worth a thousand letters

design is about decisions... so here's a run-down of a few end-of-the-game decisions that had to be made. my original vision was to use craft foam as letter cut-outs, however I realized that it would make the book too thick once the letters were inserted into the pockets.

therefore, i tried craft paper:

and decided that i really had to use something i could feed in the printer, otherwise i would have to cut each piece out only after tracing it with a stencil, which itself had to be cut out. these shapes didn't lend themselves well to so much tracing and cutting in the first place, and my patience definitely didn't lend well to such an inefficient method. enter cardstock that's color-coordinated with my pockets -- adding the extra benefit of indicating which face is which (mostly):

as you can see, the skinny little strokes don't look like they can hold up to playtime, as they're intended. enter contact paper (mostly):

.... stay tuned for an exciting construction post and the big reveal!