I’ve been wanting to try the free Compass Rose Notebook Cover ever since they loaded it to my home page. I did substitute a different design (from one of my Dover Design books) for engraving on the front, just to be contrary.

The leather is from Tandy and is a veg-tanned black pigskin lining leather, very thin and floppy. I originally bought it for a different project but it turned out to be way too thin for that but it works okay for this project. I applied some masking to the leather in the area of the engraving, then after engraving I gently tapped it with a Q-tip dipped in gold acrylic paint (Golden Fluid Acrylic paint in Iridescent Gold). The thread is Ritza Tiger thread in the 0.6mm size, from Amazon. I saddle-stitched the notebook, then filled it with an inexpensive 3.5x5" paper notebook from Michaels ($5 for a pack of 3). That’ll do until I get my hands on a Field notebook.