This project is about making a leather cover with a pen holder that also serves as a seal to the journal.

Step 1: GATHER MATERIALS

Leather (thin leather is recommended)

Pair of scissors that can cut leather

Leather burnishing tools (a simple leather slicker will do)

Pen

Ruler

Glue (tacky glue is recommended)

Step 2:

First, draw an outline of an opened notebook on the leather. Be sure to add an allowance for the notebook's spine. You should be able to wrap the leather around the notebook. DO NOT CUT THE LEATHER YET. For a 3x5 journal, the outline should be around 6.25x5 inches.

Step 3:

Draw a semicircle on the right side of the notebook. This flap serves as the cover to the journal.

Step 4:

Draw rectangles on both the flap and the front cover. The rectangles should match when the leather is folded.

Step 5:

Cut the outline (including the flap). Additionally, cut the whole rectangle in the flap, but only the top and bottom lines in the cover.

Step 6:

Glue the notebook to the outline. Use tacky glue for best results. DO NOT put glue on the part where the pen is supposed to go, which is colored yellow in the diagram. This is because this part should be able to hold the pen.

Step 7:

With this, you should be able to pull the leather upwards and fit the pen in there, which will also seal the journal. All that is left is polishing the leather edges. To do so, use the slicker to burnish the edges. You can take this a step further by using better polishing tools such as gum tragacanth.