You don’t need to buy a new notebook, scrapbook, or journal. Your next favorite book is literally in your hands!
I LOVE a new book for every new book project I think of. Scrapbook idea? I need a new book for it! Travel plans? Got to have a brand-new travel journal! Planning a project? Well, obviously I need a fresh notebook to inspire me!
Thank goodness for handmade, because otherwise, my book budget would be out of hand (ahem). When you’ve got this many different kinds of DIY books to choose from, you’ll never have to buy another one from a boring big-box store!
Board Book Art Journal
I don’t know about your kids, but mine loved their board books FAR too well for them to ever be passed onto another child, ahem. This tutorial calls for pasting watercolor paper to the pages of a board book to turn it into an art journal, but alternatively, you could gesso the pages or cover them in watercolor ground.
Brown Paper Grocery Bag Notebook
In this tutorial, the basic brown paper bag notebook is fancied up quite a bit via a proper binding with coptic stitching. Brown paper grocery bags are my favorite paper surface–they’re unreasonably sturdy, they’re almost criminally easy to obtain in many places, and they take crayon, marker, paint, and glue like an absolute dream.
CD Album
CDs are a dime a dozen (sometimes literally!) at many local thrift shops, but they’re usually–and this is putting it generously–scratched to hell and back, sigh. Here’s one way to upcycle those worthless bits of plastic into something priceless! The holes for the binding can be tricky to make, so bonus points if you own a Dremel or a Crop-a-Dile.
Cereal Box Notebook
This project is SUPER easy when you use a binding tool, but you can also bind it by hand. If you use a twin loop binding tool like a Zutter Bind-It-All, consider reinforcing the loops so they can’t separate.
Composition Book Art Journal
My little kids LOVED composition books, but they rarely filled an entire one. Instead of wasting those unused pages, here’s how to turn a composition book into an art journal! Since you gesso or otherwise cover the actual notebook pages, you can even utilize a filled composition book–if you don’t mind covering up all those math problems and history notes, that is!
Envelope Book
A surplus of envelopes is the perfect reason to make a book that finally has enough pockets for ephemera! Fill the envelopes with paper and use your book as a travel journal, perhaps, recording one day per envelope. You can also include photos, theatre tickets, receipts, brochures, and all the other fun souvenirs of a trip!
Fabric Cover Notebook
Want to make a notebook with a completely fabric cover, no cardstock or cardboard allowed? This is how! For the best result, sandwich a stiff interfacing between the inner and outer fabric, and then enjoy showing off your favorite fabric prints!
Game Board Notebook
This is such a fun way to give a board game a new life! The tutorial uses a bandsaw to cut the gameboards, but a box knife or craft knife would also work.
Matchbook Book
This super pretty notebook looks a LOT more complicated than it is. In fact, it’s the easiest book to DIY in this list, because the binding consists of just one staple! Because it’s small, you can use up all your scrappiest bits of paper for this project.
Playing Card Notebook
Well, technically just the notebook cover is made from playing cards–for the inside pages, choose anything you’d like!
Rubber Band-Bound Book
A little notebook makes anything more fun! These little notebooks are easy to pull apart and recycle when you’re finished with them, which makes them perfect for holding shopping and to-do lists, brainstorming sessions, or other info dumps. The tutorial uses index cards, but cardstock and heavyweight paper stock would also work here.
Scrap Paper Book
A lot of the other tutorials in this list call for a specific kind of material, but not this tutorial! You can make a functional book out of any kind of paper, plus twine and a hole punch. It’s the perfect way to upcycle half-used sheets of paper or other pages that you can squeeze just a little bit more use out of before you recycle them.
P.S. Interested in even more handmade book projects? Here you go!
