(Part 2) Top products from r/midori

I made my first insert the other day. It wasn't perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

I used 320g Kraftpaper as the cover with 60g/m^2 Clairefontaine copy paper. I'm not super happy with the bright white paper, but using a fineliner, I don't have much ghosting or bleeding, so at least I have that going for me.

I ordered it on amazon here and here. Those are German links, so they probably don't help a ton, but at least you can see the specifics on the products.

Here is an album of my results. I made my own bujo template and if you're interested I can send you the PDF to print it. I just used A4 paper and trimmed it after folding.

I feel like more stuff fits than you expect. It's just slightly shorter than US letter paper. This is a walkthrough on how to make a booklet but it also shows the difference between traveler's notebooks and US letter. You could make one sheet that's the right size to give you an idea of what you're looking at.

Dang! It sounds like you already have a great plan of action.

Here is the Midori planner insert. There are 215 pages of options on etsy. If you see something on etsy that is close but not perfect, you could message the seller and see if they'd adjust their layout to fit what you want. Some do printables and others will send you a finished notebook so make sure you read the description to know what you're getting. Here is a store selling what you described for your weekly as a printable. I'm not sure where you live but I know you can buy stuff in person at Kinokuniya.

If you do printables from etsy then you could add months, weeks, or whatever, on your preferred paper. I use a mix of knock off notebooks, midori notebooks, and booklets I've designed myself (One is for my hobbies and the other is a pokedex - neither are very fancy.)

I designed my own TN cover and inserts:

• https://imgur.com/a/TAZOM (newborn to 9 months)
  
• https://imgur.com/a/nUsAt (9 months onwards)
  
  I used Domtar 32lb bond 8.5x11" paper. It was cheaper than the HP Premium brand and very smooth for fountain pens (says a bunch of regular fountain pen users at Pelikan Hub). But if you print with an inkjet, then the fountain pen ink runs when you write over the printed stuff. I've never tried with a laserjet, but I hypothesize that it would work better.
  
  As it was, with a baby, I had to switch to using ballpoint pens anyway. Papermate Inkjoy Quattro in regular and fashion colours, for a total of 7 usable different colours - the Lime Green is very light and hard to see, so I never used it.
  
  My printer broke at one point, so I saved all my pages as PDF and uploaded it to Kinkos to print on 8.5x11" paper for me. They didn't do binding too well, so I just took the printed sheets home, folded them in half and put the booklets together myself. I did a simple staple saddle-binding with a long-reach stapler. Had I known better, I would have bought the Bostitch Saddle Stapler instead.
  
  I also made my own inserts with a Cambridge graph paper pad. I used a cardstock cover and used 15 8.5x11" sheets folded in half.
  
  I've made dot grid notebooks using gridzzly.com. Make a copy of the one-sided PDF and use https://combinepdf.com/ to put them together. Then print the 2 pages out back to back. Print out 10-ish sheets of dot paper, fold them in half, bind them together with a cardstock cover.
  
  Is that the kind of tips/advice you're looking for?

Ordered from Amazon seller UJC Mart Japan


Traveler's Notebook Brown Leather (1, 1 LB) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ZYF22M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_D5ROAbGXWF50G

I use a Retro 51 (specifically, The System) and the Leuchtturm Pen Loop.

This is carried in my back pocket in most days.

This is the tool I use, although it was only $9 when I bought it a couple years ago. It's a fine product, but idk if I'd spend more than $10 for it again. There are similar products on amazon.

It works well. When utilized with a straight edge, it produces a very professional perforation. I can perforate an entire Midori brand refill in ~4 passes w/ moderate to heavy pressure. It's another step in preping my Midori, but I would not call it tedious or troublesome at all.

The only drawback I've experienced is that it may work too well, in that if I keep a perforated page in the notebook and turn past it, the page folds at the perforation line and not at the natural fold of the refill. I used to worry that this would eventually result in one of these pages unintentionally falling out, but nowadays I leave a small section of the pages' top and bottom unperforated to ensure they stay in. It hasn't really been a problem, and I imagine that if you use a tool with wider spaced cutting sections, it would be different.