Make a Pocket Journal: A Simple Bookbinding Project

1. Introduction: People started carrying pocket journals everywhere. Here's how you can easily make one for yourself with the advantages of tailoring it to your needs. Hello, and welcome to my studio. My name is Ido Agassi, and I'm a book artist. I've been making books and boxes for 30 years, and I would love to share my knowledge with you. In this class, we are making a pocket journal with a soft cover. I designed in a new and innovative way with the ability to easily change the inner paper according to your needs. You don't need any previous knowledge or special tools. You'll be amazed how simple it is to make it. And also, I will show you how you can improvise with tools that probably you have around the house. We will start with the cover, soft rounded corners and two tapes inserted through it to allow a quick and easy way to bind your papers. This would be the home for your thoughts, and you will decorate it as you wish, different color, different paper, closure, new materials or upcycled. I will take you step by step through the binding process with clear explanations and detail shots to help you create your own handmade binding. So I invite you to join me in this wonderful journey to make your own perfect pocket journal. Are you ready? Let's start working. 2. Tools & Materials: Hello, and thank you for joining this class. Before we begin, I would like to go through the tools and materials that we would need. These are very simple tools and materials that probably you have around the house. So I'm going to go through the must have and how to improvise if you don't have any because there are a lot of places that you can improvise with your tools and materials. So let's start by putting a great board on the table that would give us a nice background. And I'm going to start with the cutting mat, which I really recommend you to use. This is the surface that you cut on Okay, I'll move on to the small ruler. This is 15 centimeters. You will see me working with different sizes of rulers, but just one would be enough. Another thing that you would need is a craft knife. Any craft knife would work. This is with a 30 degree blade. But again, each one that you would use would work. Moving on to the bone folder. The bone folder is the bookbinders tool, but you can also improvise with the back of a spoon or silverware or just with your fingernails, a piece of anything would work, but this is the bone folder I recommend. This is 6 ", and I will give a link to it in the class resources. Another thing that you would need is an O, but you can also improvise with a push pin, and it would work great. And you can improvise with that, a pencil, scissors a needle for sewing, this is number 18, a glue brush around two centimeter wide. And now for improvising, you can use a nail file just to round the corners of your work. Also, a washer between the inner circle and the outer circle around 1 centimeter, I will show you how to improvise with marking the corners. Because we are going to make this journal with rounded corners, you can find a corner cutter. This is a very nice tool that cut the corners with an angle. But I'm going to show you how to improvise with a coin. Another thing that you would need is a chisel. This is around 0.7, but you can also use something wider or you can improvise with a flat headed screwdriver. So now let's talk about the materials. You would need bookbinding cloth or decorative paper. The paper size is 18 by 14 centimeters of your choice. You would need around 24 sheets of paper, thick paper or thin board. For the cover, you can also recycle or repurpose food packaging. The leftover piece for the spine. Piece of paper for the template. This is 14 on around 7 centimeters. A strip for the inner spine, this is around ten by four centimeter. You can use original Bookbinding tape. This is 0.9 centimeters. And you can also use just a ribbon in any color you'd like. What I'm using in this class is just canvas for oil painting, and I cut a strip of 1 centimeter. Thread, I recommend 18 or 14 ply PVA or white glue, whatever works for you. Thin double sided tape could be any brand. About the elastic band. In the class, I'm going to use two elastic bands, one that is 1 centimeter wide, and that is going to be used for holding the pen or the pencil, and one that is more proportional to the size, this is 0.7, and this is going to be attached to close our journal. I'll move on to the pocket. For the pocket, we would need paper 27 on 14 centimeters and two strips of cloth four by 8 centimeters for the pocket. So these are actually all the tools and materials that you would need for this class. Very simple. I can't wait to start working, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 3. Cutting Materials & Rounding Corners: Hello, and thank you for joining this class. I want to start with cutting the material for the cover into size. What you can do, you can find in your house food packaging and just reuse material. This is a very fine thick paper or board that you can use for the outside cover. I'm going to use this thick paper or very thin board around 1 millimeter thick, and that's what I'm going to use in this class. So I'm going to bring a piece of weight, but you can also just find something that has 90 degree angles in your house that you can bring your board or your paper to and just mark. Now, you have two options. You can take your ruler and a pencil and mark 14 centimeter, which is here. Oh, what you can do, and that's what I prefer is to take a needle just connected to a piece of plastic and mark with the needle. The reason I like to use a needle is because the point is always the same. With a pencil, it can change between the sharpness of the pencil. And now, what I'm going to do is take my knife, put it between these two dots and cut. Now I'm going to cut 9 centimeters. I'm going to mark with my needle two points and cut. And I'm going to leave this for the spine. Now, I'm going to make four of these, okay, two for the outside and two for the inside. Now I want to cut the corners because I want rounded corners. So one option, this is a very nice tool that have three diameters. This is ten millimeter, four millimeter and seven. And what you do, you just insert it inside and press it, and it gives you a nice rounded corner. This is very satisfying to do. And I will add a link to this tool in our class resources. But maybe you don't have a corner cutter and I want to show you how you can improvise. What I'm going to do is bring a coin and put it on the edge, see that it is on the edge of the side and the top, and I'm going to mark with a pencil. Let's do it to the other side, making sure it is up until the end and mark with a pencil. And now you can either take a knife and cut with the same angle, or you can take scissors and just cut it according to your marks. Great. Now, let me mark the spine. I'm going to take my ruler and the pin and mark 1 centimeter and also here 1 centimeter. Of course, you can do it any thickness you would like. This is for more or less 80 pages, maybe more, but you can make it thicker if you wish and cut. After you finish all four, what I commend you to do is take sandpaper. This is just sandpaper connected to a piece of wood and just send the edges of all the boards. And that would make everything even. And after you see everything is okay and you're content, we are ready to go to the next stage, so I'll see you in the next lesson. 4. Covering The Boards: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to start connecting the cover. So I'll bring a piece of cloth. The size of the cloth is 18. We need 24, but I have extra because I want for the inner spine. What I'm going to do is take a ruler that is two centimeter wide, and I'm going to mark with a pencil. A line on the top and a line on the side here. And that would act as a guide where I want the board to come to. But what you can also do is bring something in your house that is 2 centimeters. I'm going to use my weights, bring one here and one here, and let's start gluing the board. I'm going to bring my PVA. Okay? This is PVA white glue. And I'm going to glue from the inside out. I'm gluing from the inside out because if I'm doing it vice versa, there's going to be glue on the edge and it can drip on your fingers and it can make everything a bit messy. So that is why I'm doing it from the inside out up until the end. Not a lot of glue, just an even amount. Now I'm making sure that the rounded corners are pointing towards the outside, and I'm bringing it to my stoppers. I'll move it aside, flip it over and connect. If you wish, you can take a bone folder and just go all around the edges here, make sure everything glues properly. I'll flip it back over. And now I only need the upper line as a straight line here. Again, you can put whatever you want or just use the pencil guide. And now I'm going to bring my spine. This is 1 centimeter spine, and I want a gap. The gap is around 2-3 millimeters. I'm just taking a leftover board. You can also take your ruler and a pencil and mark 3 millimeters. I find that if you find something in your house that is around two to 3 millimeters, that could work great, I'll bring a weight so it won't fall down like you see here, and it holds it in place, and I'm going to glue the spine Let me do the other half. And now I'm bringing it to the stopper and to my spacer, and I'll take it out, put it on the other side, and I'm going to take my other board, and I'm going to glue it. Up until the end, all around. Not a lot of glue. When you feel that you have enough everywhere, again, the rounded corners towards outside, so I'm going to bring it to my stopper, to my spacer, making sure it is touching and not going over. I can slide it a bit. Then I can see it's in place, take it out. And flip it over. Take my bone folder and work with my bone folder. Inside the gaps, all around. You can work also with your fingers. I'm going to flip it over. And now I'm going to cut two centimeter to the rest. Now I'm going to save this for later. Now I want to turn in the corners, and I want to show you a trick. What I'm going to do is take a washer. Okay? This is around 1 centimeter from the edge. I think between 7 millimeters to 1 centimeter would go nicely. And what I'm going to do is just go with a washer and mark the corners all around. So this corner, and I'll flip it over and over here. It's very satisfying to do and over here. Okay. Great. Now I'm going to take my ruler and my knife. And I'm going to cut from where the corner is starting. This is around here, you do the other side. Again, I'm reminding you that everything is going to be concealed afterwards with the inner part. So if it's not going well on the first try, don't worry. We are really doing a simple binding here. So no worries. I'm going to cut on the short side also. To the other side. Just from where the corner is starting to get round. Now I'm going to take my scissors and I'm going to cut just around the marks I made. Let's do it here also. Just cut more or less as my marks. And the last one Great. Now I'm going to take my knife, and I'm going to cut small cuts around three, 4 millimeters between one another. And that will allow me to fold it inside and to just copy the rounded corner. Okay? You don't need a ruler to mark. You just need one beside the other leaving around three to four millimeter gap. I'll do this one also. Making like a fan. Great. I'll take a piece of waste paper, and I'm going to glue only the corner here with the small cuts I made. Not a lot of glue because we don't want to go to the other side. I'll take my bone folder and try to lift, first of all, the center piece, push it towards me, and then bring the other pieces. It's actually going one on top of the other molars. I'll bring this side also. And then with a bone folder, I'm like squeezing it to make it flat into the side also. Takeaways paper, a little bit of glue. Lift the center. When I see it is attached, then I'm bringing the rest one on top of the other and foaming my rounded corner like so. Okay? You can feel that with the bone folder that you have the right angle. I'll do this one also. Lift it, start with the center, and then bring on it the rest. Again, everything is going to be concealed afterwards. If it's not going to first try good, we are going to cover it. I'll do the last one. Not a lot of glue. Lift it and just bring one on top of the other. Great. Now, what I'm going to do is fold long side and long side, and then short side, and short side. And I want to make a cut between the two corners. This is supposed to be a very shallow cut. I'm bringing it from when you see it attach one to the other, and I'm going to make a small cut. And as you can see, both of them are going to be disconnected. Let me do it here. Just a shallow cut because we don't want to go to the other side. If you are alarmed that something like that could happen, what you can also do you just put one on top of the other. I'll take my pin and mark one mark here and one mark here, open it, and then you'll have the marks over here, and you can cut them like so. Okay? I'll show you again. You just put one on top of the other. Make two marks in the joint here of the two turn in here, open it, and then cut. Great. Now, I'll bring my waste paper. Start with the alongside. I'm going to glue. Up until the end, you could put some glue in the gaps here, take it out, fold it. Take your bone folder and go inside the gaps here. And connect. I'll do the other side, wastepaper, holding it, gluing up until the end, taking it out and connecting. Take your bone folder and go inside the gaps here. Short sides. Up until the end, take the wastepaper out and connect. You see how it goes exactly one on top of the other. It looks great. I'll flip it over and do the last side. Glue it. Don't forget to change the waste papers fold it inside. It looks great. And now, all I have left to do is connect the inner spine. I'm going to take my leftover piece. I'll bring it exactly to the cloth here. I'll take my pen and I'll mark where it is reaching the cloth on the other side, making sure I'm straight. If you want, you can cut it extra. I'll bring my knife and cut according to my marks. Let's see that it fits. It fits nicely. I'll take another piece of waste paper. I'm going to glue the entire piece. Look, I'm starting from the top and making my way down, then holding the middle, up until the end. I'll take the wastepaper out, bring my bone folder, and then I'm going to bring it up until my cloth, see that it is centered more or less touching here, and then I'm going inside and connecting one side and then the other. Now, I would let it dry a bit, and in the next lesson, we are going to prepare the tapes and insert them inside the cover so we can stitch the inside signatures to the cover of this book. I'll see you there. 5. Connecting The Tapes: We come back. In this lesson, we are going to prepare the tapes and insert them inside the cover. Now, the traditional book binding tape look like this. This is more or less 1 centimeter wide. But you don't need to buy especially this. What I'm going to use is leftover canvas for oil painting, and I'm going to cut this into strips. You can also try and use ribbons like this one. Or I have just a leftover of this one. You can also try a cloth one, but make sure it's not very thick, okay? So you can improvise with other materials, but I'm going to use this oil canvas because I think it is more sturdy and it would hold the signatures. Okay. So I'm going to line it up on my table and cut a strip of 1 centimeter. If you don't have a cutting mat like I do, what you can also do it's just take a ruler, mark with a pencil, 1 centimeter in two points. And then cut the strip. We need a strip around 7 centimeters, so I'll just put it here and cut it more or less in the middle. And that's enough for us to work with. I'll put this aside and bring a piece of paper that I want to make my template. I'll bring the cover. Put a stopper here because I want it exactly as the cover, and I'm going to cut a strip. I want to show you how I make the template. Don't worry. I'm going to add in our class resources a template, but I want you to understand how to make it so you can implement that if the tape is wider or you want more tapes or whatever, so we'll know what's behind the method. I'm going to bring my ruler and I'm going to mark 3 centimeters from the edge. Let me mark on the other side. And now I'm going to mark 1 centimeter from that line and on the other side. Of course, if your tape is wider, then you make a wider gap. Now what I'm going to do is fold this in half because I want the measurements on both sides. Now I'm going to take my ruler and measure 1 centimeter from the edge here. And mark two lines here and here. Now, what I want you to do is take your binding. Make sure you locate it exactly up until the edge. Now I'm going to take my needle. I'm making sure this is straight on the edge here and I'm going to mark one dot here and one dot here, and on a spine here and here, and now on the front of the cover one here and one here, and I'll mark here and here. Now, this is important. I'm going to flip it over because I want the same location on the other side. So I'm making sure it is aligned like I did here, and I have the marks to go inside one and two. One and two. And then with the mark that we have already, I'm going to mark, and then the places would be exactly the same on both sides. Great. Now I'll take my ruler and the knife. I'm going to put it where the marks are, and I'm going to cut from dot to dot. Here, I think this is the most exact thing that you need in the whole class. We want it between the dots. If you're not sure you got up until the end, you can go from this side to this side. Also here, I can see I need a little bit more. And also, between the dots here, from one to the other. Here it's much easier because you don't have a board from one to the other. And let me do the other side. I'm going between the dots here, up until the end. And here up until the end, and make sure that you got exactly to your dot. And also between the dots here from one to the other I think I'm there. Now you can take several tools. You can just start with your needle or pin. You can take a chisel or a flat head screwdriver. I also have a micro spatula that can help. And what we want to do is flip this over. We want it from the good side out. I'll take my chisel and just go inside the gap. Just to form the hole. Let me do one with a flat headed screw diver so you can see, I just go inside the hole that we made. Now I'm going to take the tape and insert it inside. More or less like this. S it's okay. Flip it over, and now I'm going to go inside the spine from one side and from the other side, just insert it and push it. You see you can manage and play with it a bit. Let's do the other side. I'll flip it again to see I want it more or less like this. Flip it back. You just take your needle and use it for help and let's insert it close to the spine. One side and the other and just pull Looks good. Let's work on the other side. I'll make it wider with my screw diver. Just shove it inside and twist it a bit. And again, you can also use the chisel. And if you want, you can take just the needle Insert it and just move it inside. We'll do it here also. Okay, now, I'm going to bring it from the inside out. And the rest is going here. You see, when it's wide enough, it can go inside easily. Let's do the other side. You still need to give it a push. I'm just holding it and inserting it. Now you can straighten things up. I'll bring my bone folder. See it straight and looking nice. Great. Now you can either take a little bit of double sided tape, just cut a strip, put underneath, and glue it Put underneath, peel it, and connect like so. Or, if you wish, you can take some PVA glue it And connect. I'll let it dry for a bit, and I think this is a great place to stop and have a coffee break. I want to talk to you about different options and upgrades that you can add to your Pocket notebook. So make yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and I'll see you in our coffee break. 6. Coffee Break: Welcome to our coffee break. I wanted to share some options and upgrades that you can add to your Pocket Journal just for inspiration. Let's start with adding an envelope to your Pocket Journal. This is a very nice solution. You can locate it wherever you want, and you can add a couple of them. And I left it open so you can see that you saw the envelope inside before connecting it. So what I would do, I made a class here on Skillshare about an envelope with a twist so you can watch the class. And to know the exact measurement, what you can do is take the board that we already cut, and that would indicate the size of the envelope. But just don't forget not to close it up until the end because you need to sew it before and then close the envelope. Of course, you can close it here, and it would open. To this side, it depends on your design choice. Another thing that you can do is add a bookmark. What you do is you connect the bookmark with double sided tape before connecting the pocket or the end paper. That's very easy to do. You just put a piece over here and connect the pocket on it. And this is a very nice thing to add to your pocket journal. What I want to show you is sometimes the edge is fraying a bit. So what you can do, I'll cut it like this. I'm going to take a transparent nail polish and just put it on the edge here. And now you'll have no problem working with it. I'll put it here so it won't stain my paper. And I'm going to talk about another thing that you can add, and that is transparent paper. That is easily added between the papers of the signature. So this is a very nice thing to have in your pocket journal. Maybe at the end at the beginning, depends on you. Another thing that you can consider is making a label here with your name, with the date. You can also number the spine between the notebooks. I know about somebody that made 12 of these just for each month of the year, so you can number it or put a title on it. So that's also something that you can do. Another upgrade for your pocket journal is you can make a line paper and then you can just put it between the papers, and it will help you write in straight lines. This is a very useful thing to have, and you can put it back in the back pocket. So in the class resources, I will add a PDF file with this line paper so you can print it and then put it inside the pocket. Another thing I thought of while playing with making this design is one of the signatures, I added another piece of paper three times the size. So I folded it. And the last fold, I cut it shorter and with an angle and just glue the edge here. And then it acts as a nice small pocket that you can add something in it, if it's a bookmark or a business card or whatever you want to put inside. So as you can see, there's so many options you can work with according to what you need and what you want. So play around with it. This is actually a part I didn't think I'm going to film, but I want to show you about the design, how I played with as you can see here, I'm checking that the ribbons, I recommend you to improvise if you don't have bookbinding tape that it holds firmly and nicely. I also thought about a pocket for the cover of a signature. Also, the option of make be sewing the tapes to the outside. But then I thought maybe that would be too complicated. It's a very nice design could be. And as you can see, there's a nice face with eyes and something an element to close it with a smile, but I decided just to insert it inside and glue it. That would be much easier, at least for the first time. But just to show you, you can play with it in different directions and do very special things. So you are one of the first to use this design, and that is why I would love for you to share your process and just your experience with and that would be amazing to see people from all around the world using their own Pocket Journal in different places and locations. I hope these options give you some inspiration to add elements to your Pocket Journal. I would love to see what you have made, and I'm sure it would inspire others. So please share it with us in the class projects. I'll finish my coffee, and I'll see you in our next lesson. 7. Preparing The Paper: Welcome back. This video is going to be all about papers, how to fold them, how to cut them in different methods because I'm not sure if you're going to make it for writing, for sketching, for watercolor, or for whatever reason you want your journal to be. That is why I want to give you a variety. I'll move this aside, and we will start folding. So let's start with the obvious. This is just a for paper, and I'm going to take my weight and fold corner to corner and just fold first with my hand and then with a boom folder. Of course, you can do it also. Without a weight. You just bring corner to corner and fold it. What you can also do is take, let's say, four sheets of paper. Bring it to the weight. Fold first with your hand and then with a bone folder. If you are going to fold it individually, you just insert one paper inside the other to form your signature. So that's the most simple way just to fold sheets of paper, maybe something that you have in your printer or just laying around. This is the A four size. Now let's take a strip of paper. And what I'm going to do here is fold it in half. I'll take my bone folder and fold it. And then I'm going to fold it in half, again. I'll bring another paper, fold it in half. And again, and now I'm going to insert one inside the other. Okay? This is Sundance paper by Fox River, and it is 118 gram. It is great for writing and also for sketching. And you actually can do also watercolor on it because it's quite thick. Let's take a thin piece of paper. This is by Zandas. It is called Zeta, and this is 90 grams, so I can fold it in half, and fold it in half again. This is a great writing paper. Let me add another one. Folding in half and then folding it again. And then I can insert one inside the other, and I have a signature that is great for writing. Now I want to show you how to cut the paper. I'll bring my weight and I'm going to bring a ruler and a needle. You can also use your pencil. I prefer to work with a needle because every time I mark it is exactly in the same place. So I'm going to mark 8.9 or 9 centimeters. I prefer to do it 1 millimeter less, so 8.9. Now, how do you cut a pile of papers? What I do is put the weight on it, okay? Or you can put something in your house just for it not to move. I'll put the ruler between my two dots. I'm going to take my craft knife, open it. Not a lot, just a bit and lock it if you have a locking mechanism. And now I'm going to go through a couple of times. Don't try to do it once. So I'm going once. And you see I have like two or three layers, and I'm going again, and this is already disconnected, and I'll go again. And I'm not letting go of the ruler until I finished cutting everything. And when I see, I cut everything and everything moved, then I let go of the ruler. It sometimes take time, so be patient and just go once, twice, five times. But don't let the ruler go before you finish and you have your straight line. I'll move this aside and now let's do the long side. I'm making sure everything is straight on one side. I'll put it to my weights or some kind of a stopper. You can also line it up on your table. And I'm going to mark 14 centimeters. So this is one mark and the second mark. Now, again, a weight or something on the paper so it won't move. I'm going to put my ruler between the two dots, hold it, and then I'm going a couple of times. So once, twice, you see that it's starting to disconnect. And again, up until I finish everything, then I move the ruler. So this is for 90 gram paper, but let's do it for the thicker paper. I'm going to measure 8.9 and 8.9. I see between the two dots, we have a straight line, and then I'm going to cut. Once twice, move it aside. Up until I see everything is disconnected. It's not that complicated. You just need not to move the ruler, and now I'm going to see this is straight, and I'm going to mark 14 once and twice put my weight between the dots and cut. Now, about cutting the corners, again, you can take your rounded cutter, put it inside, and just cut your corners. But you can also, like we did with the cover, take a coin, the same coin, take your pencil, mark the corners on both sides. Then take your knife and cut several times until you have your rounded corner. And again, you can take your scissors and just cut it according to your marks. Now you can send it a bit or take just a fingernail file and just round the corners a bit if you wish, just a small amount, so it would be nice. I Great. I'll clear this. Now I want to show you how to work with watercolor paper. If you don't want to cut it with your knife like I showed you earlier, but you want to keep the decal edge. What I'm going to do is take my weight and the ruler, and I'm going to mark 13.9, just 1 millimeter less than the 14 millimeter that we have for the cover. What I'm going to do is hold the ruler firmly, hold the paper, and bring the paper to the ruler like this. I'm pulling. And this is helping to achieve a decal edge. And now I'm going to fold it completely. Measure 8.98 0.9, hold it and cut. I just bring it to the ruler, one layer, and a second layer. If I see I have something like that left, I can just take and just pull it out and it would look better. Now I want to show you what happens if you want to make a signature of watercolor paper. And because this paper is sometimes 250 gram or 300 gram, it's quite thick. So I think more than three papers, one inside other would be too thick, but you can try. So I'm going to fold three of them, insert them one inside the other. And because the paper is thick, the outside one is pointing out much more than the inner one. So what I'm going to do is take my weight, mark 8.9 and mark here 8.9, put my weight on it or something heavy. Put the ruler between the dots and then hold the paper, the first one, and just bring it to the ruler slowly without the ruler moving. I'll take another paper and do it again. Each time one single paper. You see how I'm bringing it to the ruler. And layer by layer, it is being cut. And now, I'm going to straighten it up and you have a signature of watercolor paper with a decal edge. Of course, you can also cut it with a knife like I showed earlier. I'll move this aside, and in the next lesson, we're going to start sewing the papers that you chose for the inside. 8. Sewing The Signiaturs: Welcome back. Are you ready to start sewing the signatures? I'm going to bring my template for the outside that we made earlier. And what I'm going to do is fold it inside, and now I have the marks where to make the holes inside the signatures. I'm going to take a paper clip and connect it to my template. Now I like to make the holes on a piece of chipboard and not directly on the cutting mat. So I'm going to make the holes on this board, and I'm going to bring my first signature. And in my pocket journal, I'm going to make different kind of papers, so I will have a variety. Of course, you can make everything the same paper for writing or the same paper for watercolor, whatever you choose. So I'm going to take the template and connect it to my signature. I'm making sure it is straight. On the edge here. I'm going to take myo, and I'm going to make the hole before and after the line. So think of it as you have the tape over here, and we want it wider. So I'm going to make one hole here. I'm locating myo, closing the signature, and then pushing it inside, and I'm going to make one after the line. I'll move on to the next pair before and after. Okay, I'm going to take the template out and put it aside. Let me take the second signature. Again, I'm going to put it up until the edge here, see that it's straight, and I'm going to take my ole and put it in the first hole. By the way, if you don't have an ole yet, which I recommend you to buy, you can also try and work with a push pin. You just put it in the hole and push it inside. I would make the same hole. So if you don't have the right tools yet, you can improvise with that. I'm going to put it inside the next one. And because I'm closing the signature and then making the hole, then I have the hole exactly in the fold. Let me do it again. Great. Taking it out, and I'll put it aside. And I'm going to bring my watercolor paper. This is much thicker. I'm going to insert inside, make sure it is straight, and I'm going to make the holes, one, two, one and two. If for some reason, you want to connect it to a field notebook or something that is already made, you just take the template, straighten it up, and just make the holes according to this template, and you can just sew something that is already made. If it's something with dates or something that you like to write on, you can just buy something and connect it to your own handmade cover. Okay. I'll move this aside, and I'm going to bring the cover and to bring the thread. This is linen thread number 40. This is quite thin. Of course, you can use any thread you would like. What I want is twice the length of my cover, and let's do a bit of an extra. I'm going to cut it. And now I want to show you a trick. I'm going to take my needle, insert the thread inside the needle around 3 centimeters from the edge. I'm going to take the needle and insert it inside the thread like this. Hold the needle and pull back the thread, and now it is connected. I won't get loose and you don't have a knot here to interfere with your sewing. So I'm going to take my first signature. And this is very easy to do because we are going to sew each one individually. Okay? So I'm going to insert from the inside out. The thread. I can work not just inside. I can take it away and then easily go underneath the tape and then go back inside. Okay, you just need to make sure that the end won't get loose now. I'm going to the next station, pulling my thread. Again, I can take it back and just insert underneath the tape and back inside. Now, I'm going to pull it, and now it would bring it to place. You can just play with it and take it backward because we want to add some more. So I'll pull it like this to both sides. And now I'm just going to go backwards. So I'm going to insert inside the hole here. And pull, go inside this hole on the second pair and pull. And now I need to make a simple knot but a double knot. So I'm going to pull to the direction of sewing. I'm going to pull this and pull this. And now I'm going to make a knot, sew one thread over the other, and inside Pull it, hold it, and do it again one on top and inside. And close it. Quite simple, right? Now, the edge, you can just trim it, leave a little bit like half a centimeter and just trim it. And we have ourselves the first signature. I'm moving on to the second signature, and now I'm going to take a thicker thread. Okay? This is number 18. Let me do it two and a bit. I'm going to cut it and do my needle trick. 3 centimeters from the edge. I'm going to connect it. Take it back. And again, I'm going from the inside out, put it aside like this, go underneath the first tape and back inside. To the second station. So from the inside out underneath my tape and back inside. Now I'm going to pull it a bit, taking it back so it would be in the place I wanted to be, and now I'm going back, so I'm going inside. Now you can lift it a bit and just get the needle when it's going out. Let's do the other one. I'm going inside the signature, and at the end, I'm going to pull this, pull this. When I see it is tight, I'm going to make a double knot. So one, hold it and two. Again, this is a simple knot, overhand knot, and at the edge, I'm going to cut around half a centimeter to a centimeter from the edge. So now I have two signatures inside. Let's go on and make the watercolor one. I'll bring it. I'll bring the thread. Of course, a pro tip is you can make the thread longer and use it for all the signatures. You don't need each time to put the needle inside. I just wanted to show you a variety of different thicknesses of thread. So this is longer, and I'll show you how you cut it without cutting both sides. So I'm going to go from the inside out. By the way, if you are working with watercolor paper, I recommend the thicker thread because the watercolor is thicker the signature itself. I'm going to go back inside, pull it, but I'm leaving it away so it would be easy to sew it underneath my tape and back inside the signature. I'll make the tail shorter because, again, I want to show you how you can use the same thread for more than one signature. I think this would be enough for the knot, pulling it. And now I'm going back, so I'm going inside. I like to lift it so I can find my needle going out. Back inside. Now I'm going to pull it to the direction of sewing, pull one, pull the other one, and make a double knot, sew one. And two. I'm going to take my scissors and cut around half a centimeter from the edge. And as you can see, I have it left for other signatures. I'm going to stop here and I have three signatures inside my pocket journal. And of course, I have place for more, but I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do on the next one. So I can each time add another one and another one up until when you can't fit them. And as you can see, what I love about this technique is you can move something from the middle. Move it like this, and you have a place to add something more. Or if you want to work with some more writing paper or you want something in the beginning, you can change it wherever you want. And that's a great advantage. So in the next lesson, I want to start adding things to your cover, and we will start with connecting an elastic band so you can close your pocket journal. I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Connecting An Elastic Band: Welcome back. In this lesson. I want to show you how to connect an elastic band. Don't worry. I made a PDF file in our class resources and you have a template there. But I want to show you how to make the template. I'm going to take my ruler, and I'm going to mark a straight line 1 centimeter from the edge of a piece of paper. And now I want to mark 1.5 centimeter from the edge here. Now, I'm showing you how to make the template because maybe you want to use it in a different size or different location. I have two elastic bands, one that is 1 centimeter wide, and the second one is around 7 millimeters. I think for this size of a pocket journal, the smaller one would be much proportional to the size. So what I'm going to do is located here where my mark is, and I'm going to mark with a pencil on the other side of it. And of course, according to what elastic band you are going to use, make the mark. Now I'll bring a piece of board or something so it would be easier to make the holes. I'll bring my cover, and I'm going to locate the paper on the edge here, make sure it is straight here and here, I'm going to take a needle or you can take your whole and I'm going to mark one mark here at the joint of the two lines and one on the upper line just to make sure that my elastic band will go inside. Now I'm going to flip it over to the side. Make sure it is straight, and I'm going to mark the same holes because then they are going to be in the same location. Now, you have the option of taking your chisel, putting it on the marks, and just pushing it down inside, okay? If it's not wide enough, you can go twice and just make the hole wider. And of course, you can also take your knife and go from mark to mark like this. I'll make it wider with my screw diver. Just shove it inside and twist it a bit. Great. I'll move this aside. And now I'm going to take my elastic band. We want more or less two centimeter more on both sides. I'll bring my scissors and just cut it. Here. Now I'm going to take a needle and I'm going to push it inside. Like so, I feel it's inside. I can catch it from the inside out and just pull it. And let's do the other side. Make sure it is straight and not twisting. I'm going to hold it and just push it inside. And now I'm going to flip it over. And I'm going to take a piece of double sided tape. I'll cut a small strip. I prefer to connect a double sided tape here because sometimes the PVA takes time to hold the elastic band, and I'm going to take it down and connect. Now I'm going to close it and see. This is quite loose. I think I can make it shorter, so I'll pull it a bit. Let me feel again. Now it feels okay, so I'm going to open it. Cut another piece of double sided tape, and I'm going to locate it from the exit point towards the middle of our journal. Let me see I can trim it around here. Take off a double sided tape and then connect. Let's close it and see the result. So this was quite simple. In the next lesson, we are going to make a special pocket because this is going to be a pocket with an element that would hold your pen or your pencil. This is a new design I thought of, and I think this is a great solution, so I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Pocket & Pen Holder: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to make a pocket and also an element to hold your pen or your pencil. I'm going to start by bringing a piece of paper. This paper is cut to 13.9 from top to bottom, and 27 centimeters, which is three times 9 centimeters the width of our journal. I'm going to start by marking 8.9 in two points I'll put my ruler between the two marks, take a bone folder and make crease, just running my bone folder between the lines and going to lift the paper. I'll fold it completely. And now I'm going to mark 1 centimeter less. So if this was 8.9, I'm going to do it 7.9 and 7.9 here. Put my ruler between the dots, take my bone folder and run it beside the ruler and then fold it and fold it completely. And now I'm going to mark two points here because I want to trim the rest. So what I actually did is, this is going to be folded like this, and this is going to be folded like this, and it's going to act as a pocket. But because we are going to have rounded corners, I'll bring my coin again, put it on the edge, mark like we did earlier, two sides, bring my scissors and cut it according to my marks. Okay. Again, you can take your file nail file and just round it a bit. So this is my first stage. I'm going to open it. And now I'm going to take a leftover strip of cloth. I want it as the width of my sides. I'm going to take my ruler. I can cut it. Let's cut it a little bit more so you can see how to trim it at the end. I'm going to cut it like this. And now I'm going to cut it 4 centimeters here and one, two, three, four, and cut it like this. Okay, up until now, now I'm going to fold it good side to good side, fold it in half. I'll do the other one, fold it in half. And now I'm going to fold half of it. So if I have 4 centimeters, it's actually going to be 1 centimeter each fold. I'll do the other one, fold it up until the end here, and the other side. Great. Now, I'm making sure this is the short side. I'm going to glue one fold of the cloth like so, and I'm going to connect it from the fold up until the other side. Making sure it is exactly in the fold. It is. Let's do the other side. I'm going to glue one of the folds. It doesn't matter which one, but up until the fold, and I'm going to connect it from the fold here. I like to flip it over and see that it works nicely. It does. And I'm going to work with the pump folder a bit. And now I'm going to take my ruler. And because we got a rounded edge, I'm going to put my ruler up until where it is starting to be rounded. I'll bring my knife, and I'm going to trim all the way. Let's do it again all the way. Great. Now what is going to happen is this is going to be folded like this. This is going to be folded like this. And then we are going to connect this trips to the backside, and we will have a very nice pocket. And what I want to do now is connect a pen or a pencil holder at the edge here. So not to get confused. I'm going to open it like this. This is the long side. I'll take my ruler and a pencil. And because this is 13.9, nearly 14, the center would be 7 centimeters. So I'm going to mark here seven. And now I have an option to decide between these two elastic bands. I think because I'm going to hold a pen, I think I'll go with a wider one. So I'm going to cut it around 7 centimeters from the edge. That's about here. And I'm going to put it with the center here and I'm going to mark from both sides. So one mark here and one mark here. I'll take my knife, and I'm going to cut between these two lines exactly in the fold. Great. Now, I'll take the elastic band, and I'm going to insert it with my needle once inside like this, hold it and pull it and now let's insert the other side, just holding it and shoving it inside. And how much of the loop we want, that depends on what you are going to connect inside. I'm going to leave it around 1 centimeter outside because if you want to make it for a marker or for two pencils or for a brush, I don't know, so you will decide what you want. The importance is to glue one side. Here and one side here. I'm going to bring my double sided tape, cut two pieces, one and two. I'll glue one from this point to the right, and one from this point to the left. Making sure it is straight. I'll peel this off and connect one side, and I'm going to peel this off and connect the other side. Great. Now I'm going to take my brush. I'm going to fold this inside, and I'm going to glue just the good cloth here and the good cloth here, I'm calling it the good cloth. This is the side, the inner side of the short one. And I'm going to close it. Like this, I'll take my bone folder and connect it. Both sides. It feels okay. I'm going to flip it over. And now I'm going to fold this and fold this and close my pocket. This is the backside, okay? I'm going to bring a piece of waste paper. Glue the edge here, tap it a bit. Take the wastepaper out and connect. Work with a p folder, flip it over, take another piece of wastepaper. Glue the edge here, tap it. Take the waste paper out and connect this side. Also, work with the pow folder. And look, we have ourselves a pocket. It could be open to put things inside and also a pen or a pencil holder that is going to point outside of our journal. So in the next lesson, what we are going to do is connect the pocket to the back side and connect something to the front side. I'll see you in the next lesson. 11. Connecting Endpapers: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to connect the pocket or end paper depending on your design choice. I want to show you two methods. One to use double sided tape. I'm going to use that for the pocket. And for the end paper for the beginning, I'm going to use PVA, so you will learn both methods. I will start with the back pocket. I'm going to bring my double sided tape, and what I'm going to do is connect it to one side. Just that it would be flush up until the beginning, I'm bringing my scissors and cutting it before the edge so it won't point out. So this is one side. Now let's do the other side. I'm going to bring it from the rounded corners, up until the other side, and cut it. I'm going with a bit of an angle, but we want it. Even if it's not up until the end, it's okay. And now I'm going to connect the top and bottom side, bringing the double sided tape, and then cutting it up until the end. Let's do the other side. Lift it a bit and make a cut. And I want also one line here in the middle so it hold firmly and then cut. Now, the advantages of a double sided tape, I'm going to peel it, and then I'll have a little bit of time to connect it and the middle one. Great. I'm going to bring my cover, open it in the backside, and I'm going to line it up all around. I want to flush here. I like a 1 millimeter gap here, all around, see that everything is okay with double sided tape. You don't glue it up until the end, and then you can lift it if you are not sure, and you can just work with it. You see I'm not letting it touch completely, just making sure everything is like I want it to be. And then I'm connecting it. I can work with my bone folder. Glue everything, I can open the pocket and work inside the pocket. So this is one side that is connected. Let me see. Very nice. And now I'm going to work on the other side, and here you have a couple of options. One option is to just cut a piece of paper with rounded corners, the same rounded coroner that you did to the outside, and just connect it like this. So this is a great option. You need a paper around 200 gram or more, so you won't see the tape so much, and it would be easy to glue it to decide. The other option, if you remember, in the beginning of the class, we cut two sides the same exactly. And I want to show you how to cover this board with cloth. So I made the corners like we did when we made the covers. That's exactly the same with the angles and everything. And I want to show you just this part how to cut. So I'm going to bring my small ruler and a pencil, and I'm going to mark around half a centimeter, from corner to corner of the ruler and mark around half a centimeter. Let's do it to the other side from corner to corner, and I'm going to mark half a centimeter. And now because I want to give it a 45 degree angle, I'm going to bring a triangular ruler. When the base is touching the straight line of the paper, then I have 45 degrees at the end, so I'm going to line it up and then mark with a pencil here and I'm going to mark also here. So I'm going to bring my ruler and knife, and I'm going to cut according to my marks. And now all I have left to do is just glue the short sides, and then the long sides. I'll bring a piece of wastepaper, put underneath. I'll bring my glue, and I'm going to glue up until the end, take out the wastepaper and fold it inside, take my bone folder and work here on the corner. And on all of the rest here, let's do the other side. Wastepaper glue up until the end. Take out wastepaper and connect And then the long sides, I'll bring a piece of wastepaper up until my corners, taking the wastepaper out, lifting and connecting. So this is the straight side that is going to be close to the spine. And the last one The front side. Take the waste paper out, lift it, and connect it nicely. So again, the corners is like the class when we are making the covers, but I wanted to show you how to connect this side. So I think this is a beautiful option that you have the same material for the outside and for the inside. But again, you can also just take a piece of paper, or you can also just glue it blank as it is a design choice, and I want to show you how to connect it. This is quite simple. I'm going to take a piece of waste paper and now I'm going to actually glue everything here up until the edge the complete piece because the outside and the inside is exactly the same. And if it's not the same and the inner piece is shorter, that is why I prefer to glue the inside rather than the outside. Makes sense, right? I'm going to take the wastepaper out. Now you have time. Don't be alarmed. I'm going to bring a weight for the side and one weight here, and I'm going to bring the inner piece, and I'm going to see it is aligned. I'll move my weights. But you can also with your eye, make sure it is straight. You can lift it and see that everything is straight. And when it is, you are going to take your bone folder and work all around after you made sure it is glued properly, I'll bring my weights. But you can also find in your house something heavy like a pile of books or something that it would glue properly. I'll give it a couple of minutes. I'll clear out everything, and I'll see you in our final lesson. 12. Final Lesson: So here we are with a final result. Let's take a minute and appreciate what we have made this is the version with a cloth inside and various kinds of paper, and we have ourselves the pocket. And I would love to see what you have made. So please share it with us in our class projects. I promise to see each and every submitted work and also answer questions if you have any. Also, I would really appreciate it if you can leave a review. It takes just a minute, and it helps tremendously, helps me and also help others find this class. So again, thank you for joining me, and I'll see you in my next class.