SIZE:
4.25 x 5.5 This is simply an 8.5 x 11 size piece of cardstock quartered. Cardstock should be thin; thicker cardstock means fewer pages! IMPORTANT: When you are cutting cardstock, cuts need to be as precise as possible. On your first cut, compare the two sides: are they equal, or is one side slightly
longer than the other? Make any adjustment needed, then do the same when halving those pieces. Not all cardstocks are exactly 8.5 x 11, so the more precise we each are with our measuring, the less ragged the edges will appear in the assembled books. :-)
ORIENTATION:
Boys: Landscape. While there are always plenty of exceptions that we know of, generally speaking, we can expect a boy to be more interested in drawing than in journaling his deepest thoughts and feelings! So, for the boys we will be doing a landscape orientation, and plain white cardstock. I would love to have some donations of cardstock that is meant for drawing/sketching ... I am not an artist, so I have not looked into pricing for this. Feel free to put great deals of where and what to get in the comment sections! Because we are focusing on drawing, we'll want to make sure that those who choose to include boy journals in their boxes will be purchasing art/drawing tools for those journals.
Girls: Portrait orientation
By having different orientations for gender, it will also be easier to sort.
STYLES:
For the girls, we will have a couple of styles. One style will include stamped images to color in on every or every other page (opinions welcome!). As with the boys' journals, those choosing this style will need to purchase pens/pencils/markers to include in box. The second style will be to include very light printed patterned cardstock, plain cardstock with stamped images that are complete in themselves, and other creative ideas to provide decorative pages. No need to add coloring implements to the shoe boxes, but of course pen/pencils to write with! IMPORTANT: When decorating pages, you'll want to keep in mind a 3/8 of an inch margin for punching the sides.
WHAT TO AVOID
It is important to be culturally sensitve, which to some extent is impossible due to the sheer number of countries the shoeboxes go to! But, here are some guidelines:
Do not include any military/weapon images. Avoid American symbols such as flags, secular holiday symbols, Disney images. Very few children will speak or read English; please do not use word stamps. In general, if you are not sure, just ask yourself if a child in Vietnam, Niger, or wherever, would appreciate the symbol you are concerned about.
Remember, please, that these are going to older children, so while I included a few "cute" images in my sample of images to be colored, I focused on less childish images.
Please do not use stickers; we're looking for a more "personal" touch for these journals. Obviously you are more than welcome to add stickers to your OCC box.
NOTES:
I encourage making multiple pages with the same image (no need to make same number of each design). Notice I have almost exclusively small designs ... I think it's great to have a few larger, but with limited number of pages, I'd like there to be plenty of room for writing. When you are ready to send me pages, please have them in piles where each pile has one each of a unique design. This way, rather than having to sort ourselves, we will just lay each pile onto another set of unique images.
Here are a few samples for journals that will not require coloring tools. Any stamped image colored in would be great, or silhouette images on colored paper, etc. Here are a few samples:
On the samples above, the top two were made by with two sizes of a labels die set. After diecutting paper, I used temporary glue to affix them to the cardstock panels. After stamping, I removed the paper. The one on the right was made by sponging several inks, then stamping a tiny rosebud stamp all over the area. The one on the left is made with a 6x6 stamp. Why the panel below made with the same stamp? I should have placed it directly underneath the page, but hopefully you can see that the page is teal on white, the panel below is teal on teal. If you want to make fully stamped pages that can be written on, and easily read, you will want to do tone on tone. Othewise, as you see above, the contrast is too great and will make for difficulty reading. So, unless you are using a very light color on white, try to stick with the tone on tone.
If, like me, you have lots of stamped/colored elements that you do not have a particular use for, you can glue these on to pages, as long as the cardstock is not to thick, which could cause bumps when writing on the previous pages, so please primarily use paper if attaching something to a page. Likewise, if applying washi tape, please use very thin tapes only.
What about stickers? Please use them very sparingly, same with washi tape. I want us to avoid making the books thicker or bumpier than they need to be for one thing, but more than that, I feel that it takes away from the "handmade" keepsake look of the book.
Other ideas:
The bottom left is a strip of paper cut with decorative edged scissors. Again, use paper ,not cardstock so that no unnecessary thickness is added. The right hand side is washi tape, please only use the very thin tape.
These are all items from my stash of unused elements. The two cardstock pieces are made from very thin cardstock, but even so, I would not put more than one in any journal. The feather is a little bit on the large size, but I included it just to show the idea of using mulberry paper ... it has such a unique look!
PUTTING THE JOURNALS TOGETHER
Whether we do every page decorated, or every other, etc, will depend on how many covers we end up with in proportion to pages that we have. I am also not going to be picky about how people put together the journals in terms of ratio of plain cardstock to designed. What I will be picky about is quality. Let's not use torn, stained, or dented cardstock, but create keepsakes to be treasured forever! :-)
At the workshop, we will focus entirely on making and/or decorating covers, so pages need to be complete by the workshop date (Saturday, September 22).
IN SUMMARY
I am looking for:
Cardstock with stamped images for the recipient to color
Cardstock creatively decorated with original artwork, stamped images that are complete in themselves, (paper) die cuts, panels, etc.
Cardstock specifically meant for artwork, cut into quarters
Light colored or patterned cardstock, cut into quarters
IMPORTANT: Please use a cutter, not free hand cutting, for quartering the cardstock, and measure carefully (panels should be 5.5 x 4.25).
Note: I've been asked about lined paper. First, it's extremely expensive to have printed. But more importantly, we do not know what countries these books are going to, and many countries have more pictoral written communication, so lined journals would be inappropriate.
