The Collingswood Bikeshare

Hola amigos. It's been a long time since I've rapped at you, but I've gone semi-pro, so I've been drawing/painting trading cards and working on the occasional illustration project with the time I used to spend drawing comics for free with little feedback. I do plan to finish my "Where's the Beat" comic and submit it to literary journals in hopes of getting more eyes, but publishing my progress on this blog would disqualify me from submitting elsewhere in many cases, so we'll have to wait a bit.

Long-time readers know that this blog started out as an attempt to share my combined interests in library studies and art, then it drifted more into a regular comics blog, and now I pop in once in a while to share updates on whatever projects I'm currently working on. Well, I never abandoned my library training, and now I work as a cataloger, circulation clerk and restoration specialist at one of the best special libraries in the world, the Collingswood Bikeshare.

Not the usual bike sharing program that rents out fancy-schmancy identical bikes with GPS and stuff by the hour, ours refurbishes donated adult bikes of many shapes, sizes and vintage and leases them like library books for $25/year.

With another female, I'm currently building a bike from an old road bike frame of dubious origin (though stickers indicate it was originally acquired from a Western Toy Store):

 Here I am scraping off the original layers of paint with a scraper. Later I'd switch to Zip Strip. This bike had a storied life including possible theft, judging by the paint layers -- red, original dark Bikeshare green, black spraypaing and lighter, modern Bikeshare green. This time it will be cream and blue.

Here are some before pictures:

Bikeshare brand builds often have BMX handlebars, and this model was no exception:

With new wheels and a cool found saddle, grips and other odds and ends, we have a nice new Bikeshare brand coaster bike!

 I named it Rover, after my cat (it's also the name of that bubble thing in The Prisoner, which fits our classic TV show bike naming scheme).

We still have a week or so of halfway decent riding weather left (it's November 6th as I'm writing this). Stop by sometime!

And be on the lookout for my art at Espressit Coffee Shop all November long.

Secret Project Unveiled!

Monsterwax unveiled the project on which I've been working, and many salivate as they await our LEGENDARY LOVECRAFT trading card set, planned for release this fall. To promote the set, company president and writer Kurt Kuersteiner and I handed out promos and displayed my original art at the latest Philly Non-Sports Card Show. The set will feature all your favorite monsters, including Cthulhu, the Great Race, and Nyarlathotep, and summaries of the best stories to elevate it all beyond mere eye candy while introducing new fans to H.P. Lovecraft's elegant body of work. I created six inserts for the set, but Ricardo Garijo, Jr. did the lion's share of the artwork.

Monsterwax at the Philly Non-Sports Card Show, Spring 2013

I wrote summaries for many of Lovecraft's stories, and it wasn't easy! Every little detail means something -- I would gloss over the number of dots on a seemingly random rock, for example, only to discover that "insignificant" detail was the key to the story's denouement. Discerning, scientifically-minded intellectuals would be remiss to pass on Lovecraft, as would the heavy metal and Evil Dead crowd (and all who fall into the middle of the Venn Diagram).

Note in the above picture that my hair hangs in separated tendrils -- kind of reminds you of Cthulhu, huh?

The following weekend, I presented all my Lovecraft drawings -- plus some older published work and a few recent nature sketches -- at the Grooveground coffee shop in Collingswood, NJ. All of it is for sale, so definitely take a peek if you live in South Jersey or Philadelphia. My art will be on display for the entire month of May through the first week of June. I sold a few copies of "Mediocre Narcotica's Greatest Hits: Vol. 1" and "Flame Broiled: Diary of a Burger Flipper" at my art opening, so be sure to search for these titles on eBay or my Etsy store to secure your copy while you still can!

Yours truly at my recent art show

I'm going to do things a little differently this time and REFRAIN from posting all my artwork for free on this blog, but here's a little taste of what's to come in the Monsterwax Legendary Lovecraft set:

Lovecraft's Great Race (c) 2013 Chrissy Spallone

Thanks for reading as always!

I Just Deleted a Bunch of My Facebook Fans

I just deleted a few hundred fans from my Bibliowhining Facebook page, assuming they had no actual interest in my art or writing.

Over a year ago, I put up a targeted Facebook ad for $2/day in hopes of attracting fans who would go on to buy some art or brighten my days with encouraging likes and comments. After a couple weeks, I attained hundreds of fans, but only one or two interacted with my page or site at all, and then only minimally. I canceled the unhelpful ad.

Soon I noticed ads for pages like "Justin Bieber" and "Taco Bell" that said, for example, "366 of your fans also like Justin Bieber." It was then I realized that most of my new fans were impressionable teenagers who would click indiscriminately on anything presented to them. I wasn't crazy about having so many such fans, but I didn't see any harm in it. I may have been wrong...

I don't know if Facebook changed its algorithm or what, but I recently noticed a decrease in the people who see my posts. Looking up the problem on the Internet, I discovered that negative feedback ("fans" hiding a post or reporting it as spam) can penalize your page so that Facebook doesn't display its posts to others. I exported my data and saw that several people were giving negative feedback whenever I posted anything, especially one of the "creepy" drawings that make up about half of this site's content.

Of course, I couldn't see who was giving the negative feedback, so to be safe I just deleted a bunch of bikini babes, trendy teens and anyone else who looked like they were "liking" my site for reasons other than interest in my comics, artwork and writing. I apologize if, in my trigger-happiness, I accidentally deleted you. Nothing personal, and I hope you'll come back! This is the last time I'm going to delete fans like that; I only did it to get rid of the fake fans attained through the useless Facebook ad. Nothing to complicate your life like Facebook, huh?

We're on TWITTER, too.

As always, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for news and scans from my next big project.

What Chrissy is Doing

I've been writing for some other sites, so if you like my style you may enjoy checking them out.

Here's my profile page for Stereo Subversion, a music review site. I recently had my first album review published there (Lightning Love's Blonde Album) and will be writing more for them in the future.

I wrote a few satire articles for Campus Basement (nee 'Cuse My Campus) in graduate school, but some current events lend themselves well to satire. Here's an article I wrote about the NYC soda ban, and here's my profile page with links to all the articles I wrote for the site.

I've been making sketch cards for Monsterwax, a neat trading card company that makes non-sports card sets, usually with a horror theme.

A free original art card comes in each box of Spook Show cards, and I also sell some of the originals. Contact me if you'd like to buy one. Here are some of the cards I've done so far:

There are more cards on my Monsterwax artist page. I'll be promoting the cards at the upcoming Philly Non-Sports-Card Show in Allentown (not Philly) on October 20-21. That's all for now, friends! Thanks for reading Bibliowhining. And don't forget, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest updates!

Bibliowhining News You Can Use

I've been writing and drawing for a few other sites/projects lately, hence the lack of new content here.

My Sketchbook Project entry has been digitized. Take a look here to see my sketchbook, mostly street and beach scenes. By the way, you have to register with the site to view the artwork, but it's free.

I'm selling my prints, postcards, Mediocre Narcotica comics and Chick Tracts and giving away free stickers and candy at the Smithville Artwalk in South Jersey on Saturday, April 21st. Many other vendors will be there selling largely horror and punk themed art and comics. If you can't make it, you can still buy my stuff on etsy or contact me directly.

I've been writing Chick Tract reviews for one of my long-time favorite sites, ChickComics.com. So far, I've written reviews for three of Chick's recent tracts, There Go the Dinosaurs, The Awful Truth, and his newest, Global Warming. I'll be writing more as new tracts come out, so be sure to "like" our brand new, official Jack Chick Tract Museum Facebook page to keep abreast of the latest reviews and news, share personal impressions of Chick Tracts or leave suggestions for improving the site. We launched it on April 13, 2012 in honor of the special Friday the 13th holiday. Don't be left behind!

Still working on Bibliowhining stuff, however slowly. I finished two more pages of "Where's the Beat," which you can view on the Bibliowhining Facebook page.

I'm always encouraged by comments and suggestions. Thanks for reading Bibliowhining!

Do It For the Kids!

Well what have we here in the supermarket magazine aisle within view and reach of tender young eyes and hands? Intellectually stimulating, inspiring and witty reading material like Cricket, Ranger Rick, any comics at all or even Mad? NO! Mind-numbing, base, lowest-common-denominator Justin Bieber pictorial magazines designed as training wheels for Seventeen and Cosmopolitan!



Yes, magazine publishers, supermarket stockers and parents, please work together to deaden our culture and set the next generation up for failure: every month, present these near-identical rags as the only visible reading options. Yes, teach young ladies to lust after some fungible, mop-topped pop star and beg their moms for makeup and trendy clothes so they can look like Selena Gomez.

Nowhere to be found???

This is not funny, and I can’t stand it. Bring your children over to the computer screen. I have a message for them.

Kids, Justin Bieber won’t be babyfaced and non-threatening forever, but that brain in your heads will stick with you for the rest of your life. Please don’t train it to passively absorb rotten pablum at such a young age. It may be difficult to go against the grain on this one, but remember: In the great scheme of things, it doesn’t matter what your peers think re: your taste in magazines and pop stars. Few, if any, of the classmates you have now will still be in your life ten years from now.

Maybe the other kids will think you’re strange because you don’t hang Justin Bieber clippings on the wall and kiss them on the lips, but who cares, seriously. Maybe some of your childhood and adolescence will be lonely and sad because you don’t model yourself after Selena Gomez or whoever is the teen girl star of the moment right now. Don’t worry about it; find a cool hobby to boost your confidence and keep you busy. Ride your bike, play some sports (yep) or go running to wear you out so you don’t stay up at night worrying about things. By establishing these habits, you will be setting yourself up for success and richness in later years.

Beware of the self-fulfilling prophecy, avoid screwing up your life with drugs, alcohol or Mountain Dew, stay humble and someday you will be cool in spite of -- nay, because of your lack of Justin Bieber posters. And the being humble part is important; It is unwise to make a big conceited show about how your interests are so much better and cooler and more obscure than everyone elses; be honest about your tastes, but never arrogant or pushy. Having said that, share what you enjoy if others seem interested; there’s nothing worse than the exclusive cool kid who suddenly gets angry and defensive when other people discover a band, TV show, etc. he likes. And if you really do like Justin Bieber, well, that’s fine, too. We all have our guilty pleasures. But keep an open mind to other things you might like; talents you envy in others that you would like to possess, and spend some time exploring them. Jealousy is nature's way of telling you to hone your talents, study or work out harder to achieve your goals. Many turn jealousy into statements such as, "Sure, she's a great clarinet player and always gets the band solos, but that doesn't matter because she's fat and ugly." Words and thoughts such as that will do nothing to enhance your life. You’re still young, and when you’re old like me and realize you could never be a great piano player because you can only be really great if you start out in childhood, you’ll look back and regret some of the wasted time gone by.

Think about some of the characters you’ve admired in comics, classic literature and movies. Are they materialistic, obsessed with celebrity gossip and desperate for the approval of others or do they have a little bit more depth, soul and integrity? Why not look to these characters as examples rather than create a smokescreen to appease mean classmates who pass judgment on you?

Surely there’s something better tucked away in the back of the magazine rack, there…let’s not let it die out like Nickelodeon Magazine and maybe there will be hope for you yet. Ah! Games and Highlights. What are they doing all the way in the back? Is this some sort of conspiracy?

Well, now they’re in the front, covering the awful trash. Merry Christmas, kids; I have given at least a few of you the gift of knowledge. Enjoy the anachronistic comic exploits of Goofus and Gallant and The Timbertoes. Exercise your minds and develop problem-solving skills with a Games Magazine puzzle or two.

Parents: why not add a few books, strategy games, puzzles, art supplies or musical instruments in with the DVDs this year? It would be great if kids actually had a fighting chance to accomplish something besides sitting in front of the MTV eating Ho-Hos with a glazed, deadened look in their eyes. You can buy very good books for under a dollar on Amazon, and if you register for a free library card you can check out all kinds of books for the kids at no charge. Usually the library has brand-new material in addition to the classics; they don’t simply rotate the same taped-up, crumbling books from the 1950s in perpetuity as some believe.

And do what I did with the magazine rack at your local book, drug or grocery store. What’s the worst that could happen, some store associate tells you not to? This has never happened to me and I’m sure very few would care even if they notice. Do it for the kids.

Be True to Your School

Just wrote several giant, not-so-positive paragraphs "critiquing" art school, but in an effort to make my blog less text heavy, I posted the rant as a note on Bibliowhining's Facebook page. Check it out! I hope you "like" it.

On a lighter note, last week I went to Moo Tattoo in Philadelphia, becoming the client of this excellent artist. He does comics, too. Appreciating his style and always seeking to better my own craft, I asked him various questions about what kind of white out to use, etc., and also how to do lettering nicely without typing it out on the computer.

Despite the popularity of my beloved “Ames Lettering Guide” tutorial, there has to be a better way. It’s tedious to position the ruler and draw all those perfectly-spaced lines every time, but I really prefer the warm, hand-done look to typed letters. An alternative, I learned, is to use a light desk and place a piece of ruled or graph paper between the desk and the Bristol board so the lines show through. I knew about using light desks for tracing before, but never thought of this useful application. So simple, just like every other helpful tip I’ve received here and there from editors and various other comic and storytelling connoisseurs who’ve passed through my life at one time or another.

Remember, folks: tattoos may be expensive, but not as expensive as art school! And certainly less painful than sitting through those damn critiques.

Being a little on the thrifty side, I thought I’d try making a ghetto light desk myself, just for the purposes of lettering. Looking around my small apartment, I found the ingredients:

• A gooseneck lamp I got from the Syracuse University move-out trash last year.

• A TCBY plastic advertising sign taken from the trash way back when I worked at TCBY.

• Four volumes of “The Complete Peanuts” by Charles Schulz, published by Fantagraphics Books. Most certainly NOT trash! I may have gotten some of them half off with my intern discount.

Check it out: if I place my gooseneck lamp so the light shines up, it will illuminate the TCBY sign "desk." The two Peanuts collections are placed to elevate the "desk."

See?

Now a sheet of notebook paper or graph paper...

...And a sheet of Bristol board over that. See? The ruled lines show through the Brisol board!

Now I can letter with ease. And there you have it! Works for what I need it for. Obviously the TCBY logo is too distracting for this to work as a proper light desk, but for lettering alone it does a'ight.

IS THIS THE END OF THE AMES LETTERING GUIDE? Naw... I don't have the heart.

Born This Way

Just like people of color or people in the gay/transgender/bi community are "born this way," I was "born this way" as an introvert. If you like art, books or music, chances are you have an introvert in your list of heroes. That quiet, secretive kid in class may give you the creeps or seem boring, but give him a chance! Introvert Pride! I was BORN THIS WAY, BABY! (Written in black, the official color for introvert pride).

 "Idoling" (c) 2011, Chrissy Spallone

I did this story a few years ago, but the drawing and writing were so clunky I decided to redo it. It was a fan favorite.

Speaking of "American Idol," did anyone catch that earnest young Italian trio "Il Volo" performing the classic song "O Sole Mio"? I thought they were a last-minute replacement for a relevant group, but now I'm seeing and, unfortunately, hearing them everywhere! The kids are into it, huh?

Since around 1997, I've been thinking, "Pop music can't get any worse than this," but this "popera" trip really threw me for a loop. BRAVO, guys! Didn't see this one coming. "Backstreet's Back" is actually sounding pretty good these days -- we're getting old, guys!


GOOD-NIGHT!

She's Not There

I lost my "active" Moleskine notebook today. That's where I flesh out most of my comic scripts and jot down ideas. The story has a happy ending, though: retracing my steps, I found the lost Pac-Man limited edition black book in the public library lost n' found.

DO YOU THINK ANYONE READ IT?! Imagine reading this stuff out of context. And I totally had my name and address inside, too...YIKES!!

I also had a little writeup (for the purposes of a suspense story) on how to create a false online presence for a competitor. I'll try to remember to scan that next time.

So Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is upon us. While not Catholic, I habitually give something up on Lent because it helps me break bad habits long-term. One year I gave up soda, particularly Mountain Dew, which I used to drink all the time. This year I'm giving up bread. I've been eating lots of sandwiches lately, being that there's a WaWa right down the street, and my 4-pack is beginning to soften as a result. Unacceptable. I think the "Barbie dolls" glorified in the media are pretty boring to look at. On an unrelated note, when I lean forward and feel a small roll of fat caving in and exerting pressure against my torso, it's a signal that I need to change my diet and exercise habits. I'm not fat, but I feel discomfort when layers of fat prevent me from comfortably moving as I like. It's very easy to make a small change in my lifestyle to combat the problem before it escalates into something worse, so rather than sandwiches and rolls, I shall satisfy my hunger with rice and other healthy non-bread foods.

I also plan to give up INVACEBOOK. I'll continue to update the blog page, but not my personal profile. That's the plan, at least. I don't know if I'll keep that up, though. I like the Invacebook sometimes because I have lots of cartoonists and writers in my network, and it's awesome reading and looking at their new stuff. I don't waste time on there, or have it connected to my cellular phone. I write lots of long-winded statuses, but I'd be writing somewhere else if not on Facebook. Look at me now!

The problem is, I don't enjoy watching culture crumble before my eyes. "It can't get any worse than this," I think and then some horrible new technology comes up that makes people speak and write shorter sentences and pay less attention to things than the day before. I hate spending time editing long statuses down to 420 (HA!) characters. Seriously, I've spent longer amounts of time editing a damn status down than I did writing this entire blog entry right here. I make that effort because I like to share my thoughts and observations about things, possibly with the intention of starting a little dialogue or banter. Rarely do I write some boring drivel like "today is friday," beacause I don't care much to blather on just so people can see my face on their feed or whatever. But there's no evidence that anyone ever reads 3/4 of my stuff, then meanwhile a sorority girl writes "Good Morning" or something and gets like 50 likes and replies. Discouraging.

I'm also sort of sick of these old-hat political debates popping up all the time, you know. And rarely does anyone have a normal, common sense argument, it's just a rehash of the same old tired lines over and over again. And I get sucked into them, tempted to share my views and it's like a stressful thing. But I know that sharing my views via InVacebook reply in a long chain of 50 other replies would be a giant waste of time and would not change anyone's mind or even be read after the next two respondants bump my comment out of visibility-land.

I hate posting something that's meant to be funny and sarcastic and brighten days and then having kids misread my tone and get offended. The alternative, I suppose, would be to post YouTube clips of Family Guy episodes. I was considering replying to all such offended comments with a link to the "Lemonade? Please" episode of "Itchy & Scratchy," but it is too difficult to find and perhaps too outdated of a reference.

Sometimes I make up fake information about myself, like that I'm "in an open relationship" or some silly nonsense which, while I'm doing it I think is obvious in its facetiousness. Next thing I know hordes of friends are calling me or messaging me or commenting asking if it's so, and who. I hate that, and who cares whether or not I'm in a relationship. Why so interested in that over all else? I get more feedback from nonsense relationship stuff I make up than any comics or artwork. This is also sort of a depressing thing.

And what I REALLY hate is that damn new way photos are displayed, small and in a black frame. What a crapola birthday present that was, as I first saw it on February the 14th. I immediately saw the problem with that, from the very first picture I clicked!!! Practically impossible to decipher small text and hidden background gags in comics and other artwork. And who wants to make the extra effort to actually go to a Web-page or blog and view the art in higher quality, or even to press "refresh" in order to magnify the photo?  Practically no one, as far as I've seen. Clearly, the hack -- Zuckerberg's new girlfriend, I'm guessing -- set up the new photo display imagining duckfaced little teenagers uploading phone pics of themselves donning bikinis and sipping Corona Lights as they tan at the shore. Surely no one uses INVACEBOOK to share their creative output. And yet the coders do nothing to correct sad mistakes such as this, instead they lie doggo, brainstorming the next steps in destroying our civilization. This is another depressing thing about InVacebook. No sir, I don't like it.

Six Pack

Here I sit like someone out of the "Stuff White People Like" blog, transcribing stuff into my text editor from my Moleskine notebook. At least it's not a Mac.

Those of you lucky enough to have watched the short, hilarious film from my last entry may have learned that I don't define myself or dictate my happiness through my work, as in the kind of job I have, but through something that will probably never offer me any financial stability -- my hobbies!

I enjoy working in libraries, and I get plenty of satisfaction from helping others with their research and learning bits of trivia in the process, but right now I'm enjoying the fact that my freelancing job, if silly, takes very little of my time while providing me with the financial stability I need to feed myself goulash and tea every day and live in my beautiful, quiet apartment. I briefly felt some shame and guilt in not being able to immediately "work" my Master's Degree, but I'm not alone. The economy is down, and I'm doing what I have to do to make ends meet in the mean time. Actually, I'm doing more than making ends meet. I'm really making mad bank right now, I'm not gonna lie. "Mad bank" for me, as it turns out, is equivalent to like, I'll be up front with you here and could care less if you think this is chump change, $600 a week, but that is way more than I need. I have this amazing power to stretch and save cash, even though I'm one of the last few people around who pays money for (a whole lot of) music. It's magic!

Besides making mad bank, this freelancing gig is also giving me lots of appreciated free time to do a different kind of freelancing -- and that kind of freelancing requires a Moleskine notebook.

Me and the Moleskine have been BFFs since I first discovered it in 2004 as "The notebook used by Van Gogh and xyz important person". Being sort of a modern-day Van Gogh myself, I couldn't resist! Initially, I used the Moleskines to record some of my deepest personal feelings and reflections on my daily happenings. What a waste, right? When people come over to visit and flip through the Moleskine library on my desk, expecting brilliant nuggets of wit, scripts and raw artwork, I silently hope that they'll lose interest before making their way to the older, more emo volumes of yore. I was just a 20-year old kid back then. I didn't know any better.

Now we're in the bronze age of Moleskine. These notebooks are where all my comic scripts are born, and where I sketch people on trains and other public places to inform future, more "serious" drawings. The only thing the Moleskine doesn't do so well is absorb ink. Sure, there's the watercolor notebook, but that's just too precious! I want a notebook that lets me sketch people in pencil, just like in the sketchbook, but also allows me to ink over my drawings with a dip pen. So I'm going to make one!

How To Make a Low-Rent Moleskine Notebook

The first thing I did was cut all the pages for my notebook. I'm using bristol board to fulfill my need for a "cartooning" sketchbook. You can use any type of paper you please, but be aware that thicker paper is more difficult to work with. I used a ruler to measure, then marked off the dimensions of my paper according to the original Moleskine size -- their pages are 7"x5.5". It's a good size. These papers must be folded in half, though, so I'm marking off 11" x 7" pages which will later be folded in half. I absentmindedly marked my dimensions backwards in this visual aid, as I now see. Darn it. I should tell you now that I figured out a lot of this stuff from Michael Shannon's Moleskine tutorial, but mine isn't as fancy as his.

Next, I used an x-acto knife on a hard, unvaluable surface to cut out all of my pages according to the guidelines I drew above. Depending on how thick you want your notebook, you can cut out as many pages as you like, as long as it's a multiple of six. I wanted my notebook to be three signatures thick, so I cut out 18 pages.

SEE THE REST OF THE TUTORIAL UNDER THE CUT!

What I'm doing in this picture is something called "folding". It is important to fold the sheets you cut out so that you'll have a nice Moleskine-sized book rather than a bunch of sheets of paper stapled together. I "kissed corners," as my first grade teacher explained folding to me, and used a pencil to make my folds sharp. I did this with each and every one of my sheets of paper.

Here's where my blog title comes from. I have "packed six" of the folded sheets of paper together, like so, to make a signature. Of course I've done some sloppy cutting and whatnot, but the most important thing is to align all the spines and make sure the bottom of the stack is flush. It's okay if the top and side edges are a bit crooked, or cattywompus (sp?) as Dr. Lavender likes to say.

I made three signatures in all, each with six of my folded papers.

Who knew that that binder clip would ever see the light of day again? I collected all my signatures together, making sure that the spines and bottoms were even, clipped them, and marked the spine for where they will be sewn later. All the needle holes have to be in the same place for the book's signatures to be even in the finished book.

Then I separated the signatures again. To make holes for the sewing needle, I folded the spine over the edge of my CD case. You can use the edge of any unvaluable surface. I used a pin to poke holes in the markings I made earlier. I did this for all three of the signatures, one signature at a time. Again, make sure that the spine and bottoms of each page are even as you do this.

Check it out! Here are my three signatures with their perfectly placed holes.

And now for the sewing supplies. Needles, thread, and wax.

I waxed a couple inches of the needle side of the thread, since I didn't double the thread like when I sew fabric. Don't double up the thread. The wax will hold it in place (or should, it slipped a few times for me). Thread a long strand, you can cut it later.

Sewing the first signature now. I left a little bit of thread (about 2 inches) hanging out where I started. I just threaded the holes I already punched.

In this pic, I'm marrying the first signature to the second signature. When I finished threading the holes in the first signature, I entered the thread into the first hole of the second signature, then went back and forth between rethreading the first holes and threading the second signature's holes for the first time, to "marry" the two together. Then I "married" the second signature with the third, last signature using the same back-and-forth threading. Isn't this complicated to explain. Does it make sense to you? There was also bloodshed and I'd recommend a thimble if you're using thick paper.

Here's what your spine will look like when you've threaded all the signatures together.

Paste gauze onto your new spine, and cut away excess gauze. I know that my cutting techniques are the best you've ever seen.

When the glue dries, trace your little Moleskine innards onto another sheet of paper, which will ultimately be the inside cover. Trace the spine, too so you'll know where to fold and glue. You'll notice that I've drawn an extra panel on the right there, with some tabs. I like and use the Moleskine pocket, so I made a pocket for my low-rent Moleskine.

Cut out and fold like so...

Now glue the spine of your signature pack onto the spine of the inside cover. Also, glue the tabs down to make a pocket. I sandwiched a ribbon between the signature spine and inside cover spine to make a little notebook.

Isn't this fun? I then traced and cut out the outside cover onto a piece of cardboard, a material of which I have an abundance. You can use something a little more classy if you wish. Just make sure it's sturdy enough to meet your needs, and will hold glue well. To finish, I glued the whole outside surface of that "inside cover" page, and glued all over the cardboard and married them together. To make sure the glue held well, I closed the book and pressed it between my two CD cases. Or dictionaries or whatever are fine.

Now I have a ghetto moleskine!