Tutorial: Greeting Card Recycled Notebook

I'm big on repurposing objects. One of the things I repurpose are greeting cards, festive season greetings, birthdays and such like. They have lovely prints on them and too nice to just throw away. The cards I used are the 15cm by 15cm variety, I take the front print and use the plain back to punch out gift tags. Interestingly I'm running out of cards and if anybody feel like donating and would like to get rid of them, send them down my way. More than happy to get them off your hands for you.

This particular method I'm showing is called the '3 hole binding' it was taught to me in uni and I found it again in one of Keith Smith's '1-2-3 Section Sewing' book. I hope the instructions are clear enough...

We start of with five sheets of A6 paper folded in half, a section. Fold another to make two sections. (In this picture there are several sections ready folded)






Here are a bunch of pre folded greeting cards waiting to be sewn.








This is how the card should be folded, it sort of forms a W with a very low middle, one low peak and two valleys. Cut it down to the same height as the sections.






Line up one of the section with the card along one of the creases, open up the folded section and using a sharp point, punch a hole through the section and card. In my case, I used an embroidery needle with a large eye.





Create three holes. Here you can see the three holes along the crease of the opened section.

line up the second section with the first to create the same corresponding holes.

Now you have two sections ready with holes that lined up for sewing.

Using the holes that were already marked previously on the card, use the needle to create holes for the other valley.







Here you can see the holes all lined up along the valley creases of the card.







Starting from the middle hole, thread the needle through the first section and all the way out through the other side of the card and through the second section.






The black arrow shows the path of how the needle is going to go.

Here is the needle back at the first hole it started. Once the needle is through, tighten the stitching.

Lie the two ends of the thread on either side of the middle stitch.




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Create a knot so that the middle stitch is held down by it.

Like so, do a double knot so it'll stay put.

Turn the finished sewn book over and fold the book at the crease and use a bone folder to crease down firmly.

Close the other side of the book and repeat.

If you find your book opens up by itself is because the creases are still fresh and you just need to put it under weight for a while.

And there you have you own little notebook. It has about 40 sides to write on and it fits inside your wallet even.

These are the little notebooks that I give out in my classes for the students to write their notes in. I've ran out and I'll need to make some more...

You can make them any size, you can even use the whole greeting card. It's all up to you. Let me know how it went, did you make yourself a bunch of little notebooks?