How To Make A Notebook

See how to make your own notebook - Do you like colors? And paper? And sewing? What about sewing a notebook tailored exactly to your taste? Oh, you'll love this one. It's an easy, step-by-step tutorial on how to make a notebook. And that using one single straight stitch on your sewing machine. Or you can add tons of embellishments - your choice!

This post contains affiliate links at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support! If you're here for sewing for school, also check out

• these back to school sewing projects
• make a matching case - slim pencil case tutorial
• or this free backpack sewing pattern

Homemade notebooks are so much better than the regular store-bought ones, and unique! Also, they make terrific little diy gifts - you can also print out and add these free printable tags I offered a while ago.

How To Make Your Own Notebook

I think this might be the simplest way to bind your own notebooks! All you need is a little scrapbook paper, a few scrap pieces of paper, and a sewing machine. See how to make your own notebook (or ten) and enjoy this easy crafting project.

How Long Does It take to make a notebook?

I made 8 diy notebooks in half an hour - and that includes taking photos and selecting the colors!

Supplies to Sew A Notebook

• 5 sheets of A4/lettersize paper per notebook, each cut in half (=getting 10 sheets)
• one piece of A5/half-letter size paper for the notebook cover (something you really like 🙂
• a piece of other colored paper, to use it on the cover
• scissors or cutting knife
• sewing machine
• optional: decorative materials (scrapbooking stickers, washi tape, these free printable tags)

The paper for the inside of the notebook can be white or - even better - use the lightly colored ones - and they even do not need to be the same color. I mixed whites and pastels.

Steps to Make A Notebook

You won't need any bookbinding tools, and there's no manual binding involved. Jsut your sewing machine and one seam. Let's start:

Gather the materials for your diy notebook

Folding and assembling: fold the 10 sheets of A5 paper and the cover page in half. Assemble the inside sheets together, and put the cover on the outside. (The photo shows the 8 sets I made initially, you'll only have one.)

Create the paper notebook cover

OPTIONAL: you can add ornaments or a small rectangle of another colored paper on the front part. You can simply glue these extra parts to the cover, or sew them like I did. (I just looove the zigzag stitch, can you tell?)

How to bind your notebook using a sewing machine

Once you have lined up the cover and pages, sew through the entire pile of paper. Use the regular straight stitch on your sewing machine. Just follow the fold, it's even simpler than it looks.

Use the longest stitch length your machine has available. Mine was 4.

Secure the stitches: tie a knot at the beginning and end of the stitch and cut off the excess thread. As you'll notice, I hid the knots on the inside part of the notebook.

Cut Off Excess Paper

Cut off any excess paper if you like an extra even edge. Now, you've made yourself a beautiful notebook. Enjoy!

This notebook sewing project will not only be fun to work on now, but you'll also enjoy using the finished product in the future - or giving the diy notebook as a pretty little gift!

So this is was my current collection of DIY notebooks:

BONUS HINT No 1: Actually, you can make them even prettier and more personalized by adding any paper crafting decorations you can think of. You might want to use some of these ideas:

1) Washi tape. These cute pieces on Etsy.

2) Fun scrapbooking stickers, like these.
3) But you'll get the most for your money if you get yourself some STAMPS (you can make literally hundreds of marvelous cover pages using one single stamp 🙂

These have been marked down as I'm writing this, but find them just beautiful

BONUS HINT No 2:

You'll notice that it is impossible to stop at one single piece of notebook and might soon realize you've made too many of them... But don't worry, they'll make a perfect diy present. Save this crafty idea for later:

  More DIY tutorials are on their way - stay tuned! Happy crafting!