Vintage Repurposed Book Notebook

Ready to make a vintage repurposed book notebook? Are you looking for a way to upcycle old books? You can easily upcycle them into notebooks using this easy DIY. Here we turn these old science book covers into fun and useful vintage book covered notebooks. And the best part is that you don’t need a hole punch or a spiral binding machine because you are also using inexpensive spiral bound notebooks and just adding a new cover.

These can be used for note taking, as journals or even given as a one-of-a-kind gift.

Supplies:

Inexpensive spiral notebook
Vintage book that matches the size of your notebook
Xacto knife
Paper glue//white glue
Brush for spreading glue
clear tape
Heavy duty glue (like E6000)F
Permanent marker
Pencil
Metal ruler for cutting

In order to give our vintage book cover a neutral background we first want to use our permanent marker to color in the edge of the notebook around the spiral binding. This does take some time and is a good thing to do while you are watching TV or listening to music or a podcast.

Next we are going to separate our book cover from the pages by using our Xacto knife the cut down the edge of the spine. Cut through the layer so that the pages come apart from the cover.

Do this to the front and back until the pages can be completely removed from the book. Set the interior pages aside.

Now we can cut the cover to separate it from the spine of the book. Your metal ruler will come in handy for this part and help you cut a straight edge.

Now that your cover is cut you can seal up the cut edge with a piece of clear tape. Trim off any excess tape at the ends.

Do a quick test fit of your cover onto your spiral notebook to be sure that you have covered the spine with the marker and there are no gaps. You can touch any missed spots now before we glue the cover on.

On the inside of the cover add your heavy duty glue and spread it out as evenly as you can.

Place the cover glue side down on your spiral notebook and place some books on top for weight to be sure the glue will adhere.

Once the covers are glued on we can add some pages to the inside of the cover. I am just using the first and last pages of my book for this.

Trim any rough edges so that you have a clean cut.

If your cover is smaller than your pages like mine is you can trim the excess off. Do this slowly so you do not cut into the cover.

Mark where the cover ends on the inside pages and trim those also.

Apply paper glue to the wrong side of your inside page and adhere it to the inside cover of your notebook.

I also like to cover both sides of the first and last pages of my notebook with a book page. This gives the book a bit of fun and also protects the inside lined pages in my notebook.

Here is a photo of the inside of the first page of my notebook. It is ready for use.

I added my book pages to the last page too.

I love how this notebook turned out!

You can make a whole set to use for journaling, note taking or to give away as gifts.