Moleskine Pen Loop Hack

By Gary V. Vaughan under Personal Growth

Browsing the journals section today on my weekly trip to the local Borders Book Store, I discovered that the 2008 Moleskine Planners are in the wild. I snatched one up immediately to avoid the trouble I had getting hold of one last year, only to find that for a few extra cents I could have had a limited edition red planner from amazon. Never mind, there’s always 2009…

Since I organise my entire life with a Moleskine Pocket Diary, the lack of a pen loop began to bother me before I’d owned one for long, so in the spirit of my occasional series on Moleskine Hacks, here’s how to add one of your own…

Collecting the Materials

A Moleskine Pocket Diary (obviously), the widest gaffer tape you can find in a matching color for the Moleskine (black in this case), scissors (for the record, I don’t actually own any pink scissors, I just hired these for the photoshoot). I’ve thrown in some 3×5 index cards and paperclips for scale.

Cutting the Right Length of Tape

Gaffer tape is seriously sticky stuff and I didn’t want to get glue over a pristine Moleskine. Luckily, the wraparound sleeve makes a perfect ruler! In the photo below, I’ve folded over the ends and creased the spine part of the sleeve, then layed it out flat to help measure the tape. Below the sleeve is one long strip of tape, about an inch longer than the sleeve itself to leave room for folding the edges over the covers of the Moleskine to stop the tape from slowly moving over time. The small piece of tape above the sleeve will stop the main length from sticking to the pen. It needs to be a little wider than the spine section of the sleeve to accomodate the pen, just a few sixteenths of an inch is plenty.

Here I’ve stuck the short piece of tape back-to-back in the centre of the long piece, using the sleeve as a guide, ready to wrap around my favourite pen – an official filofax mini-ballpoint.

Making the Pen Loop

Again, doing everything to avoid getting glue on the Moleskine; rather than putting the tape on the book, place the book on the tape to ensure everything is where it needs to be. It’s useful to put the pen in place to so that you can be sure it won’t stick out below the spine when it is inside the finished loop.

With the pen in the loop, pull the other side of the tape around and stick it firmly to the front of the Moleskine, keeping the book closed the whole time otherwise inserting the pen might pull the covers open slightly if the tape is too tight.

You should now have something like this, with the tabs ready to fold in.

That done, I put the sleeve back on to keep everything clean ready for next year (although, I’ve started writing some of my upcoming flight times in it already). Constructed like this from strong tape, it all seems to last pretty well. Below you can see my current Moleskine after some 7 months in the field, alongside the newly hacked 2008 model.

Other Ideas

I experimented with putting a loop on the outside edge of the back cover, rather than on the spine, but with the pen able to move so much it didn’t last long. I wonder whether a velcro strap secured to the covers with gaffer tape could incorporate a loop, and hold a pen safely when zipped closed?

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