Recently I decided to start a dream journal, and instead of buying yet another notebook (and i do love notebooks ) I thought it would be fun to reuse the planner I just finished. It’s a twin spiral notebook, with a thick plastic type front and back cover. Let’s be honest, I used the good stickers on the cover
My first thought is gesso-ing the pages over the (not so pretty) planner writing. But after 2 coats of gesso the old writing shows through. I plan on using sharpies to write the dreams in. Maybe it’ll give character?
But my question is, has anyone ever tried to reuse a spiral notebook? Is there another way that you might go about it? Decoupage, painting, paper mache? I tried looking for loose paper that way i could take out and recycle the old ones, but I don’t know how to search for such a thing if it exists. So far a search for spiral insert paper comes up with more spiral notebooks.
What should I do?
Pics to help make sense
I love that you’re reusing this notebook! I think that the gesso with the bleeding through would be a very cool look, too. That said, I think that this notebook is more of a comb binding than a spiral, so you may have better luck looking that way. An office supply/printer might have the tools to punch the paper and make a new comb if you wanted. Otherwise, there are home crafter versions of these kind of binding machines. I have one by Bind-it-all and I think We R Makers makes one as well. These options really only having you able to reuse the covers, as the metal combs don’t really open nicely once they’ve been “closed.”
@TheMistressT ohhh that’s what it’s called! Omg thanks! I am also realizing that the gesso isn’t meant to be thick white paint like I thought it was. So it looks like that may be the way to go!
What kind of marker did you use for the journaling? It looks like it might have been water based so the water in the gesso is reactivating it. There are also some inks (I think dye based ink specifically) that will always “lift” up to the top layer regardless of what you put on it.
I would expect the gesso to be able to cover everything for the most part, especially if it’s applied thick enough. If the under layer was water based you might need to add another coat of gesso once it’s dry. Do you have some kind of scraper tool or old credit card you could try using instead of the paint brush? Cheap matte white acrylic might also work (think the $1 bottles at Joann’s).
