everykindofcraft | Frankensteining a work notebook for personal journalling (Reply)

I've gotten back to journal writing for the past several months and it's been a calming experience to do in the evenings. However, much of the notebooks for sale in the local hypermarket aren't made for handling fountain pen inks. Much of the better-made notebooks are imported and can cost into the triple-digits, and I don't want to be burdened with another hobby that has a high expense rate.

But I do know of a compromise: work notebooks. The company I worked issues new notebooks to all staff every year, and they're pretty durable. I have several already that are unused, and several more that are partially used.

So what if I carve up the partly-used notebooks so that only the unused pages are left, stick them together, and put them back with a cover?

So I did that!

I cut-up two partly used notebooks, stick their empty pages together, and pressed them till the glue finally dried. I also recycled a ribbon bookmark from one of the notebooks as well as some spine lining. I also reused one of the covers by covering it with advert paper (from an art book fair) so that the corporate prints are subsumed beneath the indie designs.

Once both the paper block and the covers are fully pressed and dried, I fitted them together.

It went almost well! The only downside is that the stuck-together pages came from different-sized work notebooks, but I resolved consider this a feature and not a bug. This notebook is quirky! And it takes fountain pen ink quite nicely, not on par with something like Leuchtturm but nice enough.