Hi Paul,
I did the same thing for our men's ministry. I made a journal for everyone (20), with the name and number of their favorite verse. I ordered a journal leather bundle from Springfield Leather. At the time it was on sale for around 70.00. I still have about half of the leather left. It was described as oil tanned leather, I found it to be more of just a regular chrome tan. They now sell a smaller journal makers bundle for around 45.00. The leather was not firm like a veg tan or oil tan, it was soft and pliable. Even so it made some very nice journals. The type of journal I made is the "field journal" style. Springfield has several templates that they sell. I bought the field journal template for 5.00. I hope this was in some way a help, God bless.