I have to confess—I love these purchased journals. I buy them locally and use them for keeping a record of the details of each of my book projects. I love that the cover and pages can completely fold around the book so that I don’t lose precious space on my already overburdened work surface. My daughter gave me the Algebra 2 book in honor of my 25 years of teaching mathematics and I’ve been hooked ever since. There is an ample supply of these repurposed books at Eureka Books and I was hoping to find one that could be used for my historical research. Alas, I didn’t find a cover or a size that I liked. Hmmm. I remembered that I have a Zutter I’ve never used and thought I’d best try to use this instrument (and assuage some guilt—I’ve had it for several years).  The process was very interesting and involved a little mathematics to make things work out but I’m really pleased with the results.

I have quite a collection of books with interesting covers and this one was perfect for researching Humboldt Count history, don’t you think?

I used Strathmore 300 Drawing Paper for the blank pages and I scattered some of the interesting pages from the book throughout the journal. I had to use a different punching pattern on the pages and covers but managed to work it out. I don’t like the extra holes at the bottom but I didn’t want to spend the time to figure out how to avoid them. I also added more pages than the spiral wanted so I will take some out. PS. This is NOT cost effective—they are only about $15 to purchase—but I smile every time I use it.