Test 1, 2, 3.

To my fannish_library_fest posts:

Fannish Bindings for a Fannish Library

A Lyrical Ode to Libraries
And I've got two more to add: White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons and Do It Anyway by Ben Folds Five ("sometimes you'll like the cover and that's precisely why you'll love the book").

[Almost] forgot the ficlet.

But if I could do the Spock and/or Teal'c-style eyebrow raise, I'd totally be doing it in the general direction of the folks who take Bookbinding I who clearly have no crafty inclinations whatsoever. Like, I'm not saying you should come in with previous knowledge or knowing how to thread a needle or anything, but I feel like there's sort of a skill-set or maybe even a mind-set wherein you can actually learn those things. And if you don't have that crafty inclination, I have to wonder what makes you look at a Bookbinding class and decide to take it in the first place.

(This post is brought to you by me doing RA hours on Fridays and basically having to re-teach this guy step by step the things he should have learned in class. I mean, there were people in my BBI class who weren't crafty and needed help, but they got the gist, you know?)

I agree. Every time I think I'm almost done I find one more thing. Well hello there, toaster... (frakkin' toaster).

Also, one of the great mysteries of the universe: how do you pack a paper mache monkey*?




*award winning

and it occurs to me that if I'm going to be all crazypants, I might as well go all out:



( Each sprinkle has been hand-selected for clarity and sprinkliciousness )

Right. So. Holiday cards.

Previous iterations have included:

• snowflakes, snowflakes, and more snowflakes (I've pretty much done the snowflakes to death at this point)


• pine trees


• snow personages


• "These are a few of my favorite things"/"Warm woolen mittens" (the bewhiskered kittens and bestringed brown paper packages were too 3D for mailing and sorta difficult to mass produce, so some people just got mittens)


• mugs of hot chocolate

The current iteration includes:

• Who the fuck knows?


• No, seriously, who the fuck knows? And can they tell me? Because I have no ideas.

So my plan is to include one of the little stuffed animals I made back in college in my "substantive sample of craft or graphic work" (also known as a portfolio). The thing is, I can't decide which one:

Kitty!


Unmutated and not yet angry squirrel


Or a blue ribbon winner at the Middletown Grange Fair

And I do:



But it fails as a holiday card cause it's too damn hard to mass produce.

Why is this box epic? Well it's flat out tall, for one thing:


And then there's the whole triple decker aspect:


And the fact that the top layer has this plexiglass lid that slides on:


And it wasn't like I got to make 3 equal in size slots, the different pieces were different heights and widths and thicknesses, and the bit with the lid has grooves and lips and I had dreams about this box. I spent a lot of time at work just thinking and planning and drawing and figuring out how the hell I was gonna make the damn thing. There aren't instructions for this level of creative problem solving. It took like, mad engineering skillz and it also took over my brain. So I'm glad it's done.*

Now what was all this epic effort for?
This:


Yes, that is a falsie. No, I do not know why it's on the cover of a book. I'm guessing it's supposed to be "art", but the foam rubber is disintegrating and was getting smooshed by the original slipcase it came in (preserved in the bottom shelf). The goal of the plexi is that peeps can see the book cover without touching it (or breathing on it), and then access the text (in a wrapper in the middle shelf).

*Of course now they want me and Jody (who gave me this monstrosity and was my sounding board and helped with the thinking thinky thoughts) to write an article about it for the Alumni Newsletter or something.