Orange Slice Notebook | Screw Post Binding | Leather Journal Cover

I have wanted to make use of binding screws for some time, after seeing a photo album bound using them. I decided to make a novelty notebook in the shape and design of an orange slice, and use many shades of orange for a more interesting appearance.

Thes best thing about using this method of binding is that once you have written on all of the pages, you can then undo the screws and replace the pages....thus creating a whole new notebook in very little time!

I hope you enjoy this project, and thank-you for reading :)

Step 1: What You Will Need

- Binding screws/posts; These are used for binding books and you may find them under scrapbooking supplies. You can choose whatever length you like, as the length of the screws dictates the thickness of the notebook you make.

- Paper; I used regular weight paper (copy paper) in orange and yellow colours. You can of course choose any papers you wish...graph paper, lined paper, watercolour paper, book pages, rainbow colours, whatever you like!

- (Faux) Leather for the cover; I used fluorescent orange, tangerine orange and metallic orange faux leather pieces; I bought these materials as 'samples' off Ebay. The fluorescent orange leather was upholstery weight and thicker than the others. You could use felt as an alternative as that also does not fray.

- Scissors

- Hole punch

- Pencil & rubber

- Ruler

- Bulldog clip

- Awl; for punching holes in the faux leather.

- Superglue; I used an all-purpose glue to join the leather pieces together.

Step 2: Cut the Paper Into Strips

You first need to cut all of your paper into strips that are a little wider and longer than you want your final notebook/journal to be.

You need a stack of paper that, along with the layers of materials you're using for your cover, equals the height of the binding screw posts.

Step 3: Cut Out the Paper Pieces

Take a scrap piece of paper and cut out a rectangle the same size as your paper strips (or, if they are different sizes, the same size as the smallest paper strip).

Fold the rectangle in half and then cut an arc with your scissors. You should then unfold the paper to give you (hopefully) a symmetrical semi-circle. This is your page template.

Stack the paper strips, place the template on top, and line the papers up along the straight edge.

Hold in place with a bulldog clip.

I could only cut through a few pages at a time with my scissors, so that's what I did; I just clipped the template onto the top of a few paper strips, lined up the edge, and cut around the shape.

I repeated this for all the paper strips.

I then used a pencil and ruler to mark the centre of the straight edge on all of the pages, as shown in the photo.

Use this mark to punch holes with the hole punch in the same place on every page.

Use an eraser to remove the pencil marks on the edge of the pages.

Step 4: Cut Out the Leather Pieces

Now it's time to cut out the leather pieces for the notebook cover.

To do this, take your paper template and draw an orange slice design on one half. I aimed to use 3 different orange colours; one for the outside edge, one for the bulk of the slice, and one for the segments.

I clipped the template onto the piece of leather that will form the outside edge. I then cut around the edge of the template to product a semi-circle of leather.

Then I folded the template in half so I could still see the drawn design, then cut along the arc I had drawn. This produced a smaller semi-circle shape. I clipped this to the next piece of leather and cut around it to produce the smaller semi-circle shape.

Step 5: Cut Out the Segments

Finally I cut out the 2 segment shapes I had drawn on the paper template.

I cut these shapes out of the last piece of leather. I then flipped the 2 segment templates over and cut around them again to produce a total of 4 leather segments. The reason I flipped the template over for the second 2 segments was so that the result would be a symmetrical orange slice.

Arrange the leather pieces into the cover design, making any adjustments you like.