Pocket notebook cover
So heres the process for the full size notebook leather cover
This style is, from what ive gathered, a louise carmen style notebook cover. When I first wanted to make a cover for my notebooks, I had wanted to make a travelers notebook style cover. They are similar in that they both are able to hold multiple notebooks that you can change out at will. The difference is that the travelers notebook cover wraps around the front and back of the stack of notebooks only, while the louise carmen style has the back side of the leather cover come around and wrap over the front. So the travelers notebook has an exposed end (where the notebooks open) and the louise carmen has the leather fully wrap around the notebook.
Honestly I pretty much just followed this video, so you can probably get by just watching it. But if heres my process as well. To start off with, you want to plan out starting from the notebooks you want to use. I planned for using three A5 notebooks, which is just a size I liked. I wanted to use composition notebooks at first because theyre cheap but they are also really big. I get my notebooks from Daiso, but honestly I also have found some notebooks of decent quality at Ross when Christmas shopping. So hopefully this isn’t a well known thing and not all the notebooks get raided from Ross. For the leather, I got this big ass ~$20 roll at Hobby Lobby. It was chrome tan and way more than I needed. But unless I wanted a travelers notebook style, then the printer paper sized pieces of leather wouldn’t have worked. Tandy leather would probably have the size I wanted but their stuff is actually nice so costs more. The hobby lobby stuff I bought was fine.
Now for the amount you need, ill give the thought process for my measurements. First, take the height of your notebook size, the largest notebook youll use, and add half an inch to it. You can just round to the nearest measurement thatll be, for example A5 height should be 8.3”, so I just made mine 8 ¾”. Next, I took the width of my notebook and tripled it. Now, I had one really thick notebook and wanted to use 2 medium sized ones alongside it. I also wanted my closure flap to end at least around the 1/3 of the way around the front cover just in case I used a ton of thick notebooks so this was just overkill to account for that. You could probably do 2.5 or a little more, you just have to remember that the thickness of the leather itself and the height of the notebooks stacked will require more leather to cover the notebooks. So even if you want to do a travelers style notebook, youll need a little more than just 2x the width of your notebook. Also, how far around you want the closure flap of the cover to come on the front side will affect the width you need. In my case, A5 width is 5.8”, so I rounded up and got 18”. It’s a lot of leather so yeah.
Youll also need elastic cord to hold the notebooks to the cover. At one point I just used yarn but it sucked, so elastic cord is the way to go. This was the biggest pain in the ass for me to find, I wanted the perfect thickness of cord with the correct stretchiness because im picky, which was annoying. But eventually I found some at Daiso, but Hobby Lobby has some too supposedly, I just couldn’t find it. Really, you just need at least 4 times the height of your notebook as well as 2 times the width of your notebook. Im nearly 100% sure anything you buy will be enough.
Finally youll need a hole punch. The type you hammer in is best because the paper ones are kinda weak and might not leave your leather looking nice. You can get a Leather Hole Mini Punch Set from hobby lobby for $5.
So now for the actual construction. Ill use my measurements, but you can be pretty liberal with them and turn out fine. You can eyeball al lot, and the video I linked above details the process I followed as well. I got a big piece of construction paper to make a template for myself. First I cut the whole thing to the correct height. Next the correct length. The first mark I made was a vertical line 5 7/8” from the right edge of the paper. This was the backside and I made it so it would cover the back side of the notebook completely. Then I made another vertical line 1 ¼” from the last vertical line (this one is to the left of it), which I figured would be the height of all my notebooks and a bit more to account for leather thickness. You can really eyeball and round this measurement, since notebook thickness will vary. I then found the middle between these two lines (around 5/8”) and made another vertical lie. This is where we will place the holes. Mark at ½ cm from the top on this middle line, and mark again 2cm from the top as well. Repeat this for the bottom. The video gives some measurements too, so you can follow theirs. Then mark at 4 3/8” from the top or bottom on this middle line, this will be for the closure elastic band.
Then that’s really it. Just make the holes at the marks 0.5 and 2cm from the top and bottom as well as 4 3/8”. Youll want to use the punch that’s around the same width as your elastic cord, start off smaller since you can always remove more but you cant add on. You can just press the punch into a piece of paper or scrap leather to measure it. Then you just get a piece of elastic cord around 2 times the height of your notebooks, thread it through the holes, and thatll hold your notebooks. Then you can add the notebook inserts. The video linked up top shows you how to thread the elastic correctly. There is another style for making the holes in a louise carmen style with a set of holes for each notebook. In my case, I just measured out a piece of elastic cord around 2 times the height of your notebooks again and wrapped it around an open notebook’s spine, then closed it so that there is elastic wrapped between pages in the notebook and around the spine on the outside. Then you can just insert a notebook in the outside elastic so the 2 notebooks are tied together. This makes you able to attach more notebooks even if you don’t have enough holes on the leather cover. After this, you can measure out another piece of elastic cord around 2x the width of your notebooks, tie the ends together in a knot, and then slip the loop through the middle hole (4 3/8 hole) of the leather cover from the inside out. This makes it so when you close your notebook, you can pass this elastic over the top and around the opposite side to hold the notebook closed.
And that’s totally finished! I got a quarter and put it against the edge to cut a rounded edge into the corners of the leather cover, buts that’s completely optional. It will help with wear though.
