Sketchbook-phobia

Real sketchbooks (the kind you buy from a store) intimidate me. I never grew up with them. Instead, I drew on reams and reams of plain ol’ paper. In school, I had a section in my binder with plain ol’ paper just for drawing. I have folders at home filled with drawings I did on plain ol’ paper.
Then I got into college where I needed to use sketchbooks as part of my grade. I filled them up, but it just never felt natural.
Even now, I still do my best thinking on plain ol’ paper.

So about 2 months ago, I came up with an idea that would combine the best of what I like about sketchbooks with the familiarity of plain ol’ paper.

So far, It’s been working out really well. It’s small and ring-bound (I like to be able to fold the cover around to the back of it). The thin masonite cover gives it a good solid feel that’s still pretty light. I can carry it around just about anywhere.

The book rings allow me to remove/add paper to it as I please. I can write/jot down ideas in it, paste extra notes in it, or throw away pages I don’t like.

Specifications:

Cover: roughly larger than 8.5x 5.5 inches, eighth inch masonite. (I made it slightly bigger than the pages to protect them.) The holes are drilled to match a regular paper punch in both size and spacing (see paper below).

Book-rings: ¾ inch rings

Paper: regular ol’ 8.5x11 inch paper cut in half. I punched the holes in a regular paper punch (punching two holes, then turning the paper over to punch two more). I also found that it holds 100 pages pretty cleanly, without bunching up, bending, tearing, etc.