Joyful Girl: Where I Find Joy – Do It Yourself Care #4
Nina Zina of Echo Zines
Mini One-Page-Folded
https://echopublishing.wordpress.com
https://www.instagram.com/echozines/

Joyful Girl: Where I Find Joy – Do It Yourself Care #4 is a full-colour, one-page-folded A7 mini-zine

“Little reminders for myself that there can be joy even in hard times.”

And don’t we all need that?

Do It Yourself Care #4 opens with those handwritten words written on bright yellow slips of paper pasted onto pink solid and patterned paper. This colour scheme, which reminds me of lemonade and strawberries, continues through the zine as the reader gets to know Nina’s little joys in life.

Do It Yourself Care #4 had me smiling from the get go. Not only has it been a rough week and some so this topic suited me quite well, the first thing Nina listed is glow-in-the-dark stars. I may have not long ago finished putting the little sticky bits on a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars to stick to my bedroom ceiling. Following that with cuddles and snuggles with friends, which I adore, and I felt so utterly cosy and happy reading this zine.

Nina covers all sorts of things. Indoors and outdoors, things she participates in and things she observes. Of course what Nina enjoys is personal, but I do like that there is a variety so people can be reminded of their own joys no matter what kind of person they are.

One thing I wanted to mention is that I like how Nina mentioned enjoying creating things “even if I have to push myself sometimes to get started”. While it may have been an afterthought or side thought, I think it’s important to remember that it can take a bit of a push to get ourselves to do things even if we enjoy them.

In Nina’s usual style, Do It Yourself Care #4 opens up into a full page of even more joys set on a colourful cut-and-paste style page. Including the joy of the silly little tea tags that come on the string of your tea bags.

I love the whole Do It Yourself Care series thus far, and this zine is a wonderful addition to the series. I totally recommend grabbing this as well as the rest of the series as well.

Check out my reviews of:

*Do-It-Yourself Care
*Do It Yourself Care #2: Self-Care During Heat Waves
*Do It Yourself Care 3 – Self-Care During Christmas

The Wrong Side of Google History
Caragh Brooks
8 pages
https://linktr.ee/caraghbrooks

The Wrong Side of Google is an A5, full-colour zine featuring odd and sometimes bizarre Google searches with accompanying art for each search.

After a long day, I was very much in the mood for an entertaining zine, and this zine certainly provided.

The Wrong Side of Google opens with a title page that includes Caragh’s links alongside illustrated social icons, which is a touch I always enjoy. From there, we go into the searches… Swearing spiders, odd uses for bodily fluids, and some random search queries fill the pages. Each page features three search bars with an illustration of the search above it.

Caragh’s art style is fun and totally adds to the overall amusing and curious feel of this zine. The drawing of Arnold Schwarzenegger reminded me of a caricature and made me laugh out loud as my mind went to “Glass Joe” from the original Nintendo “Punch-Out!” game. (Yep, dating myself a bit there.)

I’m so curious as to how this zine – and these searches – came about. Is there a list somewhere of the strangest searches? I’m sure there is. But I don’t know if it would be more entertaining to know the behind the scenes of this zine or if the mystery makes it even better. I found myself chuckling with some searches and shaking my head at others. Of course there is Wario fanfiction, but did someone really search ‘sneaking hotdogs into peoples pockets’? So many questions, and I don’t know if I want any of them answered.

All up, I think The Wrong Side of Google History is a fun poke at the weird ways human brains work with fun art added in the mix. Pick a copy up.