In case you've never seen the pen and paper carnival, you should go check it out. It's a giant list of pen and paper reviews. Most of the reviews and tutorials come from people who know what they are doing. This month is hosted by Ethereal Voices. I'll be hosting it soon. But you should certainly go and check it out.
Hey all I've been asked for a button that people can put on their blogs for Put it on Paper.
(Thanks to StrayDreams for reminding me to do this!)
This is what it will look like:
and the text in red is what you'll copy and paste to your blog:
<div style="background-color:#F6F6F6;border:7px solid #F6F6F6;-moz-border-radius:4px;-webkit-border-radius:4px;width:150px;"> <a href="http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/394512/follow"> <img src="https://comfortableshoesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/d072de8746b2fb468dbef67480c444df.jpg" style="width:150px;border:0;" alt="Put it on Paper Vol 1 #1" /> <img src="https://comfortableshoesstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/small-widget-foot.png" style="width:150px;margin:0;border:0;" alt="Find out more on MagCloud" /> </a> </div>
I’ve taken the last couple of days off of work. The first day was for a long overdue dental appointment (yuck) and the second was to deal with the publishing of the zine. Publishing went far smoother than I had expected so I decided I was going to congratulate myself on a job well done by taking a walk to a coffee shop. I had to decide if I wanted the familiar hipster din of Atomic or the relative anonymity of Starbucks. I decide to go to Atomic because I could walk in less traffic and go to the bank without going out of my way, and uh, way better coffee, local business blah blah blah, yay for killing 4 birds with one stone.
In accordance with my new health goal, inspired by Paula, Journal Fodder Junkies, and goaded by my Doctor, I walked, briskly to both the bank and Atomic. I walked in and instead of the typical hipster din I was greated by 3 fiddles and an acoustic guitar! What a pleasant surprise. I’d planned on working on my fountain pen class and another class I’ve got in the works. I couldn’t help myself, I got out my new Uniball needle tipped pens and started to sketch the fiddlers and the guitarist. My coffee came up and I decided to really just sketch, forget the working, I can catch up on that tomorrow! After all, laundry can wait!
Normally when I’m sketching at the coffee shop I fill one page or so in an hour and I get bored then leave. Tonight I sat and sipped my Americano (black) and sketched for nearly 2 hours. I filled 8 pages, 2 were kind of duds that I added color to and salvaged when I got home. The sketches were done on location from life and I added the watercolor later.
I had nearly forgotten how uplifting it is to see some talented people make great music together. Apparently these fiddlers and the guitarist get together and jam at Atomic Cafe every other Friday night. I know I’ll be going again! (I've taken to calling it Fiddle Jam.) 
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.
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.
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.
The weekend was a split here- one shiny sunny gorgeous day and one much needed rainy chilly day. Saturday I met with Jane to discuss our progress on Put it on Paper or as I like to call it PioP (pronounced pie-op, like some secret operation involving pie…) We've both made great progress on our respective parts. It's so nice to go to a great little coffee shop get a great cup of coffee and talk about art related things as well as the business of starting up a new zine.
I picked up a copy of Sony Vegas for video editing. Supposedly it's got more oomph than the program I've been using and ehhh, well, I'm learning it. It's slow going. The set up make more sense to me as I've been using it but it does have a large learning curve. The good thing about it, is that it's relatively popular, unlike the last program I was using that had never been updated from the moment I bought it. The next goal is to get a better camcorder and some audio recording equipment. Hopefully as I learn the new program my videos will only get better and better.
I didn't get a lot of drawing done, actually I spent much of my time writing things that needed to be written.
Here's a look inside my MTNKO.
It’s been a crazy few weeks. I had to help count inventory a while back for the DayJob and it threw me for a loop. I’ve been trying to get back on track ever since I was sick and having my schedule screwed up really just put me back to spinning my wheels in the rut again. This weekend was a good one for getting me back into the flow of things. Jane and I met and had a good cuppa at one of my favorite places, Atomic and then we took a walk in the park here in town. Where I sat and sketched and we talked about PioP, which is shaping up to be really really cool. I can’t wait for the reveal of what it is. It’s going to be awesome.
This is the first sketching I’ve done in awhile. I could make a lot of excuses but I won’t. Honestly life has been flying at a million miles an hour and I find that instead of sketching or arting I make a few notes in my journal or veg out watching Hulu* at the end of the day. Fortunately though those notes are all forward progress, important tidbits of information. I’m looking forward to sharing those with you once everything is in place.
I picked up a copy of Kerri Smith’s new book, “Finish This Book.” I’ll have a review on it here soon.I’ve also picked up a bunch of new fountain pens, some inks, a brush and a few other odds and ends. Hopefully this week I’ll get to writing up a bunch of reviews. That means I’ve got Thursdays covered. Hopefully I’ll be back on track with my blogging as well as my journaling. I've also been attempting to practice some "ultra light weight" journaling/sketching. It's centered around my Midori Traveller knock off. I"ll get a post up about that too. Lots of good stuff is in the works.
