Notebooks From Waste Paper P.4

In two words, in these little series I'm sharing my experience of making notebooks from waste paper of all sorts. You may want to visit previous parts with tutorials on different types of notebooks, so I'll leave a links, and also there'll be an introductional Part 1 at some point, and if it already exist, I recommend to visit it first.

Notebooks From Paper Waste P.2

Notebooks From Paper Waste P.3

In this part I'm showing how to make a notebook with changeable page blocks, which works best with lager sized pages. There's not much else I can say about it, so let's just go to the making process.

Step 1:

Your materials may vary from those I'm using in this tutorial, and it mostly up to your personal preferences and particular stuff, you'll be able to find.

In general, you'll need some thicker cardboard for covers (more pliable piece for front page and, possibly stiffer one for the back); If the design on the cover meterial satispies you, you can use it as it is, but I'm going to use illustrations from architecture theamed magazine and some wrapping paper to decorate my cardboard; a piece of plastic or stiff card will be neaded for making a template (I'm using a sheath of tranparent plastic); to bind covers and pages together I'm using one of those binders that can be salvaged from some older document folders (Idon't know, how common they are, but it's quiet possible to came across something similar). Any suitable source of clear paper can be used for pages, and I'm using some used scheduling book, which has enough of clear pages left.

Step 2:

And first of all, I'm cutting a template from sheath of plastic. As I mentioned, cardboard can be used as well, but clear plastic allows me to see the design I want to leave on the piece after cutting. Also, plastic is more durable and can be used multiple times in different projects.

The template is a simple recangle, and it's going to be used for cutting out pages, covers and asisting in other operations. For this project I'm using A5 format of sheats, but, in genera,l the size is not a dogma and it just has to be big enough to accommodate the binder.

Step 3:

Now I'm using a template to cut a piece of cardboard for front cover. Later I'll cut one more piece for the back.

Step 4:

For pager I'm using this scheduling book which is bigger format than my template, which I'm going to use to my artistic advantage in this particular project. But first I'm separating clear pages and used pages. This book has usual part with different charts and tables with useful information of all sorts. I like those, so I'm mowing them aside to use in other projects.

As I said, I want to do semething interesting for this notebook, so I'm cutting the pages at a certain angle, for doing which I'm positioning the template in suitable way on the stack of pages and tracing the outline with sharp pencil.

Tu cut the stack of paper I'm using a craft knife with new blade and a metal straight edge. I'm making multiple passes with the knife until whole stack is cut. If you'll get some rough spots on the edge after cutting? use some fine sand paper to smooth it.

Before cutting the last (this was the spine of the book) I secure the pages with paper binders to prevent them from shifting, and since, at this point, I'm still not sure how exactly I'm going to make holes in pakes I'm leaving the binders on the stack.

Step 5:

Since I want to maintain the angled twist on other parts of the notebook, I'm making a "gudeline" on my template by gluing a cut-off piece of the book page fom the previous step to the side of the template.

Glue stick does the jop, and after the project is finnished I'll be able to take the paper off easily.

Step 6:

And, wow, when I'm cutting a cover up for my front cover piece, I can show how the "guideline" on the template works.

So, I have this page from a magazine with a nice print on, and I align the template so, that the inner edge of the guide piece is parallel to the text. At the same time I'm looking for nice positioning of the picture in general. This way the whole design will be rotated exactly the same ammount as the design on pages.

After I found the right place for the template, i'm tracing the outline lightly with the pencil. The resulting piece is has to be wrapped around the cover cardboard, so I'm offsetting the outline for 1-1,5cm, and then cutting the piece.

Step 7:

Then, I'm cutting off the coners at the 45* angle at all four sides.

Step 8:

To glue the wrapping page to the cover cardboard use glue stick.

Glue stick works better for this job than PVA because it doesn't warp the paper that much and dryes much quicker. Just don't use the cheap ones because they can really ruin your work. There's no need in expencive product as well, though.

Apply glue uniformly. Make sure, you're not leaving uncovered spots as well as chunks of glue on the surface. Apply some extra attention to the sides.

When the card piece is covered with glue, flip it and glue it down to the back of the wrapping page, making sure, you're getting the corner at the right spots. I'm flipping then the whole piece around and rubbing the front with paper tissue, driving the possible air bubbles away and making sure every single spot is propertly adhered.

Step 9:

Now apply glue to the sides and fold them to the back. Push the side of the carboard up against the table surface to assist the fold at the start, than fold the side all the way down. Rub the edges of the cover from the side to make sure everything is glued down. Glue all the sides to the back.

The cover can bend a little bit< so I'm putting it under the glass to dry, while I'm working on the next step.

Step 10:

Now I'm going to cut the filler sheeth for the cover out this stripy wrapping paper. I'm using the guide piece on the template the same way as previously, with the only difference id that it flipped to the other side to produce mirrored twist.

In this case I can cut right against the edge of the template.

After the piece is cut, I'm two sides for few millimetres since it has to be a bit smaller than the cover itself. THen I'm applying the glue to it and gluing the sheath to the inside of the cover.

Step 11:

In exactly the same way as the fron cover is done, I'm making one for the back.

Step 12:

Also I'm cutting this detail from sturdy craft paper that will go to the spine of the notebook.

I'm not showing the process because it's a bit too specific to my project, and I've made it incorrectly anyway.

Step 13:

And here's the whole parts stacked together. You can see, how the spine piece is going to work here.

I'm applying the top bar of the binder, and tracing holes with the pencil. And here I keep following the "angle" idea, so the binder is deliberately positioned at the anggle, and yes pages will open at a the angle too.

One thing I want to mention about this design is that I was conciously making this angle obvious enough. This way I'm making sure the whole idea is clear. If you can't make some aspect of the design obvious enough, just don't do it. If my angle here was to unsignificant, the whole piece would look rather uneven than deliberately tilted. On the other hand I didn't want to make the notebuuk unfuctional, or uncomfortable to use.

Step 14:

I'm punching holes according to markings, and then use this piece as a template for punching holes in the front cover. I'm using a front cover then to punch holes in the back cover.

Don't make holes too large or parts will be rattlin around in finnished notebook.

Step 15:

For punching holes in pages I again use front cover for a template.

I'm taking small bathes of pages and aligning them with the top of the cover before punching the holes, and then through the cover and the pages. Be as consistant in hole positioning as posible to get nice even stack after binding.

Step 16:

I'm using the back cover to mark holes on the back side of the spine piece and then punching those.

Step 17:

And now we can assemble the note book, so I'm taking the strip of metal, that goes with the binder (at this point I decide to change it to different one with more suitable color scheme), and inserting it through the holes from the back of the spine piece.

Step 18:

Then I'm adding the back cover, pages, front cover, front of the spine and, finally, I'm securing it all with the binder bar.

Step 19:

At this point I realizet that I've got the spine piece wrong on the back, so I'm fixing it.

Step 20:

And now, finally, the last thing to do is to make some grooves on the front cover to assist it folding back, when the notebook is used. Use a dull awl or not wrighting pent with the traight edge. "Score" two parallel grooves along the line of bend and assist even bending with the ruller.

And this is it for this notebook. I'm rather satisfyed with the way it came out and it functions very well. All you have to do to intall new page block is to undo the binder, remove used pages and insert new ones (wel... you'll have to make them first)

Step 21:

And for the last bit I want to show some other examples of notebooks, I've made this way.

The first ones have no pages yet. For the cover I used ink get ptinter test prints laminated in plastic (it was from the times, when I was able to do such things at my work). And some pieces of craft paper were added complement the design.

The second batch is finnished. For the front covers I used some old photographs of geometry, physics and other science stuff formulas and... stuff. They were used for cheating on exams at some point, and I remember them lying around in the drawers of our desk since I was little. I printed numbers with inkjet printer and laminated sheats in plastic.

So, this is it for now< thank you for your attention, and have a nice ending of instructables.