Shortly after making my inspiration post, I found an extremely similar process conducted by a craft-cycle.com user “McKenzie” posted to the site – https://www.craft-cycle.com/upcycled-receipt-notebook-2/ – on August 3rd of last year, with pretty promising results regarding notebook/sketchpad functionality. Reading through this post addressed a lot of my own concerns regarding how I would proceed with fabrication of the sketchpad. I will reference procedures I follow from McKenzie throughout this post.
Within my inspiration post, Jackson Hootman made an excellent suggestion to create a digital stencil for my sketchpad cover design. Since I will only be making one sketchpad, I decided instead to lay down pencil work of the design on the cardboard cover first. I had initially planned to lay down the final design in Black Sharpie, but I am open to suggestions of another pen, marker, or any other marking instrument for my finalized cover design.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Cover-Pencil-Sketch.jpg?resize=375%2C500&ssl=1)
I folded all my accumulated receipts – 27 total – in half such that the blank back faced outwards as both sides of a sheet. After doing this, four of the receipts were significantly smaller than the cover, so I set those aside not to be used within the fabrication.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Short-Receipts.jpg?resize=386%2C515&ssl=1)
The remaining receipts all were similar enough in size to the cover to be functional, so following McKenzie’s procedure from the Craft-Cycle post I snipped them all to better fit the sketchpad cover, and compressed them below a stack of textbooks overnight so they would hold their folded shape better for subsequent fabrication steps.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Page-Compressing.jpg?resize=507%2C380&ssl=1)
Again following McKenzie’s Craft-Cycle post procedure, I added glue to the top of my clamped stack of receipts, though for holding the stack together I used long needle nosed pliers in lieu of two clothespins. I then followed her step of adding a top binding of painter’s tape, fully completing my sketchpad pages.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sketchpad-Gluing.jpg?resize=516%2C688&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Sketchpad-Binding.jpg?resize=512%2C682&ssl=1)
Following my initial plan to add a journal strap to hold the cover closed, I was able to find an abandoned strip of hook and loop (“Velcro”) in an Engineering lab over the weekend. I then cut the Within the Craft-Cycle post, McKenzie also creates a notebook strap with an old command strip.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Hook-_-Loop-Strap.jpg?resize=512%2C683&ssl=1)
The work that remains to be done to complete my pocket-sized sketchpad is as follows:
- Trace over cover pencil design with desired marking instrument
- Add an aesthetic to the back cardboard cover
- Fasten the Sketchpad pages to the inside of the cardboard cover with hot glue
- Potentially add layers of packing tape to cover for sturdiness
- Fasten the cut sections of hook and loop to the front and back covers