Leather Journal Inserts & Organizers

Leather Journal Inserts: Pockets, Not Paper

The word "insert" is used for two completely different things, and it is worth clearing up before you order. Most shops selling a journal insert mean a booklet of blank paper. Everything on this page is leather, with card slots and zip pockets, and holds the things that are not paper. If paper is what you came for, it is on notebook refills.

What Each One Holds

• Leather inserts — $35 to $80 depending on size. Card slots, a zip pocket, and a place for receipts, cash and tickets. Six designs: Velmora, Alessia, Tressoro, Envelope, Lunessa and Glory.
• Transparent Zipper Insert — $10. A clear zip pouch for stamps, stickers, washi and the small flat things that get lost in a bag.
• Pen holders — clip onto the cover by an elastic band and carry one pen. See pen cases and pen holders.

An insert takes one elastic slot, the same as a notebook would. So a cover that holds three booklets holds two booklets and an insert, and you decide the trade. A pocket insert for journal covers in the small sizes — Field Notes, Pocket and A6 — is mostly card slots, because there is not room for much else. At the other end, A5, B5 and A4 are where a journal portfolio insert earns its place: a document folder that takes loose sheets under the same band.

How It Attaches, and to What

It does not clip, stick or snap. The insert has a spine channel that the cover's elastic band runs through, exactly like a paper booklet, which is why it works on covers we did not make:

• Asperaria covers in the eight core sizes — Field Notes, Pocket, A6, B6, Regular, A5, B5 and A4. Three of the newer covers take the nearest insert: A6 in a B6 Slim, Regular in a Cahier, A5 in a Sketchbook. The Personal cover has no leather insert of its own; the Transparent Zipper Insert is made in Personal.
• Traveler's notebook covers from other makers, as long as the elastics run down the spine.
• Ring and disc planners — no, these will not work there; the spine channel needs an elastic.

Looking for a Leather Journal With Pockets?

If what you actually want is a journal that has pockets built in, this is the page you need rather than a cover collection. Asperaria covers are deliberately plain inside — elastics and nothing else — because a fixed pocket is a decision made for you at the factory. An insert lets you add the pocket you want, move it to another cover later, or take it out entirely when you would rather carry three notebooks instead.

Which Size to Order

Match the insert to the cover, not to the notebook. An A5 cover takes an A5 insert even if the notebook inside it is a Leuchtturm that runs 3 mm narrow. If you are between sizes, go down rather than up: a smaller insert sits fine on the elastics, an oversized one fouls the closure.

The Rest of the Range

Inserts go inside the cover. Journal charms hang on the outside, bookmark clips mark the page, pen cases and holders carry the pens, and notebook refills replace the paper when it runs out. Everything together is on journal accessories, and the covers themselves are on leather journals.