Author Archives: leslie

Another Midori Traveller Notebook Knock Off Idea

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I wanted to add 2 more journals to my MTNKO. I saw a blog post somewhere, I cna't remember the blog that added a additional pockets to the notebook through the use of a rubber band. I decided to use that idea to add 2 more notebooks. I wanted to have my general idea notebook, a notebook for PioP and another sketchbook. To do this hack you'll need the following:

A medium length thin rubber band or a loop of the elastic you used to make you MTNKO

2 Notebooks

Slide the rubber band through the center of one notebook then the other,so they are attached spine to spine. Slide one notebook under the notebook already in your MTNKO.

Here's a helpful video of the process.

 

 

State of the Weekend: An Everything Journal

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I was given another glimpse into just how powerful art journaling can be last night. I had an idea for Put it on Paper, something that I had rolled around in my brain once before and pushed off as not possible and not a very good idea at the time, but I’d made note of it in my art journals, made some doodles and wrote it down.

I quickly flipped through the last 2 journals where I knew the info to be, tabbed those pages with a little Post it flag, and then used my iPoo Touch to snap some pics, shelved the books and took the info with me, in my pocket. I sketched out a quick idea in my art journal of what I thought this idea could look like and emailed it to Jane. As I relaxed into bed, I reviewed the pages on my iPoo and made some fresh notes and doodles about the content of the proposal.

How amazing is it that I can carry 4 journal’s worth of info in my pocket? I read somewhere that someone scanned their notebook pages into their computer and used a specific program to make them searchable. How cool is that?

If you have an art only journal consider carrying an everything art journal with you everywhere, it will prove itself to be indispensible in short order. (Check out a variety of pockete sized notebooks for this, or make your own pockeet noteboook using my tutorial here.)

Fisher SpacePen Red Ink Years Later

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The Space Pen is a standby pen for me. I love its compact shape that extends to a full sized pen when used. Similar in size to the old school joy that is a Parker Jotter its just comfortable to use. I’ve got 2, a brushed chrome version and a stealthy matte black, the chrome with black ink and the black with red. My go to ballpoint pens when a ball point must be used.

I used them religiously for my GTD system back in the day. Black was for regular entries- to do stuff things that needed managing. I had a lot to manage 6 years ago, as the manager and buyer for a busy floral department. My GTD system is well documented here. It was a simply take off of PigPog’s system of a simple line on the outer side of a moleskine Volant or cahier, blank pages please. I’d enter a date and action item, then as it was finished cross it off the list. Items that were desperately urgent were marked or boxed with red ink.

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And this is where things get interesting. I was going through a notebook and I noticed that the red ink had ghosted through the page and in some cases ghosted onto the facing page. in some cases this is no problem, I doodle, a lot and obviously ghosting of doodles wasn’t much of an issue, BUT when I had take notes in the red ink, it made the next page of notes hard to read.
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I noticed this about a year after I had initially taken the notes. It hasn’t gotten any worse over the years but it is interesting. It occurred on ALL the papers I’ve taken notes with- old issue Moleskine Volants (w/ the GOOD paper), Wausau Ivory paper 24lb, Staples/ hammermill ivory 24lb, and various other papers. It also only occurred with the red SpacePen ink, not the black or blue.

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Odd stuff.

Hacking the Noodler’s Flex Pen

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I’m a woman who likes to hack things or just make them better. I loved the idea of the Noodler’s Flex pen when it first came out. The idea of having a fountain pen that flexed like the  pens I once used in high school for sketching was an enticing idea. I found a used one and enjoyed it but not overly much, flexing it was very tough on my wrists and hands. The pen was small and flexing it required a decent amount of pressure.

I read an article back then about people hacking the pens with good and bad results. I held off on hacking mine, not sure if I wanted to maybe destroy the pen. After numerous other pens had been introduced; the Ahab and the Konrad, I went ahead and decided I wanted to hack the pen I had to see if maybe I wanted to get myself one of the newer models.
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I got the dremel out with a heavy cutting wheel. I didn’t use the cutting surface of the wheel but the larger flat side on the lowest speed. I held the nib in a pair of needle nose pliers and carefully trimmed about 2mm off the shoulders of the nib. I attempted to make them match up as much as possible. They mostly match, one is maybe .5mm off if not less. I shaped them so the cut area was at the same angle as the rest of the nib. I smoothed the edges and called it good. Working slowly the whole job took me less than 2 minutes.

The results are nothing short of miraculous. The pen initially while interesting and usable was not totally enjoyable. Now it’s soft and easy for me to use. I’m able to flex it to max width with little pressure. I’ve not put it through it’s paces with sketching yet, but I’m thinking it’s going to be a real treat to use. So far I’m able to use it much like my brush pen, lots of noodly line variation and it simply adds a ton of interest to the page. I’m hoping that I can  really test it out this week and report back about how it works for me.

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Make Your Own Pocket Sized Notebook

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Making your own pocket sized notebooks is ridiculously easy. Once your materials are gathered it really takes about 15 minutes to sew up 3 or 4 of these. If you've been buying Field Notes or Moleskine Cahiers you will save $9.99.

Here are the materials you'll need:

Awl/push pin
blunt needle with a large eye
thread- you can use Linen or Embrodery floss, or any thin sturdy thread made of a natural material
bee's wax, a block or candle
ruler
paper that you'd like inside cut to the size you'll need
cardstock for the cover

 

To figure out how wide to  cut the width of your pages and cover use this simple formula final (folded) width multiplied by 2 plus 1/4 inch So if I want my page to be 3.5 inches the formula works out as follows: 3.5×2+.25=7.25inches. You trim off the last .25 inch when the notebook is finished.

State of the Weekend

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This weekend was a quiet one, one spent working on blog things, not for this blog but for Put it on Paper's blog. Scheduling out and taking pictures for Challenges!

I restarted my Sunday long walks and realized just how out of shape I am since I don't do the Sunday long walks in the winter. Wow, am I out of shape. Sigh. I tell myself that it will get better then more I walk.

I dunno sometimes the weekend is more about the simple stuff- a good cup of coffee, a flower on the table, and a boy dressed as a taco.

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Review: Martha Stewart & Avery Pocket Notebook

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I picked up a single 3.5×5.5 inch notebook at Staples for $3.99, which seems pretty pricey for 38 pages, but that’s not pages but sheets, so you can double that, to 76 pages. Still a little pricey. All of the pages are perforated.

The cover has a plastic-y surface that is embossed with a very simple fabric like texture. It’s subtle. Inside the same fabric like theme is carried to the end sheets, where a woven like print is done in 2 colors, in all the notebooks I looked at the colors coordinated with the cover. Since I purchased a black notebook mine has black and gray printing. The end sheet has a “This notebook Belongs to:” section. then the following page has a more detailed version of the same info. I think they should stick to one or the other, having both seems like overkill. After that are a couple of lists of holidays as far out as 2014. Seriously, in a 76 page notebook? Is anyone actually going to plan 2 years in advance in a 76 page pocket sized notebook? Maybe in some of the larger notebooks I’d buy that but not in the pocket sized notebook.
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These remind me of the old Moleskine Volants but with a sturdier cover. I’ve used Volants for years as a GTD tool for my DayJob. I picked this up as a GTD tool for Put it on Paper.

Inside the pages are cream/ivory colored, ever slightly so and my black notebook has blue dotted lines. I rather like that the the lines are not solid, it makes them subtle. I tested the notebook with my TWSBI 540 with heart of darkness ink. Granted my TWSBI writes wet but it soaked through on every page no matter how fast I wrote. Testing with some finer pens eliminated the soaking through but not the show through. The paper is thin. it reminds me a lot of Moleskine paper, but it behaves with ink better. With my finer nibs I didn’t notice any feathering or spread. In fact finer nibs performed really well. The paper is nice and smooth, all my nibs felt pretty good on it. It’s not as smooth as Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper but reminds me of the paper in a Moleskine Cahier.
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I did a test run on the paper with a gel pen and it, as expected, performed flawlessly. I really expect that these were designed to perform perfectly with gel pens or ball points. It might even work well with a liquid ink pen in a fine point, like a Pilot V5 or the like.
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I wish these came unlined. I like the fact they come in singles so I can mix and match colors. The line has a range of nice colors and patterns that don’t really strike my fancy. I prefer the big bright colors of the Moleskine range versus the subdued colors of Martha. If these were unlined I could see myself picking them up one at a time as I ran out. Staples offers a lot of coupons so these could end up being less expensive than the $3.99.

There are 2 things here that are deal killers for this notebook for me. First is the perforated pages. I can’t have all the pages in my notebook perforated. When a notebook like this lives in my back pocket, my bag, my jacket pocket, and on my desk it gets beaten up and perforated pages fall out. I’ve got a few moleskine cahiers and Volants where I’ve taped pages in with some washi tape. While I enjoy the washi tape I don’t want to have to resort to using up a roll to hold in all my pages. The final deal killer is that they only come lined. I like blank pages.

One of the other things I noticed which is  not a beef with the notebook but with the display at Staples, I can see these notebooks getting REALLY beat up fast. I noticed several notebooks with curled covers and one with a cut on the back of it and a few with dog eared pages. I appreciate the ecologically minded packaging, but perhaps the band should go the WHOLE way around the notebook instead of just around the cover? Anyway, keep an eye on Staples clearance section  a few beaten up pieces are sure to land there.

Trying to Pare it Down

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I’ve been obsessing on micro journaling lately. The idea of carrying with me ONLY the barest necessities of journaling, paring down to less and less. Until i’m left with… 1 journal (MTNKO) and one pen.

It seems crazy from the woman who often carries 2 or 3 journals, a pen bag of pens, a watercolor set, and a selection of brushes.

My bag was starting to weigh me down. It would weigh in around 20 pounds.* I stitched a new shoulder strap support and patched the frays in my bag. At some point I realized I was carrying just too much. It could also be that I’m obsessed with my MTNKO. I don’t know. But I’ve cut my daily carry down to the following:
MTNKO
Serwex 962
TWSBI 530 and 540
2 Pentel PBP
If I’m working on PioP I carry my Exacompta journal with me and if I’m planning on drawing stuff that I want more room with I’ll carry a larger sketchbook with me. My hope is to incorporate all of the PioP stuff into a journal I can put into my large MTNKO as well as create a few pamphlet stitched journals of sketchbook paper that fit.

That’s considerably lighter than what I was carrying all of the time. A good part of what i’m doing now is actively thinking before I pack my bag, “Realistically, what will I be working on today?” Then packing accordingly. Additionally, having a jotter that is for truly random stuff in the back of my MTNKO allows me to make random notes that I can transfer to the appropriate notebook when I get home.

So far this is working for me and I hope to try it out over the summer and see if it conintues to work for me.

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