Shhhh! This is a library…

If you know me, you know that I love books and reading and libraries. Kathy is all over me to go back to school for Library Sciences because I enjoy cataloging and archiving and making spreadsheets and filing and alphabetizing and all that. If I had any time, I’d volunteer at the library. In fact, I think I might anyway, because I just don’t feel right having “free” time. I seem to operate the best in “always having something to do” mode.

I think that’s partially why I’m always making things. During my week “off” I played around with library checkout cards, like the ones from school libraries who haven’t made the digital leap. I ended up making a series of small jotter-like notebooks. To make each one original, I’ve typed in some quotes about books or reading. I think my favorite is “Wear the old coat and buy the new book.”

Keeping with the school theme, the inner pages are of primary writing tablet paper that I found in the kids section of Staples. I used my nifty, new long stapler for the binding and then book tape for extra binding and finishing. Book tape is new to me. I was buying envelopes at PaperSource and was looking around for ribbon which they didn’t have a good selection of, but I did find this book tape stuff. Essentially, I think it’s just book cloth with adhesive backing. In the future, I can probably make my own with the all-powerful Xyron. My first versions didn’t have rounded corners, but they just look too nice to forego. So I rounded all the corners. Even though I have a little punch to do it, it’s still a big pain because the punch only gets through about 3-4 pages at a time.

I don’t think that I’ve exhausted the possibilities here at all. I see rolodex dividers and business cards in the future and who knows what else. If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to leave a comment. If I make your item, I’ll give you one for free. That’s a pretty sweet deal.