Upcycled Notebooks - Design Your Own

So last week I did a post about making your own bookmarks. Following up on that, and using the same skill and cheap materials, I though I would do a post about covering your own notebooks.

It's no secret that I love fancy journals. I own more than I'm currently using. There are stacks of blank journals on the shelves of my office and a list in my notebook of the ones I want to buy when I have money. But what I used to do, back when I was poor high school student, was design my own. And since this is the year of being frugal, I decided to go back to this. Not only does it save me some much needed cash, which I will need if I ever want to quit my job and write full time, it's fun and a great outlet for my creativity.

To get started, you need some cheap notebooks. You can pick them up at the dollar store or Walmart or your corner store. They are ugly - don't worry about that part cause we're going to rectify it.  You also need the same materials we used last week: gluestick, scissors, packing tape, and old magazines or newspapers.

The first step is to find an image you like. Cut the size and shape to add that of your notebook. Secure it by using a glue stick, and then put stripes across the front to protect the image and make your notebook cover somewhat water/coffee proof (this is also a bonus).

You can also take a plain piece of paper and write some inspirational words or poems and attach that to your notebook, as I did on the back side of the notebook. in the picture below, you can see come of my older designs. Including one I did a couple years of ago to make a travellers notebook for my trip to Iceland. I loved having this themed notebook with me on my travels. The one on the left was my first reading log—the notebook I used to keep track of all the books I read before GoodReads became a big thing. I still keep track of all the books I read in a notebook, even though I also use GoodReads. It's a bit of double entry, but what can I say, I love writing. Happy notebook making!

J. E. Hunter is the author of the Black Depths Series. Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, and Black Depths, the first two books of the series can be found on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. The third book, Dark Shores, will be release March 28th, 2016. The fourth and last book of the Black Depths series will be release by the end of 2016.