A number of years ago Paul created a beautiful Traveler’s Notebook for me and I have loved using it.
Having a notebook for each subject, and yet all in one place, is the handiest thing for my brain!
In 2019 he made one for our oldest, and this year he made a third one for our youngest. The boys are using theirs for school and they love it! Paul has also gifted smaller versions, and it’s always a popular gift when he does.
After a rather lengthy period of promising this post it is finally done! Thanks for being patient!
There are some needed supplies in order to make these, which will increase the cost if you have to purchase them. Here are the supplies you will need to make your own traveler’s notebooks. I will share at the end of this post about sourcing leather.
Supplies Needed
a piece of leather – I will talk about this at the very end, so skip down to there if you don’t have leather and need some tips on buying leather! I’m in no way an expert on in, I just share the three different sources we utilized.
leather hole punch – I’ve linked to the one we own. It is inexpensive and a worthwhile tool to have on hand for handicrafts.
razor blade – make sure it is sharp for cutting!
cutting mat – this will both give you a surface for cutting and help with straight lines
straight, sturdy edge (that your razor blade can follow for straight cuts) – this can be a ruler or whatever you have on hand.
elastic – you need something really thin like this that you will push through the holes you will make. This is going to be the center elastic, which all the books will be attached to. (I’ll show a picture! it will make sense, promise!)
notebooks – the size of the notebooks you plan to use will determine the size of your cut leather journal for the cover, so make sure you know what size books you’ll be using! Our boys use the A5* size and I buy these notebooks in bulk. I like the assortment of blank and lined.
For my own traveler’s notebook I use the taller and slimmer style and these are the notebooks I buy. On occasions I have made my own notebooks for my traveler’s notebook, but I haven’t done that in awhile because, well, life.
Elastic bands for anchoring in additional notebooks – if you’re on a budget you can tie the elastic cord you bought into bands, but I find buying the bands to be tidier and so I buy them premade.
Making Your Traveler’s Notebook
Once you have all your supplies you are going to lay out your piece of leather and your notebooks. Your end product is going to be a leather “cover” that covers the notebooks and holds them in place with the elastic, so you need to make sure when you cut the leather you are both minimizing waste of leather you could use on other projects and also that you are cutting the cover to the size you need.
Keep in mind the more notebooks you use the larger your leather cover will need to be to cover it.
Our sons keep about 8 notebooks in their traveler’s notebook and their leather measures approx 8×12* inches, and when folded is 8×6 inches, there is 1/4 of leather on the top and bottom and, when there is just one notebook in the leather and its spine is centered with the center of the journal there is one inch of leather to the right.
Cutting Your Traveler’s Notebook
Once you know the size you will be cutting your leather, lay in on the cutting mat and use the sharp edge (ruler or whatever) and the razor blade to cut straight lines. I’ve tried scissors and it’s a disaster so I don’t recommend that method. You know how opposites tend to attract? My husband can cut straight lines and I cannot. He did all the work on all our notebook covers for me for this very reason.
Once the leather is cut to the right size you are going to use the smallest hole punch on the leather punch setting and cut four small holes. The piece of leather I had in these pictures happened to have a seam right down the center so it made it easy for us (and easy for you to see in the pictures!) but you’ll have to do some measurements. What we are doing is punching holes so we can run the elastic down the middle and then open a notebook and hold it in place with the elastic. I recommend folding your leather in half, visualizing – or marking with a pencil – where the center is, and putting four pencil marks approx 1/8-1/4 inch from the edge and from each other.
Elastic Cord
Once the holes are punched you are going to take the elastic cord. We buy what I linked above and let the boys pick what color they want for their center string. If you have made a different size you’ll need to refigure the numbers, but we cut 18 inches and then trimmed after we tied it off. Hopefully the pictures will clarify any confusion on this part. You are going to thread the cord through the four holes. The only cord visible outside the traveler’s notebook is going to be between the small space between the two holes at top and then again at the bottom. The knot will go on the inside. You can see this on the last picture above, with the notebook page showing off the cord.
Once this center cord is tied you are going to open one notebook to the center and slip in in. This will be your center notebook, as you add more notebooks you will add them to either side of this one. To add more notebooks you will either tie off more cord to make large elastic bands or buy them. I’ve found I prefer buying them for this purpose and get mine herein a pack of 13.
Links About Our Traveler’s Notebooks
Below I have included pictures of our three different traveler’s notebooks and you can see in the picture how the notebooks sit next to each other.
You can read more about my traveler’s notebook here. I no longer use it for planner/calendar, but do use it for all the other purposes stated in the post.
More on how my oldest utilized his traveler’s notebook in 7th grade can be found here.
And if you want some fun notebook covers I designed some free printables you can get here for the notebooks.
On buying leather
We have used three different sources for leather and there are pros and cons to each. I’ll share those with you here!
Leather store – 5/6 oz leather piece
We purchased ours from Tandy Leather (I looked at comparable leather pieces on Amazon and given the wide mix of reviews have none to recommend.) It was a very nice piece of leather and Paul made many things from it. It cost a lot (I believe in the $50-$75 range, but again, he did a lot of projects with it!) and we stained it ourselves. This is what my Traveler’s Notebook is made from and is my favorite. The inside is a little rougher than the outside.
Hobby Lobby Scraps
Hobby Lobby sells bags of leather scraps for $10, which is an amazing deal IF they have them in stock and IF there are scraps large enough. Judah’s traveler’s notebook is made from a scrap piece and it was easy to find, and left lots of little scraps for other leather crafts. (plus with the 40% off coupon it was an even better deal!) I went to buy one for Wesley and the leather scraps available were very light weight and/or tiny pieces. Your available scrap pieces will vary a lot from what I found. I am pretty sure I got 7/8 oz leather, which is a little on the heavy side. It was dyed and essentially the same on both sides of the leather.
Refurbishing a leather item, such as a purse or coat
This would be free or inexpensive depending on your ability to source it. The leather needs to be weighty enough that it doesn’t just flop around as a traveler’s notebook. The pictures above are from a used leather purse I bought for .50 at the thrift store! My guess is that it is probably a 3/4 oz leather as it is definitely lighter weight than the other two pieces, and yet it doesn’t flop.
So as you can see, each of us have leather traveler’s notebooks sourced from different places – and depending on your budget I would say any of these are great options. I’ve read people also buy from Joanne’s, but I’ve never looked there.
Note
*In writing this post I have realized that while Amazon calls the notebooks we use A5 size, they are not a genuine A5 notebook. Please ensure you have the notebooks you plan to use in your traveler’s notebook prior to cutting your leather for size!
