We’re heading off to Sticky Institute in Melbourne (amongst other places) in mere minutes! Purple moose is coming along for the fun and I have heaps to talk about and will have heaps of pictures when we’re back.
Dear Anonymous V1 Sneak Peak
This is a page I finished that is simple, but I love it. It’s less serious than a lot of the letters.
I didn’t get to work on things last night because puppy – by accident – sunk his tooth into my thumb. It seems find today, though, so if I can just get the scanner working, I should be right to go for sending volume one out next week.
I already have letters for volume two, so keep sending those letters in! Volume two is probably going to be done on the computer instead of being handwritten like this one. Mostly to save time and because my mad drawing skillz are severly lacking.
Zines! Glorious Zines!
More mailbox goodness! I’m thinking of having a change jar that I will use for buying up zines. I love them all so far and I like supporting zine makers. That’s a thought for another time. Zines!
number one: a zine of firsts
Buy here at etsy!
Buy here at etsy!
This zine was definitely a ‘softy’ buy in that firsts are very close to my heart. When I first moved to Australia, taking in and experiencing as many ‘firsts’ as I could became my mission; a mission that led to me trying many things I would not have tried otherwise. I really liked the cute art and the uncomplicated subject. I would definitely check out her other work.
Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2
Buy here at etsy!
Buy here at etsy!
If there was ever a zine that I thought I needed to have to get started in the zine world, it’s this one. With it’s own ISBN and awesome binding, it’s more like a small book than a zine. But it’s a sort of zine-topia in all the information it holds. From thoughts on layouts to an index of distros and zine events (worldwide!), Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2 is definitely a must have, in my opinion.
This is also one of those cases where I wish I would have looked at everything in the shop before making my purchase because they have so much awesome stuff in addition to zines! Check it out.
Dear Anonymous Evolution
This is the original cover for Dear Anonymous when I first started putting it together. At that point, I’d only received a few short letters, so they all fit in perfectly. However, I received one longer letter and rather have to force that person to severely edit the letter, I decided it would be better overall (especially because I want this to be a series) to move from a mini-zine (one page folded up) to a half-fold zine.
Ta-da.
It’s not as cute as the other one, but I’m really not that great of an artist so computer printing is a good thing. This is not the final product (as you may have guessed from my handwriting on it), but it’s pretty close. And it’s green! (Inspiration for the title of this blog, anyone?)
Not only does computer printing the cover (well, most of it) make it easier on me, but it will make it cheaper in the end. This first volume has all colour pages which is going to make copying expensive, but I wanted my first one to be exactly the way I wanted it. We’ll see where the next one takes me.
I am still looking for letters, so leave a comment if you’d like to take part. If you’re not comfortable with that, it’s all good. I’ll have a dedicated email for zine things as soon as I sort out whether I want to make this a .com or not.
Purple moose says, “Dot com!” But purple moose doesn’t have to pay any bills, so we’ll see.
My First Owned Zine
If there is anything I have learned during my snooping around zine creators and communities is just that; it’s a community! So what better way to start getting to know the community than by buying some zines!
There are plenty of places to get zines for free or for trade, but I like supporting zine makers when and where I can. Etsy is a good place to find quite a variety of zines if you don’t care to join wemakezines.ning.com right now. It’s through Etsy that I bought my first zine that came in the mail. Yay!
Bum buh da dah!
The Nutella Cookbook by Anna Williams
Buy it at Etsy!
Buy it at Etsy!
As a maker of awesome peanutellas (peanut butter and nutella bikkies), this zine was a natural buy for me. I love the result, too. The whole thing looks great and I can’t wait to try out the recipes.
I will be featuring each and every zine I receive, trade for, buy, etc here on the blog. So while I don’t have a finished zine for trading at the moment, just let me know in the comments if you are up for a future trade.
The purple moose approves!
Intent.com Presents: How To Make A Zine Video
Another video I found inspiring in my zine wanderings.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbhFkceNpJY&w=560&h=315]
DIY – How to Make a Mini-Zine
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh1W15BWCUk&w=560&h=315]
This video helped me to get started on how to make a mini-zine. Love it.
Starting Out
I’ve had a fascination with zines since I discovered them a few years back. It was more of a passing affection at first like smiling at the cute guy you see on the bus every morning but never bothering to take it further than that. We’ll I’ve plucked up my confidence and am asking zine making out on a date. (Workable metaphor? Maybe.)
A few years back (yeah, again), I started a project called ‘Dear Anonymous’ that was Post Secret-esque in that people sent me anonymous letters to other people. I put it up on a blog and went from there. Looking back, I didn’t give it enough time to take off. I was getting few emails – even with friends sending me their letters – and I didn’t want to use anything of mine lest certain people in my life recognize my writing. So the blog died.
But now I’m back with my passion for zines re-ignited and with a feeling that my Dear Anonymous project could be perfect for a zine. I want to make other zines, but DA has always been so close to my heart that it only seems appropriate to start with it.
I want to set up an email for receiving letters to put in the zine, so on and so forth, but we’ll see where we go from here. Leave me a comment if you’ve read this far and there is a letter – long or short – that you’d like to write to your ‘anonymous’. Just remember to make up names (if you want).