Paul Sussman – The Hidden Oasis
Seth Godin – Linchpin
Diane Carwell & Jonathan Sutherland – Ghosts of the World

February was a month of great cleaning, and a few casualties included my books. But moving old books I’m not crazy about opens up space for new books that could be or are great. A friend was also thinning out her library and let me pick out books that I want. I might get to those one day, but these were the ones that I bought this month.

Three this month too. That’s a more manageable pile than my usual 10 a month.

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Books – February 2010

It took me a stupid long time to get the money over to SSPCA, but I finally did last week. The final total is RM900. You’re seeing a RM850 above because the final RM50 is from Dona from SSPCA, who decided that she wanted to contribute.

So there you go. My thanks to everyone who donated, participated in the auction and spread the word. Now that I finally got this off my plate, I can move on.

Some of you may be wondering if we’re going bald this year! The answer is ‘yes’ and I’m looking forward to doing it again. However, I’m not sure if I’ll go all out collecting your money again this time. It’s mentally exhausting! But we’ll see what the Sarawak Children’s Cancer Society have in mind this year. You have a couple of months to talk yourself into doing it if you’ve been looking for an excuse!

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Project Snip-Snip: The End, finally

Remember, if you blast off a limb and shoot out an eye playing fireworks, I’ll be the first to nominate you for the Malaysian Darwin Awards under the category of “Exemplary (Failed) Effort in Eradicating Self From Gene Pool”.

If you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day too, please remember that whatever you do in the name of true or misguided love, you don’t have to wait till the Great Day of Tasteless Consumerism to show it.

Have a heart. I got it for you specially.

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Heart of the Tiger

Simon Tofield – Simon’s Cat
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Patrick Ness – The Ask and The Answer

Book buys were minimal over December and perhaps it’s too early to post about January buys but since I’m on a roll with this scheduled post thingy, here we are.

Simon’s Cat is the comic book of the YouTube sensation of the same name. I could have just stood in the book store and finished it several times over, so I don’t know why I sank RM55 into getting it. Uhm, but I went through it 5 times already.

The other two books are sequels that I decided to follow. The Hunger Games cost me a night of sleep because I made the mistake of picking it up at 3am. It only makes me wanna reread both books again now. I think I might just read the first book of Chaos Walking before starting on the new one. It was a difficult but rewarding book to read, but I don’t really remember the details now.

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Books – January 2010

Ingredients:

• A stack of one-sided printouts with a blank side
• Heavy card or cardboard for backing. Think cereal boxes, Post Express envelopes, etc.
• Pretty paper, postcards or even photographs for cover
• White glue
• Clothes pegs or paper clamps
• Box cutter & Cutting mat
• Ruler
• Pencil

Decide what size you want your notebook to be in. This can depend on the size of your available cover. You might wanna trim the paper to fit the cover rather than the other way around, especially if it’s a postcard or photograph.

I wanted to make a notebook that fits in my hand when I write, so I cut A4 papers in thirds crosswise. Do the same for your cover and backing. It’s okay for the cover and backing to be a teeny bit bigger; it’ll look tidier from the outside.

Here’s my cover, paper and backing.

Stack them together, keeping the blank side of the backing facing out. Make sure the side you want to glue (the spine) is even. This is important. The rest of the sides will likely be uneven unless you want to measure things to precision. But handmade means it will be imperfect anyway, so don’t sweat the small stuff.

Clamp them in place near the spine with your pegs or clamps.

Apply a generous amount of glue to the spine. Make sure you get it into every crack. Pay special attention to the cover and backing.

The paper tends to expand around the middle once it’s wet, so I usually put another clamp in the middle. This will depend on how long your spine is. Just make sure it stays flat while the glue dries.

This is probably a good time to mention that your notebook shouldn’t be thicker than how far your pegs can reach.

Leave to dry. Ideally, it should dry standing up. Never flat. Glue will sink with the direction of gravity so make sure it’s sinking into the spine instead of on the table. You can wedge it between books on the shelf or find something you can stand it in.

Once it dries, it should open up flat without falling apart. Give it a quick flip through to make sure the pages are staying put.

Now you need to cover the spine of the notebook. Use light but durable paper. Paperbags work. I’m using one that I got from Starbucks. They encourage recycling so this is a great way of doing it.

Decide how much paper you want to overlap both sides and cut out a strip across the bag. Snip open one end and measure out enough paper to cover the length of the spine. Cut and spread glue evenly on the inside of the strip.

I find it easier to put the strip down on top of the spine like this so I can make adjustments and make sure both sides get enough paper. Optionally, you can try it on before you put glue, and score out the paper where it folds over the edges so you have a guide.

Smooth the strip over the spine and make sure the edges are all glued down.

You’re done!

Of course, give it some time to dry before actually using it.

The pretty paper I used is from Moof and is the only component here that was bought new. You can use anything suitable. The last time I made these notebooks, I used my photographs.

Have a fun Crafterday!

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Crafterday: Notebooks