I’m branching into a new area of craftery, but only for a brief foray: I’m hand-making a book. I’d appreciate any input you could provide in this area, dear reader(s).
I’m not branching into this area lightly, mind. I am doing it as a result of my inability to find ANY datebooks that show date pages the way I like to see them, with 1 week per page, so that when the book lies open, I can see 2 weeks at a time (Calendar fail?). I busted out the Google and the Yahoo! searches, I searched through Staples’ Big Book of Office Supplies (that you don’t need), and didn’t find ANY options for page viewing in this fashion (Office Supply Fail). So I busted out my mad Microsoft Word Table Skillz, made a beginning template, and “built” myself a calendar.
Now comes the difficult part: How to orient the date pages so that when I bind them, the right weeks show up next to each other. I realize there are several ways to skin this particular cat, but my preferred way is ‘easiest’, particularly since I’m a n00b at this. I have not yet established what or how to make this process ‘easiest’. Blah.
I’ll document progress in pictures, in an effort to appease my hungry masses. (/hyperbole) (shah right)
Anyway, I thought I might be able to solve this problem with maths or maybe a simple page reorientation, but I’m concerned, even before starting, that I may have shot myself in the foot by creating 3-columned pages, where the center column is basically a space holder, and I might be better served by having two independent 1-column pages per sheet, and print them 2-sided, so that when I fold the page in the middle for sew-binding (I’m going to sew the pages, then glue the sewn portion into a ‘cover’ and then put in endpapers in the inside, just to pretty it all up a bit. I’m so crafty. I know.), the correct weeks show up next to each other. Madness, I know, to want to see the dates in proper chronological order. But that’s how I roll.
For the cover, I bought a sheet of craft foam (for just a leetle bit of structure), a sheet of pretty cardstock for the outside cover, and a sheet of pretty scrapbooking paper for the endpaper pieces. I may replace the craft foam with actual cardboard instead, or may skip it altogether. I’m undecided at thisi juncture. I don’t want my little book to be awkward to use, and my current calendar only has (thin) cardstock for a cover,and it’s perfectly serviceable, but I’m not sure whether this will be adequate in the making of a handmade book. I’ll be doing a ‘practice run’ before I do any cutting on the ‘good” sheets, natch. My current datebook is also mass-produced, so clearly an exact copy isn’t a realistic goal. Unless Simply Knitting makes another datebook, which will negate all my hard work on this. After all this effort, I’ll likely use my own production as a matter of pride (since I put forth the effort to make the thing), but I got my date book for this year from Simply Knitting and I LOVE it. That’s why I’m trying to reproduce a reasonable facsimile (but maybe artsier and without ads or British holidays in it… Not that they weren’t fun or interesting to see, but they didn’t have a whole lot of relevance to me, here in the US of A. It was fun to see when the different festivals in Britain occurred, though. I liked that.)
Clearly this will require more pondering on my part, and maybe some expirimentation and attempts. Pictures will be forthcoming once I finally put the rubber to the road. I just don’t want to print out a bunch of stuff and have it be wasted.
In other news, here are some fun pictures from Oktoberfest.
Rabbi Moishe Cluchman:
Mr. Man’s Brother Jeff and his girlfriend Lashonda , doing their Best K-Mart Photolab/Drill Team Poses:
I’m sure you can imagine, much fun was had.
