Traveler's Notebook Inserts

As soon as I finished making my Traveler's Notebook cover, I was itching to put it to use!  (You can find the tutorial here.)  I love the basic kraft Moleskine journals that are available... but I didn't want to invest a lot of money into a simple notebook, so I decided to make my own.

I have so many beautiful pieces of patterned paper that I've been hoarding from my Studio Calico scrapbooking kits & it was time to put them to use!

It's so easy to make your own notebook inserts!

1. Cut a piece of patterned paper & fold it in the middle.  This is now the cover of your notebook.
2. Fold several sheets (I used ~10) of loose leaf notebook paper or grid paper in half.  Don't worry about cutting them to size quite yet.
3. Place the paper inside of the notebook cover, lining up the center crease.
4. Use a long reach stapler to secure paper together.  You can also hand-stitch or machine stitch the crease.
5. Fold the notebook and trim away the paper that extends beyond the journal cover.  You can use a heavy duty paper trimmer or a straight edge ruler/blade.

If you want to secure more than two journals inside of your Traveler's Notebook, you'll need to add an extra elastic loop around the middle page of your notebook and the spine.  I used leftover elastic cord, but you can also use large rubber bands.  Once you have this loop in place, you can slip a second journal onto the elastic that's on the outside spine of the first journal.  Now both journals can slide under the elastic that's part of the leather cover. (This sounds tricky, but it's super simple.  If you need a visual, there are a lot of videos available on YouTube.)

Now that I've completed a few journals, I think I might make some modifications for next time.  Instead of stapling the inside paper onto the {hoarded} paper cover, I think I'll staple just the paper and then place the cover around the bound pages.  The elastic will hold the cover & paper together & when my pages are full, I can simply remove them and insert a new set of pages without having to discard my pretty covers.

My first notebook will be used for menu planning & grocery lists.  The second is for jotting down notes & the third will be an expense/mileage tracker.

These planners can be used in so many different ways & I love how they can be customized so easily.