Thursday, February 2, 2017

MAKING SMALL NOTEBOOKS & A COUPLE POLITICAL SITES TO CHECK OUT

I am giving a workshop in a couple months and one of the things that I wanted to do is to give small notebooks to all the participant. The idea behind the small notebooks is to ask each participant to focus on curiosity and to write down one very brief thing that peaked their curiosity each day.

The idea behind my request is that when one looks for something specific, it sharpens the focus on that subject. For instance, when I took a nature drawing class, I began to see things like trees and leaves and flowers with much more attention to detail.

Because I wanted to encourage folks to do this, I felt that making notebooks would motivate them to keep track.

Here's the outer cover of the notebook...

For the base, inside, I used two pieces of light weight cardboard. I then used Steam-A-Seam to adhere fabric to the outside...as well as the inside...

I used a zig-zag stitch to make sure things held together. To keep the notebook closed I am adding some ribbon...

I will then add velcro dots to the ribbon which will hold the notebook closed. I also want to add some trim like decorative corners and maybe a dangle of beads.

For the pages, I used watercolor weight (heavy) paper, cut a little smaller than the perimeter of the cover, folded each piece, and then using binder clips to hold the pages together, I applied very tacky glue on the folded edge...

Once that was dry, I glued a single piece of paper the size of each sheet plus the spine to the spine...

When I have finished with the covers, I will add the pages. After that, I will share photos of the finished notebooks.


A COUPLE POLITICAL SITES TO CHECK OUT

Two sites you may want to check out for information and ideas:

1. Robert Reich's Resistance Report. He posts a daily video on what's going on in the political world. It's short but very enlightening. I watch it on Facebook.

2. Very Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. This is a live streamed program which I found, again, on Facebook. Lawrence talks about political events and answers questions from folks who are watching. 

I suggest that you check these two out so you can keep current with what's going.

Thanks for dropping by...
Talk to you tomorrow...
Can you believe that it's already February?