I started by tearing out some unused paper from journals and sketch books, and also used an envelope and some label stickers from my stationary pile.

I stacked all of the papers and paper clipped them to the envelope to cut everything to the same size.

but before I started cutting, I made sure that there was a 1/2 inch allowance between the top corner of the paper and the envelope, because when all of the paper gets folded, I didn’t want it to come out further than the envelope cover.

the next step was to fold the envelope in half and cut the top flap into two!

ten I folded all the cut, assorted paper in half and pressed down the crease, the best the I could, with the side of the scissors

paper from a sketch book is usually thicker and nicer than regular paper. I sometimes cut squares of it, to keep in my notebook just in case I need to write someone a note. A note from nice paper is just a little bit nicer to receive, as far as I’m concerned. With this in mind, I decided to perforate the sketch paper that was going to be in my notebook, just in case I want to tear it out.

I folded the paper about a half inch apart from both sides of the middle crease, and made a couple of slices along the folds, with an exacto knife. (if you don’t have an exacto knife, I bet poking holes with a needle would work fine too)

the slits were about this far apart from each other.

then I aligned all of the paper to the order I wanted, by lining it on top of the envelope, and securing it together with some paper clips. ( I added one more piece of lined paper, before the next step)

I fed the unfolded stack of paper through the sewing machine, veeeery slowly, to make sure I didn’t break the needle and it went through 9 sheets of paper.

...

I re-creased it, and was almost done before realizing that the sewing machine kind of left the binding looking pretty crappy.

ugh.

I took one of these postal stickers that I instinctually have been grabbing from the post office since my days of dabbling with graffiti art.

painted over it,

cut it up, and covered the matted binding of my new pocket notebook!

I’m really excited to have a reason to write out a note,

have a way to keep track of the dates,

and to have a safe keeping place for all my good fortunes!