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Ask someone to trade zines with you

Hello, zine friends! It’s an especially happy day in our happy zine month: Zine Trade Day!

A huge part of zines and zine community is the practice of trading zines. Connecting in person and through the mail by trading zines is an absolutely gorgeous tradition that should be embraced!

It’s with that in mind that I offer this:

I have a single zine in each envelope. As you can see, they are stamped and ready to go – for trade! I’m looking for two people to trade with who are willing to go for a ‘lucky dip’ chance in a zine trade. (I am, of course, willing to go for a lucky dip as well.)

If you’re interested in trading with me, leave a comment below. 🙂 I’m absolutely serious. No matter where in the world you are, I have a zine waiting for you if you want to send one in return.

First come, first serve.

Happy traiding!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Send your zine out to be reviewed

Okay so I decided on the post title and only later realised how self-serving it is. Oops. I was going to change it, but… I’m in the mood to be a little cheeky. After all, what zine reviewer wouldn’t feel appreciated receiving zines to review?

Funnily enough I sent out my zine – Don’t Call Me Cupcake 3 – to Zine Nation, and they actually reviewed it as part of their International Zine Month celebrations! You can check out the review of Don’t Call Me Cupcake 3 here.

Even reviewers get reviewed. 😉

Are you sending your zine off to get reviewed? Where are you sending it? Let me know in the comments.

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Make some mail art!

Happy International Zine Month, zine friends! It is day 11 already(!), and that means it’s time to make some mail art.

As with most of my best laid plans… things have gone awry. I had, for lack of a better phrase, a flare up last night which has left me with quite a bit of pain and not a lot of use of my right arm. (Bursitis is part of the mix, if you’re curious.) So instead, what I’m going to do today is give a big hat tip to the king of mail art in my mail world: Fishspit.

Check out these beauties, and please comment below if you’re showing of your mail art on your blog/site/account!

Until tomorrow!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Send a care package to a zine friend

Oh, my gosh. Who doesn’t love a care package? Little bits and bobs someone puts together just for you to surprise you and make you feel good. Lovely.

Funnily enough, I’m putting together a little somethin’ somethin’ for a zine friend, but I can’t really give the details because he reads the blog! Hehe. So what I thought I would do is put together a little list of fun option if you want to make a ziney care package for a ziney friend.

*Zines (of course)
*Blank one-page zines (an invitation to create, yes?)
*Pens, pencils, and other fun things to write with
*Sharpies (because they warrant they’re own line in this list)
*Washi/paper/patterned tapes
*Glue sticks/double-sided tape (I have a sweet love for the double-sided tape, but I know some love glue sticks)
*Stickers
*Clippings of words/images from magazines/newspapers
*Treats/snacks (this can be tricky, so you may only want to do it if you’re familiar enough to know about any allergies or preferences) Snacks are good for a big zine session

If you have any more ideas for what you like to send or what you’d like to receive in your ideal zine care package, let me know!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Write a letter to a zine maker that you don’t know

Another International Zine Month day, and another International Zine Month activity!

I’m going to tweak today’s activity a little bit because, well, I have a koala postcard!

So cute.

The temptation is to write someone I do know, but that’s not the prompt! So I’m taking the chance that the address Maxx of Reverse Cougar Years listed in her zine is still her current address.

If it’s not, someone else can have a nice surprise. ^_^

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Make a flyer for your zine to send with trades

Hello, zine friends! Today’s zine task is to make a flyer (or flier), and I must admit I’m going to cheat a smiggle today because I’ve had this flier for a while…

This is my call for subs image, but I also print it out. Anyone who has received zines from me probably has a copy. 😉

I did have a brand newie ready to go for a different zine, but I found something wrong with it. It’s a fairly quick fix in Photoshop, but I don’t have PS on my laptop, and the heater doesn’t work in the front half of our place (where my desktop is). (Yes, my friends, this is my life.) So I’m going to wimp out for now because it’s cold, but I will have a more exciting little call to share soon.

Have you made a flier for yourself, your distro, your library or whatever else? If it’s not subject to a deadline, then I want to share it in my latest zine project! Get in touch, and we can chat about it. 🙂

Until tomorrow!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Make some envelopes or postcards for postal week

Is it already day 7 of IZM?! I’m just barely starting to catch up with the fact that it’s July. Eep!

I really wanted to make postcards for this, but I didn’t have paper thick enough for me to trust it would survive in the postal system. Sigh. However…

Envelopes! Given my paper thickness worries regarding postcards, I now feel a smidge silly making envelopes out of wrapping paper. But the paper was so cute that I couldn’t resist. I will probably have to reinforce them a bit for sending, but that’s okay.

Did anyone else make envelopes? Did anyone make postcards? Let me know!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Add your zine to or update your ZineWiki

I added the ‘COM’ in all caps because the IZM flier says ‘.org’, but it’s definitely a ‘.com’ these days.

It’s IZM Day 6, zine friends, and that means it’s time to update the ZineWiki. If you’re not familiar, ZineWiki is a directory of zines, zine makers, distros, and more. You can search by zinester, but geographic region, by zine, so on and so forth.

(It can also be a great way to check if that title or zine name you love has been used elsewhere.)

Being a wiki, if you want a page for you/your distro/etc, you need to sign up for an account and create one. From then on, anyone with an account there can edit and add to it as time goes on. The beauty of this is that if your favourite zine or zine creator doesn’t have a page, you can make one for it/them.

The creation of a page and the rough HTML to make a page can be a little daunting at first if you’re not sure what you’re doing (like me when I started). However, there’s help in the ‘First Time Here?’ section right on the front page.

You can check out my page here. (I found peeking behind the curtains on various pages to see how they worked was just as useful as the help pages.)

Have fun and link to your pages in the comments below!

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

Read a zine from a country other than your own

Today’s IZM prompt makes me want to go through my whole zine collection and figure out which ones are from what countries. I’ve had the pleasure of reading all sorts of zines from Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, and even a couple from Brazil that were in Portuguese!

Today I’m wrapping up in my cosy winter blanket and settling down to read Mythologising Me.

I have #11: “40 page A6 size perzine, half by me, about quitting my job, winter blues, friendship, self esteem and starting a band for the very first time. Say Hi and Wave is made by Alexa and talks about being vegan, libraries, gigs she’s been to and fun times with friends.”

I also have #12, which is a split zine: “40 page A6 size perzine, half by me, about quitting my job, winter blues, friendship, self esteem and starting a band for the very first time. Say Hi and Wave is made by Alexa and talks about being vegan, libraries, gigs she’s been to and fun times with friends.”

What are you reading today?

Other Zinesters Joining In (Let me know if you are, and I’ll add you to the list!):

*@eintervital
*@dre
*@queerarcana

Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!

It’s IZM2017, and that means 31 days of zine-related activities. Starting us off on day one…

1. Make a Top 10 List of reasons why you love zines.

1. I like to pet them. Ahem.

1. Zines are DIY. Like a lot of people, I see all the pretty craft projects and want to make them but can’t because I don’t have blah blah blah. Zines? Zine are DIY. They’re a piece of paper or a word document. A marker or a pen. A collage or a carefully crafted layout. Have at it!
2. Anyone can make them. There’s no membership fee, no minimum age, no secret handshake… If you want to make a zine, you can! A lot of people make zines before they’ve even heard of the word zine. It’s a party, and everyone is invited.
3. If you can’t find your genre/topic, you can start it. Last year I spent a lot of time looking around for a zine on PCOS. Not finding one, I decided to go ahead and make my own! Even better, someone who saw my zine pointed to me to another zine about PCOS. Win win.
4. Zines bring people together. I have met such amazing people through zines. If zines were personified, I would give zines a big hug, some Tim Tams, and my neverending thanks. Whether I introduced them to zines or they introduced me to something zine-related, I truly adore so many people I have connected with through zines.
5. You can express yourself without permission from the mainstream. When I was growing up, I thought that mainstream publishers were the only way I’d ever express anything. The trouble was that I had so much to say that would never sell enough to make a publisher interested. Finding zines was a true ‘mind blown’ moment. Years later, I still get soooo excited about the prospect of being able to write about anything.
   And read about anything, too!
6. They come in unlimited varieties of shapes and sizes. Binding and buttons and printing and paper. Okay, so I don’t know about the buttons, but I like alliteration. I have read zines folded like origami and seen zines the size of posters. There’s no limit for what and how you create.
7. They’re not expensive. I feel a bit squidgy mentioning this one, but it really is a factor. I can get a brand new, lovely, handmade zine to read for a dollar or two, and it’s mine to keep. Or share.
   At those prices, I’m less precious about keeping it to myself. (Only a little, though. I’m a zine hoarder collector.)
8. Zines make me feel challenged and safe at the same time. If you’ve been reading here for a while, y’all know I’m a squishy marshmallow person. Zines help me to explore the world through others’ eyes and challenge my perspectives while making it possible for me to stay comfortable at the same time.
9. Zines are great teachers! Yes, there’s the grain of salt thing, but there is so much to learn
10. Because I do. Before you start yelling ‘cop out!’ for my number 10, I just want to say that there are wordless ways to love and appreciate, and I have that kind of love and appreciation for zines.

Other Zinesters Top 10 Lists (Let me know if you’re joining in, and I’ll add you to the list!):

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Play along with 31 Days of International Zine Month Activities here!