I’m having issues with glue. Some of my older journals have pieces coming unstuck and falling out, or worse the glue has turned yellow and discoloured the page.

The main culprit seems to have been a glue tape I was using at the time. I can’t remember what brand it was though, and it doesn’t seem to match the width of any of my current glue tapes. The other guilty party is glue sticks. Sometimes they seem to just dry out and not stick at all.

It’s hard to find something that’s travel friendly AND doesn’t wet the page too much AND dries quickly for when you’re on the go AND sticks well AND doesn’t eventually discolour the page. I think an adhesive that does all these things would be the magical unicorn of glues!

So a question for you: What type of glue do you use in your journal? Why do you like it?

The post Glue Blues first appeared on Paperbased.net.

This one is made from paper taken from a cheap school project book (lined one side of the page, blank the other). The front page is patterned paper I bought in a pack from Aldi and the cover is a cut down Collected & Co. file folder from Big W.

I plan on using this insert as a journal, writing on the lined pages and using the blank pages for decorating and gluing in ephemera.

The post Yet another new traveler’s notebook insert first appeared on Paperbased.net.

Luckily just about everything survived the deluge, important stuff like my mobile phone and my work diary were damp but okay. My fauxdori (homemade Midori Traveler’s Notebook) was not quite so lucky. The leather cover dried out nicely but the notebooks inside were all water damaged at the bottom.

This was one of my handmade inserts. The fountain pen ink has run and the paper has torn where the elastic holds it. The genuine Midori notebooks fared a little better. There was still a lot of ink run, but the spines didn’t tear and the paper dried out fairly nicely.

It was time for a quick notebook replacement. Enter the trusty guillotine and a cheap 64 page exercise book.

A perfect replacement for my everyday jottings notebook – no need for fancy paper here. Just need to decorate the cover now.

The post Rainy days, and a new traveler’s notebook insert first appeared on Paperbased.net.

We’re planning a big family adventure later this year and I wanted a simple travel journal to document everything. It needed to be big enough to hold everything I wanted to write about, but small enough to not be a burden to fill in. It also needed to fit in my homemade traveler’s journal.

With that in mind I downloaded Ray Blake’s travel journal printable insert and adjusted it for my needs. Nothing major, I just cut it back to only 14 Daily Journal pages and added two blank pages at the end before the Final Reflections. For some reason my printer decided to print the gray sections very, very faintly, but you can still make the sections out.

The inserts were printed on A4 paper and then each page folded in half. I used an old school atlas page showing Tasmania to create a cover. In between the cover and the printed pages is a sheet of thick travel themed scrapbook paper to help give the cover a little rigidity. The spine is stapled in two places (had to use a long-arm stapler for this) and then the excess paper trimmed to leave an 110mm x 210mm booklet.

I’m really happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to use it.

The post Homemade Travel Journal Insert first appeared on Paperbased.net.

UPDATE: Web version available now too! Plus Layout Builder Web Version.

After four frustrating days battling a bad headache it finally lifted today and left me with a yearning to cut some code. I’d been playing around with an idea for a new crochet afghan. I wanted it to be solid colour granny squares laid out in an interlocking plus or cross pattern. The hassle was working out a suitably random layout.

And so this little app was born.

It’s super simple. Just put in the number of rows and columns required (maximum of 40 rows and 30 columns) and how many colours you’d like to use (minimum of 5, maximum of 15). Hit the Go button and it will generate a random layout for you.

This version is very very very very very basic. Just enough to generate the layout. There’s no way to save a layout, or print at present – although you can take a screen capture when you come across a layout you like.

Download the Plus Layout Builder zip file here – Windows application, tested on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

UPDATE: Web version available now too, and you can print your layout directly from the webpage (you might need to fiddle with the print dialog settings to show background images so that it will print the colours, otherwise you get a nice b&w numbered grid). Check it out here: Plus Layout Builder Web Version.

App is provided as-is for personal use only. Please don’t link directly to the download file, link to this webpage instead. And please don’t download to sell or distribute elsewhere.

The post Plus Layout Builder App first appeared on Paperbased.net.

So then this happened: a homemade travelers notebook from mostly recycled materials.

First up I checked out the brilliant video tutorial by Ray Blake – Making your own Midori-style Traveler’s Notebook. This video walks you through the whole process – cutting the leather, punching holes, threading the elastic, and more.

I gathered my supplies – a grotty, dusty, folded piece of leather that came off an old lounge chair, some elastic for the bands (the only item I purchased), paper from a couple of half-used notebooks, colourful pages from an old childrens book, embroidery thread remnants to bind the notebooks.

I spent a day scrubbing the leather clean (it really was disgusting!) and stretching it out to dry flat. It cleaned up beautifully. Once it had dried I whipped up the leather cover as per the video instructions above and then used the paper and thread to make some inserts. It turned out reasonably well. Certainly well enough to give this style of notebook a whirl and see if I like using it.

The photo doesn’t show the colour up accurately. It’s not brown, it’s actually a lovely deep maroon colour with a red interior.

The Task List insert has pages I printed onto scrap white paper.

Notebook inserts back-to-back. I love the colours.

I couldn’t avoid including the punched holes in the grid paper, but figured that’s what using recycled materials is all about

Lessons learned

• The scrap leather I used wasn’t the best choice for something that needs to take a fold. It’s showing signs of tiny cracks along the spine. Not a problem for a first attempt though.
• The elastic could have been a fraction thinner.
• The inserts are easier to bind first and then cut to size with the guillotine.
• The inserts I made are only 20 pages. They could easily have been 40 to 60 pages. Thicker inserts would also give the notebook more rigidity.

Do you use this style of notebook? Did you purchase yours, or did you “roll your own” as I did?

The post Homemade Traveler’s Notebook first appeared on Paperbased.net.

Most of the potato prints we made using cookie cutters – just cut the potato in half, press the cookie cutter about 4mm into one of the flat surfaces and trim around the edge with a sharp knife. Remove the cookie cutter and a nice crisp, clean stamp is ready to go.

The house print above we carved freehand into the potato to create a simple negative print design.

We used bright acrylic paint on a kitchen sponge to make our stamp pad.

The post Potato Printing first appeared on Paperbased.net.

The PDF file contains two A5 pages, so you can print them singly to A5 paper or two to a sheet of A4. Once printed, either use them as-is for notepaper or letter paper, or punch holes to add them to your A5 planner.

Download the Girls Running Notepaper, two pages PDF A5

I’ve put together a Personal planner sized page as well, but have no idea how well it prints. It’s probably best used for printing directly onto personal sized blank pages, but I’m guessing you could probably get three across an A4 page and then cut them. Philofaxy has a great printing tutorial (personal page size is at the bottom). Note that these pages all have the margin on the left, so aren’t meant for printing back to back.

Download the Girls Running Notepaper, two pages PDF Personal

The post Printable A5 Notepaper – Girls Running first appeared on Paperbased.net.

My prep so far:

– Told my family to block out November as “me-time” for Mum.

– Updated my account info on nanowrimo.org. My nickname’s LastDance on there. Feel free to add me as a writing buddy!

– Got my writers ideas notebook ready. It’s just a little notebook that fits in my handbag. Only a couple of pages of ideas so far, but fast adding to it.

– Picked up a copy of Chris Baty’s No Plot, No Problem for my kindle – for only $1.99! Now that’s a bargain.

– Downloaded Scrivener and gave it a whirl. I know it’s not necessary for NaNo, but it does look really cool and if I like it and hit the 50K word count I can purchase it for 50% off. They have a really great trial offer going specifically for NaNoWriMo participants – instead of the usual 30 day trial it will keep running until December 7th.

– Got some Rory’s Story Cubes to play with. These things are brilliant – never be stuck for a plot idea again! Aimed at the kids, they’re still good idea joggers for adults. I purchased the Android app – it’s like having a set of virtual story dice in your phone. You just shake the phone to roll the dice, complete with sound effects. My son loves them  The app only costs around $2 and comes with two sets of 9 dice. An extra $2 or so gets you another set of 9 dice – so for around $4 you can have all three main sets of dice. Can’t wait to play with this one more.

– Attended a planning day for my NaNoWriMo Region and the Kick Off Party. Meeting other Wrimo’s is definitely the way to go – it adds instant motivation and assures you that anything you’re worrying about to do with NaNo, others are too. Even better – someone has probably got just the right advice or a ready made solution to whatever your worry or problem was about

So, are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Do you have any tips for preparation?

The post NaNoWriMo 2013 Prep first appeared on Paperbased.net.

Items are numbered 1 to 20, and 21 to 40 on page two. There is a margin allowance for punching to fit your A5 Filofax.

Download the Tasks List, 2 Pages PDF A5

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