DIY Double-Sided Leather Traveler's Notebook Cover

Today I want to share a little DIY project I made last month - a double-sided leather traveler's notebook.

I am not going to post a step-by-step tutorial because in fact I followed the instructions by the excellent Christine, with just a small change -  rather than a regular size traveler's notebook, I decided to make a passport-sized one. This is my first traveler notebook and I made it with the purpose of carrying it in my bag when I go to work meetings, and I wanted something more compact. The bonus is that from 2 sheets of letter-sized leather I was able to make 2 notebooks, one for me and one for my mom. :)

Now... I'm not gonna lie - it took forever to put together (mainly because I didn't have the right tools to thread the elastic!), but it was worth it - I love how it turned out!

The notebook is double sided, and even though when I bought the leather (these are pretty much the entire color option at Michaels) I thought I'd be using the aqua for the outside, I ended up falling in love with the texture of the brown leather and chose that instead. :)
I have two notebooks in my journal.

The notebook on the left was made by me, while the one on the right is a Midori passport - I bought it after the fact, and it turns out that the notebook I made is spot on!
I used yellow copy paper for the notebook made by me and I love the pop of color!

I chose not to bind the notebook and it's really quite freeing to know I can just get rid of a page if I mess up.

Here's a closeup of the stitching, which I did with my sewing machine but turning the wheel by hand (I didn't trust my sewing skills for this project!):

The stitching holds the two pieces of leather together pretty well (in fact the only change I would make in Christine's instructions is to skip the fabric interfacing step - I found it didn't really stick properly in my case).
The pretty charm was given to me by my mom a few years ago and is by Thun.

This passport size has been working really well for me, and it made me take the plunge and purchase a full sized traveler's notebook as well - I would love to try my hand at scrapbooking in that size, so stay tuned... ;)