You will know if you’ve read some of my earlier blog posts that a few years ago I got really into rings organisers. You can read my first post HERE, and you can read my post about making my own Personal-size rings organiser HERE. For this first attempt I used tarpaulin (“tarp”), a kind of vinyl used on the side of lorries and for waterproof bags and backpacks. That organiser became my everyday carry (EDC) and I still use it to this day. It’s still in amazing condition, there’s no wear besides some scuffs from a pen, but I have to say I don’t take it out of the house every day so it doesn’t receive a lot of abuse.
The Personal size paper is not huge as it’s only 171 x 95 mm. This works well for me for my daily planning with two days to a page, but it’s a little small for making illustrations such as garment/fashion design. The next size up is A5, which is 210 x 148 mm, and this is a great size for note taking (see my YouTube video HERE). But I find it a little small for any kind of designing, but A4 is huge, so big that I don’t even own an A4 rings organiser. I do have a Deskfax, which is made for B5 paper (250 x 176 mm). This is a better size for me than A5 although the organiser itself does get kind of big. Unfortunately B5 paper is kind of rare in the UK so if I want inserts for it, I need to trim A4 paper myself (and also punch the holes myself).
So to come back to my wants for paper size when it comes to design/illustrations, I found A5 a little small but A4 too big, and I sometimes like to work on square paper. So I trimmed A4 paper down to what I call “A5-square” (210 x 210 mm) and that size works for me. But I have no rings organiser in that size and I haven’t found one online either. So I decided to make my own!
I had the idea to do this for quite a while but just put it on the backburner (like many of my ideas) until I found some really lovely black leather at a second-hand shop. I’m vegan so don’t want to buy new leather, but I am OK re-using and upcycling existing leather. This leather I bought was quite rigid but not massively thick so I felt it would work quite well for something like an organiser. So in this post I will explain what/how I did it, so perhaps it inspires you to make your own. It’s a long post because I try to share enough details to be useful to someone wanting to do this themselves. If you don’t like reading, just scroll through the pictures to get an idea of what this is about.
I started off with several doodles to help me think about what exactly I wanted to make. I eventually (sort of) settled on this:
You can see that this is an organiser to fit “A5-square” paper with a slip pocket on the inside flaps. There will also be a “modesty panel” to cover the right side of the pages when the organiser is closed (this is a term from corset making referring to extra fabric that’s sometimes added either to one side of the corset itself or as a separate piece to sit underneath the laces so that there’s no skin or undergarment showing through the laces). The organiser is to close with a strap with press stud, and there’s also a protective flap between the rings and the cover so that the leather won’t warp/sag into the space between the rings (I’ve seen this on some vintage Filofax organisers).
I made a paper model to the true size using thick parcel paper. I’ve not got a photo of it but you can imagine what it would look like. It’s just a long rectangular piece to the full size of the organiser and within it I placed (but not attached) the A5 size rings with a bunch of A5-square paper and then folded the paper cover shut to see if I thought there was enough spacing around the paper etc.
Once I was happy with my design and the dimensions, I started cutting out the pieces of leather using a metal ruler and a sharp craft knife. I used a white Posca paint pen to mark where I had to cut as this was very clearly visible on the inside of the black leather. I ended up with these pieces:
I was worried about stitching on the strap to the back flap whilst also having a slip pocket there, so because of this worry I decided to skip the back flap slip pocket. I did the same thing but also for the front flap slip pocket for my Personal in grey tarp and I regret that as I’d have liked a slip pocket on the front flap, so for this leather organiser I did really put the effort into making this happen.
The slip pocket has an unstitched edge there where the slip pocket is open, but it would look unfinished to me so I just did some stitching there for aesthetic reasons. I used a saddle stitch (you do this by hand). I used thread I bought online years ago, which the seller refers to as “Black Nylon Thread for Machine Sewing Leather”. I bought 3 mm and 4 mm leather hole punches to punch the holes for stitching, these things look like small forks. They come in different kinds of shapes, mine make a kind of “diagonal slit” hole. I put some thick grey card (card, NOT corrugated cardboard) underneath and I bought a hammer with a nylon head because a metal hammer on a metal tool makes lots of unpleasant noise. I do still wear ear protection when hammering because hearing damage all adds up over your lifetime and can’t be undone!
When I had made this decorative stitching on the open side of the slip pocket, I used double-sided tape to tape it to the inside of the organiser cover to keep it in place when making the holes for stitching and when stitching the pocket to the inside of the organiser:
When taped in place, use the fork and hammer to punch holes through the slip pocket AND the inner layer of the organiser (I used thick grey card underneath the layers of leather to create the holes, the card is not shown in this picture as the picture shows the result):
Use the saddle stitch again to stitch the pocket to the inside layer of the organiser cover (I stitched through the couple of holes at the opening twice for reinforcement):
Now we get to the closure strap! This is made of two pieces of leather glued together on the “inside” of the leather. I used Renia “Aquilim 315 dispersion adhesives” glue. You apply a thin layer to both sides you want to glue together, wait 30-60 minutes and then press/roll the pieces together and let it fully harden over a couple of days. I bought this glue because the leather glue I once experienced someone using right next to me had such a strong and pungent scent that it almost gave me a headache and made me worry for my long-term health if I’d be exposed to this regularly. I work in a basement that just does not have sufficient ventilation for harmful/badly-smelling vapours, so I looked for a “milder” alternative.
I made two flat straps this way, but I realised when you fold the strap over to replicate how it will sit on a closed organiser, the inside leather buckles/wrinkles a lot and that seemed to me like a weak spot. So I cut out two more strips of leather and glued them together whilst making it into a curved shape as I advanced to attached the two pieces to each other. I used sewing clips to clip this strap to a corrugated cardboard roll I had made (approx. 8 cm diameter) so that the glue would dry/harden the strap into this curved shape, and it worked (the card I use to punch the stitching holes is in the background of this image):
Punch holes into most of it but leave some of it untouched, there where you want to attach this strap to the organiser (you will punch holes into this later):
Do the saddle stitch through these holes. I prefer to take a long piece of thread and start at one point and go over – under – over – under to the end of the holes and then turn back on myself going under – over – under – over. That way you come back to where you started and only have loose threads at the start rather than in two places. Tie off the two threads and trim leaving 1.5 cm or so, as you can hide these ends underneath the strap when you attach it to the organiser cover. Do NOT attach the strap to the organiser just yet. You COULD attach it to the outer layer of your organiser and I did consider that as then you can hide that stitching in the sense that it won’t show on the inside of the organiser as you only attached the strap to the outer part of the organiser. HOWEVER, I want to make things in such a way they can more-easily be repaired if it gets to the point the strap cracks or breaks or stretches out, so I thought it’s probably easiest to attach the strap through both layers of the organiser so the stitching can easily be undone to attach a new strap to. I wouldn’t call this “modular”, but it is with the view of future repairs as I want this thing to last me for a lifetime.
Now on to the challenging bit: gluing the inner and outer parts of the organiser cover together. I had someone help me with this and I recommend you do too. The outer part of the organiser has this modesty panel which should NOT have glue on it, so ensure you draw a line or use some kind of tape to mark a line to where you should glue and past where you do not want glue.
Then put glue on the full surface of the inside of the organiser cover (this is the piece of leather that has the slip pocket) and on most of the surface (but NOT the modesty panel bit) of the outside of the organiser cover (the largest piece of leather). Wait 30-60 minutes and then start pressing/rolling the two layers together starting on the front flap on the side, so there where the slip pocket is attached. To do this, you leave the largest bit of leather on your worksurface with the glue facing upwards and you pick up the leather part with the slip pocket to attach it to the largest leather part. If you were to start where you drew the line for the glue to stop (where the modesty panel begins), any inaccuracy of even just a few mm will become an issue when you get to the “end” as this would be there where you have attached the slip pocket. If the inside of the cover (with the slip pocket) overhangs over the outside cover, how are you going to trim off this excess leather?! I ensured I had about 5 mm or so padding around the slip pocket to allow for stitching the inner and outer cover pieces together, but what if this inner piece with slip pocket would overhang by 3 or more mm? Then you’d have to trim this back so much you are now almost cutting through the slip pocket leaving no leather available for stitching the outer and inner layers of the cover together. And what if you had more overhang and would have to trim off part of the slip pocket?! This IS salvageable but not without cosmetic/aesthetic losses. I learned in all my years of crafting that it pays to plan, it pays to do a “dry run” of something, it pays to write down the steps in sequence before starting things that you can’t easily put down or that are on a timer due to drying time etc.
The challenging part of gluing the cover pieces together is that I wanted the spine area to be glued around a curve shape just like the strap, because the issue with my Personal tarp organiser is buckling of the material when closing the organiser, as I had made it totally flat. So super flatability but buckling when closing it. So there’s a tradeoff between these two things. For this, I had made another corrugated cardboard roll, this one with a diameter of approx. 6 cm. After putting glue on both pieces of the organiser cover and waiting the appropriate length of time, I had someone help me out by picking up the inside cover (the one with the slip pocket) and keeping it in the air (with the glue facing down). I then grabbed the corners (where the slip pocket is) and carefully placed this on the corners of the outer cover and then slowly pressed the leather together ensuring I tried to be as exact as possible so there would not be overhang anywhere. I did this on a flat surface up to approaching around 8 cm from the centre of the spine. I then started using the cardboard roll and kind of angled the already-glued leather part (the front flap of the organiser) upwards to try to create a curved shape around the spine (this is why having someone help you is really important as you need more than two hands). Then things starts folding kind of back on itself and you still need to focus on not losing the alignment between the two pieces (to prevent overhang which you later have to trim off which changes the size of your organiser). This was a challenging thing to do even with help. When I had reached the end of the inner cover, that was the end of the glue as well as the modesty panel does not have any glue. I put the organiser down with the modesty panel flat, with the cardboard roll pushed on the inside of the spine and with a thick and heavy book inside pushing against the cardboard roll. I then placed about a 25-30 cm stack of heavy books on top of the front flap of the organiser (also pressing down on the back flap) and left this for 2-3 days to harden. And then you get this:
Opened up it looks like this:
I was pretty happy how this turned out especially for a first try, although I did have some overhang due to the two pieces not being 100% aligned. Luckily it was really minor, 2 mm max (this was on the top and bottom edge of the organiser):
But then I was careless trying to trim this excess off thinking I could easily only cut though the bottom bit (the excess). I accidentally also cut a little off the top layer (which explains why the bottom layer I actually wanted to cut is still there as I didn’t fully cut through it)! This taught me to always use a metal ruler as a cutting guide:
Now it is time to finally attach the closure strap. We are looking at the outside here (see below, with the organiser being upside down) and I used paper tape and markings to help me know what the centre is of the length of the organiser. I used a little bit of double-sided tape to temporarily keep the strap in place when punching the stitching holes through ALL four layers (the two layers of leather in the strap, and the two layers of leather in the organiser cover):
When you have punched the holes, remove the double-sided tape. You can see some threads attached to the strap, this is because at the time I thought I could use those to attach the strap to the agenda but that was too convoluted, so I trimmed them off (as suggested earlier). Use the saddle stitch again to attach the strap to the organiser cover.
Then punch holes along the edge of the organiser, from the outside in! You will see when you punch the holes, it looks different depending on whether you punched the holes from that side or if the prongs on the fork came through from the other side. I find it looks best to make the holes from the outside towards the inside. This did cause a minor issue when I forgot I was back at around the slip pocket where you punch holes right next to the slip pocket (to only go through the inside and outside of the cover, NOT go through the slip pocket) as the slip pocket adds bulk, so I used cardboard again right under the leather pushed flush with the slip pocket. But I forgot this for a little bit and that’s when you push the cover leather down over the thickness of the slip pocket meaning the leather bends there, meaning the holes you punch are no longer going straight through the leather but a bit diagonally, so the holes come out closer to the edge on the bottom side:
So in that corner of the outside cover the holes were very close to the edge so I added a few extra stitches for extra security.
I added a Prym brand press stud (the sturdy ones for sporting goods) with the button part on the strap and the bottom part through the front cover of the organiser but NOT through the slip pocket. This required me to use the pipe hole punch that came with the set rather than my hole punch pliers (ensure you use cardboard, maybe a few layers, inside the slip pocket to protect the pocket from also getting a hole hammered through). To install the bottom part of the press stud there I had to take the setting tool apart so I had a separate top and bottom part. I considered adding a second bottom part of a press stud to the front cover so I would have two settings for closing the organiser (to allow for having fewer pages or loads of pages in it) but at the moment I don’t need max capacity yet so for now, I just have one press stud in total:
I had initially made the inner protective flap long enough to cover all the rings but not so long that it extended past the ring mechanism. Then I was taking a good look at it and realised the ring mechanism has sharp corners at the ends there where you have the press buttons for opening, so that made me worried about these pointy bits eventually damaging the leather of the inside of the organiser. So I made a longer protecting flap that covers the whole ring mechanism for protection. This flap can easily be replaced. I took this ring mechanism out of an A5 Filofax that had a very damaged cover, and you can use Chicago style screws to attach the rings to the cover. These easily open and close, so if the ring mechanism breaks, I can easily replace it as well.
And now onto the final part: when you hold the organiser upright by the spine and shake it, the pages can kind of sag down on the bottom corner (bottom right, if you open the organiser). This is because there is some wiggle room for the pages to move on the rings, and the wider your paper is, the further down the corner of the paper can sag. This is something to keep in mind if and when I will make my “A4 landscape” organiser (using A5 rings with an A4 page in landscape orientation).
A kind of hack for it is an elastic strap with hook-and-loop fastener (Velcro) to keep the pages secured when not actively working on your organiser contents. Another solution for this could have been “modesty” flaps at the top and bottom of the back flap of the organiser to kind of encapsulate the pages on all sides (not just on the side), but this would make the organiser fairly big when the flaps are opened. So this is perhaps something to think about to see if there’s a better solution for it. I also thought about a hook closure for the elastic strap but I couldn’t find one in my stash of haberdashery, and the current one can be attached a little looser or tighter, so for now it works.
And a top view:
Results of my two errors/learning experiences: the accidental cut in the outer cover when trying to trim off excess from the inner cover; and the crooked stitching holes (look carefully for additional stitches, note that it’s very easy to hide mistakes when using all black materials!):
Ok, so this became a really long post. I hope it was helpful to someone wanting to make or perhaps repair their own organiser. I have a lot of textile experience but virtually zero experience with leather, so I think this project is accessible to a novice who has a steady hand and is patient enough to plan out a craft project like this.
Going back, I would obviously not have made the two errors I made, but that’s the cost of learning! I would say that this would have been much easier to do if I had started out with a Pocket or Personal size organiser size as you use way less material (as I said, leather is precious to me as I don’t want to buy it new, so I am limited in what I buy to second-hand and scraps only) and a smaller organiser is just easier to work with.
This was quite time consuming as the sewing is all done by hand. I don’t know if you could get away with NOT sewing the edge of the organiser despite using glue. I haven’t properly tested the glue but I feel that over time, if you do not also stitch, the glued areas may eventually come apart a little. Just a gut feeling.
I was apprehensive to start this due to not wanting to make a mistake using this (for me) rare material, but you really only learn by doing it as there’s only so much you can learn about from reading alone. So for anyone wanting to try this: I would suggest starting with a smaller size organiser for convenience and also as it will take less time. Then you can make your mistakes when you only use a little bit of material. Had it not been for these two small mistakes, I think this would have turned out real good, so the learning curve seems to be alright. Although I think I can still improve when it comes to gluing the leather over a rounded surface, that was kind of improvised and challenging to do.
Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed it, please check me out on Instagram (@almalauhacrafts) or find me on YouTube (@almalauha).
I got bombarded with spam comments on this blog, so sadly I had to switch the comments off.
