 Hey guys, how are you today? All right, so I was asked a while back how I make these notebooks I sold a few of them on my Etsy shop. I have one here that I'm using to do daily drawings in I have to do today's drawing They're simple they're really easy to make you're all gonna be very surprised I think so the first thing you need is something for the cover and then paper for the inside now for the inside I have 70 pound drawing paper That's kind of heavy for drawing paper, but the reason is because I like to use ballpoint pen and my Fountain pens and while you're water-soluble fountain pens and I like to add not a lot of water but a little bit and so to get some of this shading here and Generally the color is Gel highlighter crayons so Because I am putting a little bit of water and a ballpoint pen You sometimes get some shadowing through especially if you hold it up to the light But it doesn't bleed through and it's not super obvious and that's what I like about it Which is why I use a 70 pound paper. So For the cover so that's what these are leftover pieces from the last time I made a sketchbook the cover Is made from these file folders So the first thing you do is we're going to take one out And we are going to cut it down to 8 and a half by 11 ish You want to cut it into two pieces of paper so that it fits in your printer your computer printer Okay, so I'm going to do that Don't do anything special. The first thing I do is cut off the fold My desk is very messy right now In case you didn't notice no I do it's weird to do it that way. Okay So the first thing we do is cut off the fold and I'm going to cut off Right here where this goes in right here. I'm just going to cut that off And you get something that's about Seven and a half by Like 11 and a half which is actually bigger than we need it to be um, when we when we're done We're going to cut our cover piece I mean my ruler We're going to cut our cover piece so that it's seven By I want to say 10. Yep seven by 10 So how you want to have it be a little bit bigger than what you need for it to be the best then I'm going to run it through some printer with some copies of my artwork on it I know what you're thinking. This is a brown background But I like that in all of my planner set in my etsy store You get a couple of different pages that have configurations of my artwork that's used in that planner set In this particular case, this is the feathers set and you get one whole big sheet That's just the feathers. So if you print that sheet out on this paper It's not going to print the white But it'll print the feathers and you get something that looks like this to use for the cover So that's the trick with this Otherwise, there's no trick. All right, so I'm going to print this and I'll be right back Okay, while that's printing and I think it's just about done We are going to need a minimum of eight sheets of paper Um, I wouldn't do more than 16. The sketchbook gets too fat The last one I did this one is 16 And I initially stapled it And you could use it that way stapled. I sold them stapled But with instructions that they could pull the staples out and stitch it stitch it Which obviously is what I did here because I tend to be a gorilla with my journals and I do a lot of this And you know, the staples just don't hold so If you want, um If you really wanted to hold you should stitch it But I definitely wouldn't put more than 16 because it would just get for this little journal and that The heavyweight paper it would be too fat. That's my opinion. All right, so I'm going to do eight this time seven eight I printed two covers. So one two three four five six seven eight, all right Is that good at the table? So you're going to need, um Them to be seven by ten So the first thing we're going to do is cut them down to ten They're just right at about seven. So we're going to leave that They don't have to be perfect on this pass and you'll see why in a bit My blade's getting dull, can you tell? So I'm going to cut all my pages down and I'm going to cut my My cover pieces to the same size seven by ten. I'll be right back. Okay. Now. We've got all our pieces of paper Now we do a really exciting part and I'm just kidding and being sarcastic You want to fold everything in half? It's not exciting. It's really really the most tedious part of making your own journals But the reward reward is well worth it. So sit and fold all of your papers together And then once you have everything folded match up You're going to match up eight of the white blank papers With each cover Like I said, you could do as many as 16. This is two Yeah, this is two you could do as many as 16 But I don't recommend you do more than that Not if you're using the stick heavyweight paper If you use a different kind of paper then you might be able to do more pages, but All right, so I'm going to do that. I'll be right back. So now we're all folded and complete If you have a long pamphlet stapler Which is what I use when I staple them And it looks like this Then you can reach your book into here and line up your stapler with the spine And staple the binding together which I've done and I I've done it and I love it and it's easy. It's quick. You could do that And that's how I do them sometimes for sale on etsy But again with instructions that you could pull the staples out and stitch it closed I'm going to stitch these closed So I'm going to get some thread And a needle and a pokey tool because those are what you're going to need and I use usually embroidery floss um a long large eyed needle And um pokey tool or ice pick. So one of these like tim holz. This is called a pokey tool, right? And ice or ice pick. All right, so let me get that. I'll be right back. I have this gizmo It's not required. You could not I did I bound books for years without it But I that being said I got it on etsy and I'll put a link for those of you who want it in the description below It's made out of wood. It wasn't super cheap, but I love binding journals. So for me, it was well worth it If you're not going to use one you need to hold all your pages tight to the spine It's helpful if you clip them And then you want to take your sharp tool and you want to poke a hole in the middle And then one about an edge an inch from either edge Okay, if you have one of these cradles, it's easier um, I'm not super professionalistic professionalistic Perfectionistic about making sure things are lined up or straight or even if you are you should measure I'm not going to I'm going to eyeball the center and I'm going to poke a hole And this cradle just help keep helps keep everything together and tight While ensuring that where you're poking goes right into that fold. I'm going to eyeball about an inch from the edge and poke About an inch from the other edge and poke And then I'm going to do the other one And this this comes apart and I can fold it and put it away So it stores really easily which I love Okay, so now those are all poked all that just for poking the holes So then once I'm done It folds flat It came in this bag And I can put it in the box with my other book binding tools Okay, so now we're going to take I have some purple embroidery floss Because I used to embroider and I have lots of floss so It works just fine I have a large book binding needle And I don't know how my reading glasses on and I did it anyway. Yay. Okay All right, so we're going to take one of our books. We're going to put our needle into the center hole from the outside You can do it the other way if you want to all right We pull it through but leave a tail of of where are we leave a tail of thread And then I'm going to come in the upper hole and then I'm going to go all the way down From the outside to the lower hole Then I'm going to go back out That center hole again and I'm going to come out on the other side of the thread So that that long thread gets trapped between the two cut ends I'm going to just gently pull it tight And then I'm going to tie A knot I usually tie it three times Trim them off so they're not so long And We are sewn together. I'm going to show you though in a minute how to fine tune it and I'll be right back Okay, so now you will note now you have two sketchbooks, but you'll notice That even though your papers are all the same size when you fold it in half Some of the edges stick out on the top and I actually have some up here and on the side You know When you fold all the papers together and you fold them in half It displaces some of the paper just a little bit So you have to straighten up the edge clean up the edge. I should say you don't have to But I like to especially if I'm listing them in my etsy shop. So I'm going to line up My metal ruler with the brown edge of the cover And then I'm going to use my exacto knife With a nice sharp blade on it I need to stand up. Hopefully I can keep my head out of the camera And you run The blade down. I usually do a few from what each side Okay So that's all nice and cleaned up, right? I'm going to do the other one Which isn't nearly as messy as the first one and I'll be right one more thing you can do To make your notebooks really look really cool Is round the edges now there's a lot of different ways you can tools that you can do that with A lot of different ways that you can do it There's punches out there crop a dial. I think has one That will do lots of paper a thick amount of paper. I have this old chomper thing It says around the block I actually got it from canvas corp because I think canvas corp Acquired the company that used to make these Anyway, it does it all it does is punch paper and chop corners. It's all it does So I'm going to That's a there's a little waste tray right there So I'm going to put this in here And shove it in there. Hopefully pretty good And you get a notebook with rounded corners Now as you're You know creating your little notebooks. I'd like to do these for daily sketches and our daily art Daily art practice But whatever you do them for you want to keep or want to use them for you want to keep that in mind as you're building them and Add it appropriately. Maybe you want to use it To maybe you want to add little pockets to it to hold different little daily mementos and that's really sharp I shouldn't stick my finger in there Maybe you want to Add calendar pages and use it as a mini planner. There's a lot of different things you could use it for So think about it. But this is how I make my little Daily sketchbooks. I don't always make them but I do like to make them And one of these because of the way I've done it Eight sheets of paper Gives you 16 sides times two, which is 32 pages So one of these is enough for a month's worth of notes when I made this one with 16 pages You can do two months so I like that. I don't like to have the same like journal hanging around for the entire year that I'm doing daily sketches in That gets old And I get bored because you know, I have the attention span of a nat So anyway, all right, that's it for today. I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do If you want to see some of my daily artwork and daily doodles, you can follow me on social media You can find all my social media links my etsy shop my website all of the facebook groups. I teach or share in They're all in my link tree link, which is in the video description You it says link tree Slash jenna b erin's if you click on it, it's going to give you a list of places to find me on the internet So I just can't hide anymore But that's okay. I'm all right with that If you want to support the free content on my channel by shopping in my etsy shop Perusing my amazon wishlist. Please feel free to do so. I'll be okay with that And above all don't forget the most important thing which is to go out and have a great day Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and honestly, I'll see you later. Bye guys