Here is a great way to design and create notebook and journal covers using your laser and Lightburn software. Just think of the possibilities here, you can make notebook covers to sell at the market or in your Etsy store. Or you can make unique designs for friends and family as gifts.
Watch the Video below or scroll down for the written instructions.
Make a Notebook in Lightburn
What I did was purchase an old notebook from our local Op Shop, or you may call it Goodwill in the US, and it only cost a couple of dollars. So this is an inexpensive gift.
To start with I removed the front and back covers from the original notebook so that I could replace them with a nice wooden engraved cover that I had made in Lightburn and cut out on our
Note: the 10w xTool D1 laser that we have is no longer available and the link provided is to the 10w xTool D1 Pro version of the machine.
Removing the covers was fairly easy. I just removed the covers from the ring binder and I kept the original cover because I wanted to use it as a template.
Now it’s time to take some measurements of the cover.
Note: Keep note of your measurements. I have a notebook where I keep all the settings to my projects, that way I have them on hand when I want to repeat a project.
Measure the length of your cover, mine is 18 centimeters and you can use inches if you prefer, and then measure the width, mine is 12 centimeters. (18mm x 12mm)
Once you have the width and length measurements, you need to measure the little squares that run down the side of the covers.
On my cover, the little squares measure 6 millimeters, and the gap between each of the squares is 6.5 millimeters.
The last thing I need is the number of squares and for my cover that is 14.
Once you have all these measurements, you can go on to the next step, which is creating the covers in Lightburn.
Creating the Front Cover in Lightburn
In the Lightburn software, click on the Rectangle Tool and draw a rectangle.
I know that my size is 12 centimeters by 18 centimeters so I can go to the width and height fields on the menu bar and put in my sizing.
Now if you’re working in inches you can just click here to change to inches.
However, I’m going to continue working in millimeters.
For 12 centimeters I need to enter 120 millimeters in the width, and I need to press the unlock button so that I can put in a different size in the height field.
The height of the cover is 180 so 18 centimeters is 180 millimeters.
So that’s the size of the book cover or the journal cover, and all I need to do now is create the holes for the sides of the covers.
I already have my measurements and I know that the little square measures six millimeters by six millimeters.
I’m going to come back to the Rectangle Tool and I’m going to draw a little a square on to the workspace grid, and I’m going to hold the shift key down while I do this so I get a perfect square.
Then I can come over to the width and the height fields and I’m going to change this to six millimeters – six by six.
Next I’m going to click on the Select Tool, to select the square, and I’m going to come down to the Grid Array option in the sidebar.
When I click on it I get a little pop-up appear and what I want to do is create a column of these squares.
The ‘X’ columns is fine I can leave that at 1. It’s the Y rows I want to change to 14. Remember I’ve got 14 squares so I’m going to just over type in 14.
Now I want to change the Y spacing. Remember my spacing was 6.5 millimeters, so I’m going to change that field to 6.5.
Now you can see that I’ve created 14 small squares running in a column.
Click okay, and then select everything.
To do this I’m going to click and drag from the bottom to select all of the little squares, then right click and select group.
Now what I want to do is just bring this column over to onto the large rectangle and I’m going to line them up. I want to ensure that they’re centered, even though they look pretty perfect.
To do that I just click and drag and then select the Horizontal Align Center.This ensures that the small squares are nicely centered at the top and bottom.
Next, I’m going to click and drag from the right to highlight everything and then I’m going to right click and group.
Creating the Back Cover
So that’s my front cover done. Now I need to do the back cover.
What I need to do here is just right click and select Duplicate, so now I have a copy of the front cover.
Then I just need to flip it. So I come up to arrange and I’m going to Flip Horizontal.
Now I have both my front and my back cover done.
All we need to do now is add our design.
Add the Design to the Front Cover
Come up to File Import and I’ve got a cute SVG files from Creative Fabric that I’m going to use.
Now you could just type text on the front cover if you don’t have an SVG.
When I bring in the file, it’s huge, so I’m just going to drag from the corner just to make it smaller.
Then I’m going to drag it up and place it on the front of my cover.
Take your time and have fun playing around with placement, and decide where you would like to have your design.
Now bear in mind that the book covers themselves will be cut out, and the design will be engraved. Although you can also use a design that can be cut out as well. However, I’m going to be engraving my design.
I need to differentiate which files are to be cut and which are to be engraved, so I come down to the bottom menu bar and change the colour of the layer that I want to engrave, to red.
So the whole engraving design is now red and I change it to FILL.
All the covers that are in Black are going to be cut and I’m going to change those to LINE.
I have my speed and power set but of course you will change the speed and power to suit your particular laser engraver.
My Settings
I do need to mention here that I did get some slight burning on the edges with these settings, so do run a test on your machine first.
- Material – 1.5mm basewood
- Cutting – (mm/sec)
- Power 100%
- Speed 9 ( 2 passes)
NOTE: I recommend that you always do a test before committing to cutting and engraving your design.
Now that everything is looking good, I’ll just make sure it’s centered nicely and then I will group it all together so that everything stays in place.
The next thing I’m going to do is check and see how it will look and how it will cut and engrave.
Okay so if I run through the preview I can see that it’s going to cut before it engraves. I want that to be the other way around. I want it to engrave the design before it cuts out the covers.
I just think it’s a little more stable when it engraves first and then does the final cut so I’m going to just swap these around. All I need to do to do that is click on the bottom line and drag it up above the other one.
So now when I check it again you can see it’s now going to engrave first and it’s going to cut next, which is exactly what I’m after.
Once I am happy with everything I can go okay and now we’re ready to cut and engrave our notebook cover.
Well, that’s pretty much it for the design.
Here are some photos of our laser cutting out the design but you can see the engraving and the cutting in more detail in the video.
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