Trim your paper so that the thicker paper is 1/2″ longer and wider than the 4-5 sheets.»Fold each piece of paper in half ham-burger style, one at a time »Nest all of the folded papers together with the thick sheet on the outside to that they resemble a book.

Center the 4-5 sheets of paper on the thicker sheet so that they have a 1/4″ border.»Use your ruler and pencil to measure three evenly spaced dots along the fold so that the middle dot is in the middle of the fold and the side dots are at least 1″ from the edg-es. »Use your awl to pierce each dot all the way through every paper in the stack.

Measure and cut enough string to span 3x the width of the cover paper and then thread your needle. »Starting from the outside of the sketch-book, run the needle through the center hole and then back out through the bot-tom hole without pulling the string all the way through. » From the bottom hole, run your needle along the outside binding and back through the top hole. » Now run your needle through the center once more.

Pull the ends of the string so that they are approximately the same length and make sure that each one is on either side of the string that is running along the binding.» Tie a bow with the ends and trim the excess. » Decorate your new sketchbook!