i AM done!

here's the proof!

Done and Done

Finished bright and early this morning. Had a plan to break things down so that I wouldn't find myself staying up late into the night the weekend before and wouldn't you know that that's whay I did. One of my favorite movies on repeat and a call in sick to work. Nothing quite like the satisfaction that came upon finishing that very last book. I probably should've done it finishing one book first and then the others but I found it a a better process getting it all done together. Working out the kinks as I went along. It helped alot with the cutting and measuring and dear lord the glue. I swear I'm OCD with all the handwashing I did only have to go back and get them messy again. Tried to keep a wet cloth handy but that only worked for so long. It was messy and tiring but oddly satisfying. Have ideas for a few other projects that I'd like to put together...without the pressure of an extremely looming deadline. I definitely agree with the therapeautic nature of putting everything together. Really happy with what came out...from story to the end product.

Before:




After:

And...you're finished!

Congrats, folks, on a job well done!

I'll be picking up the books tomorrow and grading in the next couple of days. I believe the grades have to be in by COB 7/22, so you won't have long to wait.

Talk to you soon. :)

Jenny

And...Done!

So here are all my finished books. I am not sure why I waited until this weekend to get everything done, but after a lot of cutting, and mod podgecoated fingers, I made it! I'm really happy with my finished product although I am about to revise the piece of writing I used (I will not let that drive me nuts, though). I have learned that printing with crop marks is the way to go -- helps to get those really straight cuts. Also, printing front to back AND getting everything aligned is REALLY hard even when you have printed test after test. I also continue to love Paper Source and wish there was one closer. Here are some pictures of my little army of books:

All the pretty ribbon!

Here is one open.


The back cover!

The front cover.

I think that the best way to go about making a series of books is to make one copy first. That way you can work out all the kinks and make sure that the ideas you have are possible! I really enjoyed my summer of making books!

hard hat required

coming around the construction bend held a number of fun surprises, but not as many as i might have thought thanks to (you guessed it) mock ups!

Exhibit A. $75 worth of paper folded and ready to be glued. Thanks, Staples, for warning me that this tiny 10 book project would cost me dinner for a week. I'm not sure who wouldn't be surprised by that pricetag, but... um... I was.

At any rate - they're beautiful! And colorful! And laid-out correctly!

Exhibit B. Since my accordion book is two-sided, I had to glue the backs together before folding. Two of the pockets (you can sort of see them... under the pink square there's a light blue box that doesn't match anything else) will be glued under the covers. This view shows the back pockets before they're folded under the book... if that makes any sense.

Spoiler alert: I ended up just gluing the sides down rather than stitching them. I thought the stitching would compete with the bold white box ... and ... I didn't leave a larger margin on the outer edges, as I should have if I'd really wanted to do it. Also I thought the glossy high-impact printing would actually confuse the stitching idea. I didn't complain that it was faster this way too :)

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!

book fun

So here are my ten books. They are sprawly if I open them all, so I have made two pictures, one of which is them looking all tall and organized with a couple of sprawly ones, and one which shows them stacking nicely, as if they play well with others (they don't).

As to what I learned... I learned a lot of things. I think one of the most important was that I can keep changing things for a while until it all actually (more or less works). The MOST important, though, is that if you have enough Mod Podge caked onto your hands, and the dog barks right next to your head while you're trying to use an Xacto knife, the Mod Podge will absorb most of the cut action of the blade as it sinks into your finger. Yay for Mod Podge!