
A classic TN refill has 32 pages (thus, 64 spreads), but I wanted to do this project once a season for a week, so I only need four notebooks (spring, summer, autumn, winter) for seven days of noticing each. I'll then insert them into my Project Life album.
Now it's time to make the cover. Choose a sheet of patterned paper (mine is from a past Studio Calico kit) and mark the size of the cover (22 cm x 21 cm or 8,66 in x 8,25 in) with a mechanical pencil and a T-ruler:
Score it down the middle:
Fold it on the scored line:
And trim it from both sides using your pencil lines as a guide:
Now it's time to assemble the notebook together. You can run it through your sewing machine, hand-stitch it down the middle, or staple it in place with a long-reach stapler. If you don't have a long-reach stapler (which I don't), there's still a way to staple your notebook with just about any stapler on earth.
Here's how:
First create a template for your staples from a scrap of cardstock. The height of the template should be exactly the height of the notebook (21 cm or 8,25 in), the width doesn't really matter. I stapled it three times using the tiny attacher, then removed the staples to reveal the holes:
Now secure your paper sandwich: first a stack of printed pages, then the cover, then a stapling template on top. Using the template, staple it 3 times, or if you don't have a long reach staple (which I don't), just poke the holes with a piercer and insert the staples into the holes manually:
You now have yourself a pretty little notebook:
Here's what it looks like on the inside:
It all lines up so nicely that you don't need to extra trim anything.
You may round the corners if you like (I do it with a corner chomper, which is heavy duty and can round all the pages and cover at once):
This is the front page (I'm planning to add "SPRING 2020" there):
This is what all the other pages look like (with a sneak peak of the first photo I took for this project):
Now it's time to add photos and journaling, and you're all good! I'll share mine over the next couple of days. See you then!
