DIY Handmade Mini and Super Mini Journal

An year before I went crazy for Mini Sketchbooks, watercolor books, journals. Now almost after an year I am making my own handmade journals. This DIY Handmade Mini and Super mini journal is so easy to make even a beginner can do this.

Why Mini Journals?

I love mini journals. For doodling also I prefer A5 or below. A6 and A7 sizes are my favourite. You can see n number of paintings, doodles etc on my blog which is done on Mini Journals, Sketchbooks, Watercolor books. The feeling of finishing a project in one seating is very important for me. I generally paint or draw early morning and have extreme time constraint.

Types of Mini Journals-

I have many mini journals from different brands, Instagram seller and after understanding the anatomy of it I googled how to make and to my surprise it looked fairly easy.

You can check many of my Mini Sketchbook posts by clicking here

Some of the supply link of the products I am using are:-

Ayush Paper Mini Sketchbook Collection by clicking here. They have watercolor book, grey, brown, black and white sketchbook in sizes 4*4cm and 180 to 270 gsm. Needless to say they are my most favourite.

Menorah Stationery too have wonderful collection and you can check their A7 Size product by clicking here.

I will do a separate post on my Mini Sketchbooks/ Journals/Watercolor books collection and will link every product detail there. That will make more sense.

My Own DIY Handmade Mini Watercolor Book

In last 4-5 months I have made many DIY handmade sketchbooks. You can check many of my DIY hobby related including journals by clicking here

As of now I only made sketchbooks from around 200 GSM hot pressed paper or some handmade papers (GSM may be around 220). I wanted to make a proper DIY Handmade Watercolor book which has 270 GSM or above paper. Luckily I had some loose A5 cotton watercolor paper of 270 GSM. From one sheet of A5 Paper I made 2 Watercolor Book

One is of around 3*2.5 cm (28 sheets, 56 pages) hand deckle edged another one is 1.9*1.5 cm (6 sheets, 12 pages) with normal scissor cut. I have used normal sewing thread to bind. For my initial journals I did kettle stitch and in my last two journals I tried coptic stitch and I found coptic stitch much more better. I checked on Youtube and came across this Kettle Stitch which is more like coptic stitch and its perfect for these kind of books and I believe I am going to make many journals using this technique. You can check the tutorial here

For cover I used a thick handmade paper which I already had, and thread used is crochet yarn. Going forward I will try to make fancy covering as these two have the most basic one. But I love them.

Below are the pics:-

My Views-

It was a fun project but I did face lot of difficulty in both. Deckle edging a thick 270 gsm paper was a tough deal. I literally sore my fingers by deckle edging 28 sheets. But the result was worth the pain. I dont have the proper tool so I used normal needle to make hole and that was again a difficult process in this much thick paper. But all well that ends well. I am definitely going to make more they are so cost effective and you can make whatever size you want.

With lots of ♥️

Divya

Note- pictures are clicked from my mobile without any filter mode. Further to enhance the features it’s edited on App.

Disclaimer- this DIY has been done by following youtube video. I have given the full credit to its original source by providing the link. The opinion and feedback shared is my own based on my experience