With today's emphasis on preparing students for standardized testing, it can be daunting for classroom teachers to find and justify time for the arts within the academic curriculum. Handmade books, however, offer a creative and academically enriching solution to this dilemma. In this article, the author describes how students made construction paper booklets that can be easily adapted to different subjects, taking the form of notebooks, diaries, or learning journals. This project provided that necessary link between classroom curriculum and the arts, demonstrating that educational standards and creative expression can go hand in hand. (Contains 1 online resource.)