Chicken Soup for the Quirk Soul

[Nevermore]

I haven't been able to get this off my mind but haven't been able to post about it for a while. Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving so tonight is a "can stay up late and get bleary eyed" kind of night which I fully intend to do!

So, firstly, I had wanted to contact Krista re some form of binding but she has just had a death in the family so I am going to leave that for now. Anway, 1) why should the dog wag the tail? and 2) now that I have seen Mar's books for our Fat Chunky Pages Round 2 I am going to get Mar to volunteer to come up with an idea for binding. There is no way we can forego talent like that!

I am liking this so far. I have Ruth doing the cover and Mar thinking up the way to bind it. Jeepers, this is easy!

Some brainstorming:
1. A rough division of chapters. Say seven just because it is a lucky number but it is irrelevant.
2. Division by topic: chickens, dexxies, ATCs, hybrid or altered or whatever nomenclature rings your bell, journals, challenges (just doing stream of consciousness, kids, you all kick in now you hear?)
3. Any one can contribute to any chapter they want and to all of them if they are so inclined.
4. "Articles" can be about themselves and their stuff or others.
5. Format: illustrated text. Unsure of size yet because Mar hasn't handed in her report (rotflmao). You going to have that done soon Mar?
6. Do a couple of chapters a month, say (won't get it done in time for normal's Christmas I guess but fair to say I give a lot of late gifts. If people hate that, we can try to schedule it for Christmas delivery. Personally, my vote is you can't rush a quirk and it will be done when it is done).
7. Put out the call for the chapter and just gather up all the material that comes in. Zip it and distribute it? I would think that anyone who contributes should be able to get a copy.
8. We could even consider forgetting the binding thing and do it as 12 x 12s so anyone and their dog (heya, Freya!) could get a normal scrapping album (they can be had for next to nothing or small fortunes. Let's people do as their whim and wallet dictates) and material is just added normally.
9. I do think some text has to be mandatory. The point is that people are relating stories, anecdotes, tips, items of interest to quirks. We are illustrating it because that is what we do.

What do you think?

[Marretje]

now that I have seen Mar's books for our Fat Chunky Pages Round 2 I am going to get Mar to volunteer to come up with an idea for binding.

...............................................

What do you think?

:D O, I do have an idea for binding but the book became the size of A5 (folder A4) that is the cheapest way and can printed by each other themselves at home on double sized print paper, which is for sale in a few price categories. Or the file can be printed by a local good printshop.

The most important thing for this system is that the one who makes up the pages has experience with making up pages for double sized bookpage printing and has the software for it, whisteling, whisteling, I'm a graphical designer and works for a newspaper ;) and this is one part of my daily work.

I can make a tutoral for binding or make a self-work package that the cover and binding system can be made by everybody themselves. It isn't much work also not expensive and really fun to do.

But this is just a ventilation of my first thoughts when I read this before my daily coffee shot and I'm very easy going. When others have a good idea I hope they will yell too.

LATER EDIT:
A few hours later after more brainstorming I can imagine at least 4 different ways to bound a A5 size book - from very easy until some work but not much.

[NaughtsNCrosses]

Mar, you're very talented. :)

Kim, do you want new or existing works of quirk?

It all sounds great! :)

[Pixeldigger]

It would be easy to bind an A4 set of pages with a plastic binder and clip, which is easily available in most stationery stores here. I'm sure we could find a way of altering the front [wide evil grin]

[indybev]

Will somebody explain A4 and A5 to me? I assume it's book size. Here's my humble opinion, for what it's worth,-- I think 12 x 12 would be cumbersome. It's quite reasonable to get books spiral bound at local office supply stores. I did a book of poetry by punching holes and criss-crossing ribbon binding, attaching beads and such to ribbon ends. Lots of ideas out there!!

[Nevermore]

We have a Dutch Warbler, it seems. I had no idea what you did for a living Mar but seems to me you have what we need!

Indybev, I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I think that those are European and Asian standards vs. our 8.5 x 11. I know I bought a calendar template for an altered project from Lie Fhung and it called for either A4 or A5 so I wrote to her and said can I use 8.5 x 11 and I believe she said it would not work out the same. Needless to say, I never did the project because I figured the math would kill me. At the end of the day, a size is a size and I guess it will be fine as long as 1. they are all the same and 2. you are prepared to listen to endless whingeing from me. (And you know that there will be endless whingeing come what may so you can pretty much discount #2).

It sounds to me like the binding is completely out of my hands and I am happy happy happy!!! Once we decide and get a template, we can just plow ahead. I am not sure if Judith and Mar are together or not--everyone else can figure it out. I am not technical. (Ask Ruth. One of her more frequent comments when she was here on Saturday was "Um, you have your blade upside down." Her observation of me trying to cut something).

Edeena, I thought it could be a happy blend of both current and past work. Think of it almost as a yearbook or annual review except not really annual. In example, the old Stock Exchange challenge which you have been playing with recently was a vibrant, well attended challenge that churned up a ton of works both serious and fun. I can't think history of DAQ without wanting something about it in there. I totally forgot about the quirk name thing and that has to have a place, too.

I think my idea was to capture in hard copy some of the spirit of DAQ: for every quirkster that may well be a different thing but you will have noted by now that hardly anyone who hangs out here all the time or drops by from time to time says sooner or later that DAQ is both unique and important.

[mizamigo]

Well, Kim, I totally agree that this project is not to be rushed. I definitely think "this" Christmas is not the deadline. And it would be an injustice to try to come up with just "any old thing" for a deadline. Besides, we are quirks - deadlines are NOT important, right????

Seriously, this is going to be a magnificently quirky creation and that does take time.

The other factor - size of page - is going to be interesting also. You cannot mix a standard 12 x 12 inch page with a 2.5 x 3.5 inch ATC. I don't think that works out well when binding the pages.

However, have you thought about the 8x8 shutterfly book option? And I don't know if you know that WendyzineScraps has wonderful templates and actions for shutterfly projects. I'm working on an 8x8 shutterfly book now and the cover template is wonderful then her cover cutter action actually does the work of breaking that cover page into a back cover, the spine and the front cover. Then of course, she also has provided an 8x8 page template where you can create the page within the boundaries; or you can use her actions on an already done page and it will size, etc. for you. (I don't get any commission from Wendyzine. I just wanted you all to know that this might be an option for the finished book. And I think Shutterfly may be in the moderate price range for book binding/pinting. However, I'm not sure since I'm doing a 20 page book with the cover and it's listed as $29.99.) If you want to check out the Shutterfly stuff from Wendyzine - she's selling them now at PickleberryPop dot com. (Again, just a thought for you all to consider.) Also, there are the 8x8 scrapbook albums at JoAnne's and Michaels and other places, so if we decided to print our own books, we could still use the templates for creating the pages.

[Nevermore]

tee hee, I know you aren't getting a commission from Wendy, lol! But I am going to tell her how much you like her actions! I have 'em and used them to bind my 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird book at Shutterfly. My problem with Shutterfly is that I do think it is expensive. I want everyone to be able to afford a hard copy--this is going to be much larger than 20 pages!

Just to clarify what I am thinking because maybe it is way different, I am not thinking that the ATC itself would be a "page". So, for example, if you wanted to submit a page for the book and we decided that the book was 6 x 8 (I am picking any number out of the air just for my example), you would do a 6 x 8 page and lay it out like a book page. You would have text. If you wanted your atc to be an illustration for the text, you would paste it in as a layer on your page but the page itself would the standard page size we pick.

I agree I agree 12 x 12 is dumped! But just to amplify on the example, you would do your text and if you just had one ATC as an illustration you would bring it in and make it twice or three times its size because you are illustrating a page.

Is this what others are thinking? A book, a real book, illustrated with quirk layouts, text to be quirk stories, anecdotes, tips, tricks, excerpts from posts etecetera?

[Pixeldigger]

In the UK, Photobox.com has the same sort of books to print as Shutterfly and the quality is excellent.

[Marretje]

Okay, now I'm getting a little dizzy. I think that printing a book as Shutterfly become very expensive. At least in the Netherlands a compagny does this work but one book become about $60 for 20 pages.

At first I was thinking that we where talking about the final result as a real book, which also could be made by ourself.

So I was thinking that way. Just a little explanation for who didn't know, A4 is just a simple printer paper which you normaly used for your printer, when you folded it once, it become A5.

When Kim ask me I was thinking to that size because it looks the most on a real book size. I have the possibility to read a simple wordfile in a program for Hight off-set, think at glossy magazin print and book look, but also fonts which can not be read by the normal text-programs like Word. After that I can convert it to a PDF file which is easy to print. I think we all have Adobe on our computer otherwise you can downloaded for free and we all have a printer which printed the normal paper format.

At this moment, it's evening here and I have had a hard day, so also a little tired and good English cost me always a lot of energy when I'm tired. But I will try it to explain in short. Tomorrow I will make some examples.

When I make the PDF file every printed page will look like an opened book. You only have to print page one, turn of the printed page in the printer and print page two of the file at the background of the printed page, start with a new paper and repeat above and so on until you have five pages printed on both sides and folded them.

From that point you can go two ways, or you can sew the pages in the middle, very easy and glue them on special fabric, I have miles of that fabric, or I have special pins, very cheap and you can stick one at the top side and at the bottom. They be hold up on a piece of cardboard, between the band and cover of the book.

Everytime when ten pages are ready, there is a new file and the book can grow as thick as we wish.

Can everybody still follow me? I hope so, but I promise tomorrow I make a photo tutoral which makes everything clear to you.

But still it is a thought of me how to make a real book. I know in the Netherlands a company who makes 8 x 8 books and they are not so expencive I will also ask some information what the price can become when you needed more books, I know they give reduction above 5 and more.

I also know, but I didn't know if the US has also the possibillity but in the Netherlands you can bring printed papers to some local good copiershops and they bound them with a strong metal spiral bound as the journals you can buy

like this http://www.marb-design.nl/images/album.jpg

They also can do the printing for you if you wish, and that is not very expencive. When the cover is made of good cardboard it can give also a great book, I think. But I don't know if that is possible in the US or Canada.

Well for so far some brainstorming.

[mizamigo]

Mar,
You are brilliant!!! I think doing the book like you suggested would be really neat! I love that you can do them as signatures. Printing would be easy, too, the way you explained it.