Upcycled Book Journal

I finally found a tiny book to turn into a pocket sized journal. 50 cent project? Yes please! Here's how:

Gather all your supplies. Book, mod podge, pant brush, embroidery floss,  needles, ruler, scissors, awl, plain paper, printed paper, and self healing mat.

First you need to get rid of the pages in the book. This book was well loved, so they came out easily.

Mod Podge some pretty paper over the now ugly inside cover of the book.

Cut desired amount of paper into the correct size for your book.

Fold a few sheets of paper at a time in half to create your signatures. (Signatures are sectioned paper. I folded 4 sheets together to create 8 pages. If you folded 20 pieces at once, you'd have a wonky book!) Then use an awl to punch holes along the crease.

Make a template and use it on each of your signatures so the holes on each page are identical. This is important later. Once you've got all your signatures, sew them up!

Now you've got to sew all the signatures together. Basically, you just zig zag between the thread around your holes and pull it tight!

Punch holes in the spine of your book. I honestly just winged this part because I usually cut the spine off. The thought was to sew through the signatures again, snug against the sections I just did (the black part), and then sew through the spine. It worked, but the process was a little weird (and impossible to photograph) and I'll probably do it differently next time.

 

Ta-da! Finished book. There are a lot of pages in there!