Notebook - Grail Diary - What's the Diff?
I saw this on Flickr and was just caught by it. The overly-stuffed notebook is filled with maps and sketches and all that kind of ephemera that makes the book nerd in me get all excited.
This is how a journal or notebook -should- look. Well worn and with tons of character.
-Me
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Breakfast Noodles
This morning was very enjoyable. The rain started around 9:30 and only now let up two hours later. It was a constant rush of white-noise and cool breezes so I had to get out on the front porch and enjoy it.
While catching up on some journaling, the mail man dropped off today's post including some new Pelikano fountain pens.
Journal + new pen + noodles + rain = mmmMMM Good.
While catching up on some journaling, the mail man dropped off today's post including some new Pelikano fountain pens.
Journal + new pen + noodles + rain = mmmMMM Good.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Journal Plate
Ok. So I'm a Book Geek.While I was searching through some of the posts in my FLICKR groups, I saw that some people used book plates to mark their books. I liked the idea but couldn't find where you could buy them. So I decided to design my own so that I could print them out at home.
But that only helped encourage me.to take the addiction further.
As I use a number of different notebooks as a journal and idea-catcher, I thought that I would make up a "Journal-Plate". Since I don't separate out the notebook into sections, I thought that the plate would make a good visual cue to mark out when an entry started.
So with my Pilgrim logo and some brown paper, I whipped some up for my latest book. I keep a few in an envelope taped to the inside of the book so that I can glue one down as needed.
-Me
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Photo-cover journal
I found a cool tutorial video on how to make a perfect-bound book with photographs and scrap paper. Very cool trick.
-T
Click on the image for the link
-T
Click on the image for the linkMonday, September 17, 2007
Weekend Away
This weekend in brief:1. Nosferajew
2. Carl & Tessa
3. Easton and the Blank Journal Attack
4. Cup O Joes
5. North Market
6. Bry and Judi at the Party
7. The Container Store
8. Mage Book Goodness
9. A Quaker and his books are sometimes separated.
10. Lecture-Schmecter
11. Fountain Pen Fetishist
12. Avatars & Seemings
13. Sur la Tab
14. Septembrrrrrrr
15. Cellphone Headset
16. Naked without a pocket knife
17. How-To for a Belly Band
18. Tao
19. Book of 10,000 questions
20. Pilgrim's Fable
21. Carved Rubber Stamps
22. Haunted Bag.
Now that you're somewhat confused I'll explain.
Normally when I'm out and about, I don't have time to stop and blog about some of the cool things that I get into. So what I do is to just write a running list of the things that will jog my memory so that I can mention them later. This weekend started out no different but then I realized that I had a longer list than normal. The list usually has no structure or order but when I read it it just cracked me up.
Since we moved around a lot this weekend, I kept acquiring bits of this and that to put in my journal for the analog version of my entry. It looked cool enough that I decided to post it here just for an added touch.
-Tom
Friday, September 14, 2007
Notebookism.Com
Once again, I'm featured on Notebookism.com.
This time it's for the blog entry, "Putting a new cover on an old notebook"
Everyone has their 'thing' that they do. Mine has been and ever-shall-be, books. :)
-Tom
This time it's for the blog entry, "Putting a new cover on an old notebook"
Everyone has their 'thing' that they do. Mine has been and ever-shall-be, books. :)
-Tom
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Pocket Flap Construction
This is part two of a project to put a new cover on an old notebook. In this section I'll discuss the process of creating a pocket flap to store loose bits of papers that always seem to accumulate themselves in my notebook. The original post can be found here.
1) Take the ruler and align it to the long edge of the page. Take your bone folder or butter knife and score a line to make the fold cleaner. It doesn't have to be the width of a ruler but it's an easy measure to make.
2) Center the page on the back (or front ) of the book's cover and eyeball about a quarter inch in from both sides. Use the butter knife or bone folder and score a line with the ruler.
3) where the bottom fold and the edge folds meet, cut out the bottom square. Once this is done, angle the top with a secondary cut that's about a quarter-inch higher than the bottom fold.
4) Using the ruler, mark quarter inch lines on the side-flaps and accordion fold it. It's the folds that allow the pocket flap to 'open' slightly when you reach in for things.
5) Make sure you fold the flap so that it's bent away from you first, then back and forth until the last fold opens 'out' of the pocket, not in.
6) Using some elmer's glue-all, glue the bottom fold onto the back (or front) cover of the notebook.
7) Using the same white glue, spread it on the bottom of the two accordion folds and press it against the cover. There you have it, a pocket flap.
1) Take the ruler and align it to the long edge of the page. Take your bone folder or butter knife and score a line to make the fold cleaner. It doesn't have to be the width of a ruler but it's an easy measure to make.
2) Center the page on the back (or front ) of the book's cover and eyeball about a quarter inch in from both sides. Use the butter knife or bone folder and score a line with the ruler.
3) where the bottom fold and the edge folds meet, cut out the bottom square. Once this is done, angle the top with a secondary cut that's about a quarter-inch higher than the bottom fold.
4) Using the ruler, mark quarter inch lines on the side-flaps and accordion fold it. It's the folds that allow the pocket flap to 'open' slightly when you reach in for things.
5) Make sure you fold the flap so that it's bent away from you first, then back and forth until the last fold opens 'out' of the pocket, not in.
6) Using some elmer's glue-all, glue the bottom fold onto the back (or front) cover of the notebook.
7) Using the same white glue, spread it on the bottom of the two accordion folds and press it against the cover. There you have it, a pocket flap.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Re-made Book
Everyone knows of my addiction for notebooks and one of the many quests that fill my days is to find or make a notebook that suits my needs. It is for this reason that I have learned bookbinding and studied manuscript production of the medieval era - so that I could understand not only how books were constructed but why they took the size and shape they did. To this end, yet another project is sacrificed upon the altar of BOOK.
1) The first step was to take a regular graph paper (4 squares to the inch) notebook (from office max) and cut it down to a size 3 (roughly one sheet of paper folded in half). I matched the top edge for the first cut so that would make it easier for my printer. Thankfully, they don't mind doing my cutting for free since I'm the only hand bookbinder for several states and it takes them under a minute.
2) Next I took a piece of scrapbooking paper (usual size is 12 inches by 12 inches) and folded it in half. This would cover the front of the notebook and cover the original design.
3) Since the notebook is now 5.5 inches wide, there's enough of an over-hang to easily cover all of the surfaces with enough to tuck under.
4) To glue the paper down, I used some Elmer's glue all (thy name be praised) and some pop-cycle sticks. The sticks are so you can spread the glue out very thinly on the page. If you keep it too thick, the paper and the notebook cover will warp from the moisture and you'll have glue tripping out all over the edges and no one likes drippy edges.
5) Turn the notebook over and align the new cover page with the black strip that covers the spine of the book. Since that is designed by the company to be flexible, I'm not going to bother covering it and a black spine looks pretty nifty for a notebook. Align the page and draw an outline of the cover with a pencil. (Marker used for photographic purposes)
6) Lock the cats in the basement.
7) Apply a thin layer of glue to the cover page inside the lines you've drawn and set it on the front of the notebook. I normally match up the line to the edge of the spine strip and then press it out to the corners. This way you don't have a gap that shows the black and white marbling below.
8) Once I was happy with the setting of the cover page, I glued and turned the three edges leaving the last corners unglued so I could cut them for the last fold.
9) Angle the cut of the last fold so it doesn't create a lump on the edge of the book. Just eyeball it.
10) Once you're done it should look like this.
11) Since I want to provide some stability for the flimsy notebook, I added an half-page (a one-sided, end page) to cover the folds of the new cover. Just take a piece of card stock and fold it in half. Apply a thin layer of glue to the edge and the center of the half-page and set it in place. It may not be exactly the full size of the notebook cover so just eyeball it.
12) So, this is one side of the newly recovered notebook. This shows the three stages we've done so far. Original, cut and now re-covered.
13) Since I like to label my journals, I attached one to the front of the new notebook. To do this, I take the label and a ruler for spacing.
14) Rather than measure this and that for the front cover, what I did was to simply use the ruler as a standard width where I could align the label.
15) Well, this is the conclusion of the first phase of the notebook re-covering. Do the exact same thing (save the label) for the back. I'll add more information about how to attach a pocket flap and a belly band later.
Learn how to make the pocket flap in part two.
-Tom
1) The first step was to take a regular graph paper (4 squares to the inch) notebook (from office max) and cut it down to a size 3 (roughly one sheet of paper folded in half). I matched the top edge for the first cut so that would make it easier for my printer. Thankfully, they don't mind doing my cutting for free since I'm the only hand bookbinder for several states and it takes them under a minute.
2) Next I took a piece of scrapbooking paper (usual size is 12 inches by 12 inches) and folded it in half. This would cover the front of the notebook and cover the original design.
3) Since the notebook is now 5.5 inches wide, there's enough of an over-hang to easily cover all of the surfaces with enough to tuck under.
4) To glue the paper down, I used some Elmer's glue all (thy name be praised) and some pop-cycle sticks. The sticks are so you can spread the glue out very thinly on the page. If you keep it too thick, the paper and the notebook cover will warp from the moisture and you'll have glue tripping out all over the edges and no one likes drippy edges.
5) Turn the notebook over and align the new cover page with the black strip that covers the spine of the book. Since that is designed by the company to be flexible, I'm not going to bother covering it and a black spine looks pretty nifty for a notebook. Align the page and draw an outline of the cover with a pencil. (Marker used for photographic purposes)
6) Lock the cats in the basement.7) Apply a thin layer of glue to the cover page inside the lines you've drawn and set it on the front of the notebook. I normally match up the line to the edge of the spine strip and then press it out to the corners. This way you don't have a gap that shows the black and white marbling below.
8) Once I was happy with the setting of the cover page, I glued and turned the three edges leaving the last corners unglued so I could cut them for the last fold.
9) Angle the cut of the last fold so it doesn't create a lump on the edge of the book. Just eyeball it.
10) Once you're done it should look like this.
11) Since I want to provide some stability for the flimsy notebook, I added an half-page (a one-sided, end page) to cover the folds of the new cover. Just take a piece of card stock and fold it in half. Apply a thin layer of glue to the edge and the center of the half-page and set it in place. It may not be exactly the full size of the notebook cover so just eyeball it.
12) So, this is one side of the newly recovered notebook. This shows the three stages we've done so far. Original, cut and now re-covered.
13) Since I like to label my journals, I attached one to the front of the new notebook. To do this, I take the label and a ruler for spacing.
14) Rather than measure this and that for the front cover, what I did was to simply use the ruler as a standard width where I could align the label.
15) Well, this is the conclusion of the first phase of the notebook re-covering. Do the exact same thing (save the label) for the back. I'll add more information about how to attach a pocket flap and a belly band later.Learn how to make the pocket flap in part two.
-Tom
Monday, September 10, 2007
I'm on Notebookism again
morning-press
Originally uploaded by Green Pilgrim.
Yup, my peeps have decided to use another one of my shots again.
Click here to see what it looks like.
-T
Sunday, September 9, 2007
The journey of a thousand miles...
It is often said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Never has this been more literal than what I discovered last night. But I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Last night, I was working on moving furniture around from the front room in my house to the middle room - what was intended to be a dining room. As I moved piles of books from pillar to post, I saw red and blue lights flashing outside. This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon sight on my street as there are several families with questionable control of their kids; usually teenagers who want to be more rowdy than the audience at the last taping of the Jerry Springer Show.
I didn't think that much about it as I continued to move furniture and then I caught a glimpse of two kids outside with their dads and a cop. The kids weren't the usual teenage trash on the street but rather a pair of boys barely in first grade. I was... curious. So I poked my head out of my front door and that's when I saw what an experienced tracker might call a trail of evidence.
The boys were attempting to explain how something (called a can of paint) could have gotten open and 'sort of' spilled at the bottom of my driveway. Their fathers had apparently been mortal enemies for a few months now since the two little boys were notorious for getting each other into tons of trouble. One dad, who kept telling his son that he wasn't going to mess around with him and the paint because his beer was getting warm, said that he and the other dad had already been in a few fights because the kids won't stop hanging around each other.
Apparently the boys had found the can of white paint in or near someone's garbage and decided, at night, to investigate. One of the boys was wearing tennis shoes and the other was barefoot. Do you see where this is going? Two seven year-olds, a can of paint, night, and curiosity. Yep, you guessed it.
Now, while you're laughing and trying to hold it in so that those around you don't begin to question what you're reading let me keep going with the explanation.
Someone had called the police since they saw the boys with the paint. The police showed up and found the boys. Then he got the fathers involved (oh yeah, I can bet that they got their buts whooped) to come down and clean the paint from my driveway. Unfortunately, the hot road had already dried all of their foot prints so it's going to take a while for those to wear off even if we have some good storms.
When you back up and look at it from a distance, you can see the curious patterns the one, barefoot, boy left as he tried to figure out what to do now that he had paint all over his feet.
I couldn't write stuff this funny.
-Tom
Last night, I was working on moving furniture around from the front room in my house to the middle room - what was intended to be a dining room. As I moved piles of books from pillar to post, I saw red and blue lights flashing outside. This is, unfortunately, not an uncommon sight on my street as there are several families with questionable control of their kids; usually teenagers who want to be more rowdy than the audience at the last taping of the Jerry Springer Show.I didn't think that much about it as I continued to move furniture and then I caught a glimpse of two kids outside with their dads and a cop. The kids weren't the usual teenage trash on the street but rather a pair of boys barely in first grade. I was... curious. So I poked my head out of my front door and that's when I saw what an experienced tracker might call a trail of evidence.
The boys were attempting to explain how something (called a can of paint) could have gotten open and 'sort of' spilled at the bottom of my driveway. Their fathers had apparently been mortal enemies for a few months now since the two little boys were notorious for getting each other into tons of trouble. One dad, who kept telling his son that he wasn't going to mess around with him and the paint because his beer was getting warm, said that he and the other dad had already been in a few fights because the kids won't stop hanging around each other.Apparently the boys had found the can of white paint in or near someone's garbage and decided, at night, to investigate. One of the boys was wearing tennis shoes and the other was barefoot. Do you see where this is going? Two seven year-olds, a can of paint, night, and curiosity. Yep, you guessed it.
Now, while you're laughing and trying to hold it in so that those around you don't begin to question what you're reading let me keep going with the explanation.Someone had called the police since they saw the boys with the paint. The police showed up and found the boys. Then he got the fathers involved (oh yeah, I can bet that they got their buts whooped) to come down and clean the paint from my driveway. Unfortunately, the hot road had already dried all of their foot prints so it's going to take a while for those to wear off even if we have some good storms.
When you back up and look at it from a distance, you can see the curious patterns the one, barefoot, boy left as he tried to figure out what to do now that he had paint all over his feet.
I couldn't write stuff this funny.
-Tom
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Weird Quote
I was half awake this morning when something hit me as a poor-taste joke.
Last night's dream had something to do with the military; well, there were guys with guns scrambling around a hallway. I think that it might have been some kind of weird 'training' exercise.
Hey, I have weird dreams, ok?
Anyway, after the group had failed to do something and got blown up in a big flash of light, I realized that I wasn't with the group but down the hall a little and had cleared a room of a few bad guys. The group who had 'died' milled around to discuss what had happened. One of them said,
"Well, there's no I in TEAM."
And for some reason I popped off with (in the dream):
"Yeah, but there is in LIVE."
And then I woke up.
ya think I'm an individual?
-T
Last night's dream had something to do with the military; well, there were guys with guns scrambling around a hallway. I think that it might have been some kind of weird 'training' exercise.
Hey, I have weird dreams, ok?
Anyway, after the group had failed to do something and got blown up in a big flash of light, I realized that I wasn't with the group but down the hall a little and had cleared a room of a few bad guys. The group who had 'died' milled around to discuss what had happened. One of them said,
"Well, there's no I in TEAM."
And for some reason I popped off with (in the dream):
"Yeah, but there is in LIVE."
And then I woke up.
ya think I'm an individual?
-T
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Be Careful What You Ask For
4:00 p.m. Just back from the gym.
On my way over to the gym to work out I was stopped by some of the department faculty who are building spring term's schedule. They asked me what I wanted to get involved with and I told them that I was happy with Intro courses but if they had something else in mind to let me know. I figured that was the end of the conversation.
I was wrong.
The department is wanting to create a Criminology minor and to do so they're going to start offering a foundation course in Spring. I get to teach it.
My schedule for Spring term looks like this:
Every Tuesday and Thursday
10 - 11:20 Psych 1101
12 - 1:20 Soc 1101
2 - 3:20 Soc 2999 (Criminology)
The good news:
No Monday classes. I'm out by 3:30 and I don't have to be on campus until 9 a.m.
The bad news:
I will have to work out after classes and I will have no breaks in between any of them save to head back to my office for a quick change of books.
It'll be interesting.
-T
On my way over to the gym to work out I was stopped by some of the department faculty who are building spring term's schedule. They asked me what I wanted to get involved with and I told them that I was happy with Intro courses but if they had something else in mind to let me know. I figured that was the end of the conversation.
I was wrong.
The department is wanting to create a Criminology minor and to do so they're going to start offering a foundation course in Spring. I get to teach it.
My schedule for Spring term looks like this:
Every Tuesday and Thursday
10 - 11:20 Psych 1101
12 - 1:20 Soc 1101
2 - 3:20 Soc 2999 (Criminology)
The good news:
No Monday classes. I'm out by 3:30 and I don't have to be on campus until 9 a.m.
The bad news:
I will have to work out after classes and I will have no breaks in between any of them save to head back to my office for a quick change of books.
It'll be interesting.
-T
Sunday, September 2, 2007
River Days 2007
It's that time again.RIVER DAYS
Here in Portsmouth, we celebrate Labor Day by holding a celebration known as River Days. The downtown area is turned into a small fair with a band-stand and fireworks. This year they actually pulled in some of the standard fair fodder with some huge snake and a giant rat.
I went down to it on Saturday for a quick walk through (it was just too bright) and grabbed some pictures with my new camera; HP M537. Happy Birthday to me.
The conclusion of the River Days weekend is the big firework show. Well, it's not exactly a HUGE fireworks show because that's normally for the 4th of July, but it wasn't bad. So a few thousand people cluster on the river bank and crash out while they suck down lemon shake-ups, corn dogs, funnel cakes and all the unhealthy fair fodder you can think of. The police did their rounds and picked up a few rowdy, drunken idiots but I didn't see anything odd except for the plethora of blinky-light toys (as opposed to glowing toys) on every kid as far as I could see.
I got to play with the twilight setting on the camera and grabbed some shots of the clusters of people on the banks.The breeze was cool and the sky was clear. It was an awesome night. I'm going to have to head back down to the river tomorrow night or something and see if I can get shots of the new bridge against the water with the new cam; it should be able to handle night-shots a lot better.
Here's the video of the fireworks.
I tried to get some footage of the finale' but I couldn't get my camera out of my thigh pocket fast enough; not with a half-numb ass.
-T
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