DIY Notebook #2

I recently wrote about Version 2 of my first ever DIY notebook. It's pretty useful, but I keep wishing for more. Thus, my second DIY notebook.

This one tries to address two problems with #1V2:

• It's clumsy to archive in my "Junior" Circa.
  My preferred size is A5 or roughly 5.5"x8.5". In Circa-land, this means using eight discs. But #1 in both its incarnations uses six disks down the long side. Moving pages I want to archive from the smaller to the Junior ends up bunching up the contents of the Junior.
• The discs, even though they're only 11/16" diameter, still get in the way when I write on the left hand sides of pages. (I'm a righty.)
  I have longed for a top-ringed binder ever since seeing one in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight - 22 years now. (In case, you're wondering, here is the only image I can find on all of Google of it.) 

I started by sizing the paper: basically half of a Junior-sized sheet. Actually a little less (4"x5.5") to make sure sheets don't overlap. I cut up some paper, rounded the corners, and Circa-punched the sheets along the top.

Since the sheets are bigger, I figure I can do with fewer sheets; so I used the smallest Circa rings I have - 0.5" diameter. Since I don't have a properly sized cover, I decided to "go retro" and used the stiff back cover of an old spiral bound notebook to make the front and back covers. It's still got a small enough footprint to fit in my jacket pockets, and its thin profile will help prevent pocket-bulge.

Here's what it looked like assembled. I think the yellow of the cover looks quite nice.

However, no notebook is complete without some pockets.

So I started with a simple "back" pocket made of card stock. It doesn't have the accordion pleat like a Moleskine, but that's okay because I don't tend to put much stuff in there. I cut the cardstock to include tabs I could fold back and glue to the yellow cover.

(More pix at the end of this post.)

Encouraged by how good the pocket seemed, I got really creative and added a second piece of cardstock inside the "front" cover that has three slits in it for business cards and related paraphernalia.

I think both pockets are usable but too snug for much use. I will have to rethink them at some point, but for now I'm relatively satisfied.

The back pocket half glued.

The front sheet. The pencil lines mark where
I slit the sheet to allow inserting cards.

Here is the front pocket installed, with
actual stuff in them.

Here are 2 sheets in the "archive". There's
still a bit of overlap, which I'll eventually fix
by making my next batch of sheets a
a smidge narrower.