How To Make A Mini Memento Book

I like to always carry something comforting with me, whether it's a photo or a toy, or maybe a piece of jewellery. I thought it would be a nice idea to make a tiny little book full of pictures as a kind of natural progression from my 'scrapbook of treasures'. It's a similar concept, but more portable and streamlined. A nice little photo album that I can keep with me in my card wallet.

I made two rough collages and printed them on both sides of a piece of paper so that when I cut out the mini pages they'd roughly match up with one image on each side. I focused on one particular, er, 'interest' here but of course you could make mood boards and print them out, or collages of anything you like!

I cut out my pictures so they were all roughly the same size, then I folded the resulting wad of pictures in half and sewed along the fold. You can use a couple of staples for an easier time, but I wanted to practice my thread binding. After your mini book is bound you can cut the edges to make all your pages the same size and to neaten them up. Bear in mind that the more pages you have, the more difficult it will be to cut them all to size at the end. Mine has an unfolded thickness of eight pages, which cuts okay, but I wouldn't recommend going any higher.

And now I have the cutest, tiniest little memento book!

I kept my cover plain (I didn't actually intend to, it's just that one of my photos didn't have anything on the other side), but you could always designate a particular image for your cover or just decorate it like I'm doing with mine.

Sunlight Scans

My scans are usually very shadowy because I don't tend to make them in the daylight hours. Not for any reason, it's just coincidental. This time, though, I made them in the middle of a very sunny day, and all the surrounding sunlight brightens them up and gives them a slightly different feel. A little bit of freshness and airiness in the light.

I wish I could take my scanner outside and scan myself properly in the sun with some grass and twigs and daisies. That'd be much brighter, most likely, and probably really fun, but it'd be a bit of a logistical challenge. It'd be possible with about three extension cords, but also my neighbours would probably develop some new and not entirely favourable opinions about me.

If you ever see anyone outside holding their face against a machine, don't be alarmed. They're probably doing something fun and totally not weird.

Felt Tips & Diagrams

I have a collection of felt tips that I'm focusing on using right now and in combination with my school exercise books it feels like doing school projects and title pages and it reminds me of all the things I enjoyed about school work - all the little bits of creativity that crept in through every teaching style.

No matter how dull the subject or lesson I always doodled things all over my front and back covers and in the margins (to the exasperation of some of my teachers). I was really messy in my books because I liked decorating them as much as I could, inside and out. It was usually easier for me to be enthusiastic about something I could decorate. I liked drawing diagrams for this reason.

Maybe I should try drawing some fake scientific diagrams in my journal.

My Favourite Words

Words and sounds can be very pleasing and nice, so I've gathered some English favourites to discuss here. Please enjoy the words.

clandestine

This currently has the top spot and I think that's in part due to its sense of mystery and secrecy. I prefer when it's used in a tender but not sordid or unethical sense. I like clandestine with a wide-eyed innocence to it.

tippet

When I picture this word I picture a tassel for some reason, but actually a tippet is a sort of dangly scarf for clergymen. It just sounds cute. A bit like thimble.

meniscus

This was my ultimate favourite word for a long time, and I can remember the moment I learned it in science class. A meniscus is the curve of a liquid where it meets its container, and it sure is fun to say. Muh-niss-cuss.

plump

This is such a pleasant word and it makes me think of rich food and pleasingly round desserts. Plump is a sort of positive fat word that celebrates the roundness and fullness of things. What's plump must be a delight.

sift

This is a great word for a person pondering or sorting or inspecting or otherwise looking. Sift, sift, sift. It's gently onomatopoeic, calling up the rustle of shuffled papers, and it's also another food word.

☆☆☆

These are my current favourites, but there are so many words out there that there does tend to be a bit of cyclical (that's a good word too) perpetual shuffling of my favourite words. They're all perfectly cromulent though.

Other quite nice words: crust, forlorn, quandary, settle.

Diary: The Sun & Photo Booths

Item number one this week concerns our dear illuminating star. Seriously, sun, you need to back off right now. I am not equipped to deal with this nonsense. As a result of the overbearing force of heat pushing me down into the ice lolly freezers of all local supermarkets, I have been feeling 'odd'.

Item number two concerns my near-constant viewing of 1979 Australian prison show, Prisoner. I love this show a lot. As a result of watching it for over forty episodes so far, I am now feeling incredibly nostalgic about rotary phones (I just about remember having a grey one in the 90s). Send me a rotary phone with a little slot for a sim card and I'll seriously consider using that instead of a smartphone for the rest of my life, because I really like rotary phones.

Item number three concerns all of these photo booth pictures from some different parts of my life. I feel so weird looking at these. None of them feel like or look like me, except that they are and were me. It's confusing. The one of me aged four is the best.

Also, check out the picture of my cats, back when they were little (and alive) in the mid 90s. So cute. I wish I could reach inside the photo and hug them.

Flesh & Robotics

Something about scans I like is that sometimes when I have a fuzzy head they can make it feel clear. Something about the simplicity and reality of my face. Busy thoughts fall away when I just survey the clarity of my image. It also can happen by looking in a mirror (I like to look right into my eyes), or sometimes just from looking at the bones, veins, grooves of my hands. It's a nice way to be brought back to an easy reality.

It can be kinda gross to think about our bodies too much or to think of ourselves as machines, but sometimes I find it comforting to do so. We are built for certain purposes and can do certain things. We have every feeling and thought for a reason. We're squishy machines. I enjoy that.

Misery, Dogs, & Squash

I'm having some kind of moment here and I thought, "you know what, let's just write about it and talk about it and just throw it onto my blog like a frisbee of suffering, shall we? Let's just do it. If I wanted to write a blog post about Mr Blobby or different types of paintbrush I would (note to self: save those cool ideas for later!) so why not write about this thing, right?"

I keep having this sense that everything's wrong. Everything around me seems to at least be tainted with something sinister or unpleasant. People around me are full of complaints and sorrows and arguments and bad jokes and body fluids. I walk down the street and someone spits. I talk to friends and conversations end up in circular sad places. I have bad dreams all the time and I don't know why.

I remembered high school when I was thinking yesterday, and I remembered the atmosphere of exhaustion and disloyalty and apathy around everyone. I remembered the way everyone used to talk about everyone else. Everyone was sad. Everyone seemed to dislike everyone else. I haven't had any relationships like that since then, but I notice all around me that other adults still do this. I see a pattern of so many fully grown human beings keeping 'friends' around just to complain about them. What's the point?

I hear people arguing and I just think, again, what's the point? I see people holding onto packaging and heaps of objects they will never use. Why? I read books and watch films involving so many different versions of the same story. Someone suffers. Someone makes mistakes that make them suffer more, or make other people suffer. Someone acts with malice. Someone hurts themself, in some kind of way, over and over. We even put this fatalistic misery in our entertainment. It seems like it's lodged in us like a big bit of self-sabotage shrapnel.

And I hate it.

Can everyone cheer up, get rid of their rubbish friends, stop farting and spitting, and send me a bouquet of flowers, please? Thanks.

I hope you appreciate the way I've illustrated this blog post with drawings of dogs as a representation of how you can express yourself in a way that's positive and nice and not hideously draining for everyone around you. Also sorry if this blog post has actually just added to the thing I'm trying to squash here. Also, I like the word 'squash' - it's nice isn't it? Squash.

Stories & Typewriters

I've been feeling a little weird lately, like I'm emerging from a dream about myself, or something. I've been feeling like I've forgotten who I am, or like I'm in two different places at the same time. It feels like this kind of dimmed consciousness. So I'm thinking about how I remember myself, and how I contextualise myself. The way things are around me have such a huge impact, whether that's the atmosphere or just whether there are a lot of books nearby or something. It all frames who I am in the moment. Sometimes I wish I could be this solid, definable, static thing just because I guess sometimes I crave a certain kind of certainty, but on the other hand the fluidity of life and identity is freeing. The human propensity to forget and remember is freeing. We slot into these different forms and consciousnesses. We're cool robots.

I actually love thinking about people as robots, animals as machines. It's calming to categorise myself and us as a whole into that idea of a linear, logical, and almost fated being. That's probably a big reason why it's appealing to pretend you're in a video game or a movie, because that means you're not making decisions. You're a character. A story. And really, in many ways that's exactly what we are. People struggle with their sense of purpose often, but y'know, we're stories. That's the purpose.

We're stories on stuck typewriters, stuttering, unwinding, stopping and starting. We're full of typos and some odd illustrative diagrams. Embrace that, I guess.

Book Review: Madonna In A Fur Coat - Sabahattin Ali

★★★★☆: A pretty but painful tale of suffering, art, self-loathing, and the awe of love.

Penguin asked me to review this book, and I can only conclude that this was a plot to shatter my heart and soul, but you know what? That's fine. They sent it over with a big poster of the author, but sadly I can't use it to mop up all my tears because it's not very absorbent.

This novel tells the story of timid and endlessly suffering Raif Efendi, a young Turkish man in 1920s Berlin. He is a lost soul constantly struggling against his own feelings and personality, which he unrelentingly punishes himself for.

We also meet Maria Puder - a smart, cynical, fearful artist with a deep distrust of men and a buried and buzzing need to be respected, cared for, and loved. She is eccentric, in denial, and a little bit magical - but also quite matter-of-fact.

The story is incredibly emotive and deals with themes of passion, loss, depression, and life's cruel and unfair circumstances. It's reminiscent of Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf in its close and uncomfortable focus on the cycling thoughts and perceptions of a loner and outsider. The writing style takes on similar Hesse-like poetic description and style in its moments of happiness and in intense moments. The book presents an unflinching sense of injustice and despair swirled with streams of pure beauty, sweetness, and an aching love.

It's a storm of tragedy with a pearl in the centre. A smart and heart-wrenching beacon for the sheer force of human suffering, and possibly an allegory for how devastating the effects of oblivious cruelty can be.

An intense and incredible read.

Diary: Violins & Video Games

I've been playing lots of games this week. I highly recommend The Lion's Song, a free Steam game about a composer who travels from Vienna to the Alps to write her next composition. It's a point-and-click episodic title and it has such a nice atmosphere and art style. Really soothing and pleasant.

I've also been reading 'Playing to the Gallery' by Grayson Perry, which was a really nice, down to earth little book about his experiences within and in relation to the art world. It was particularly enjoyable to me to read his words about ways he felt alienated at art school and in other establishment areas vs the positive aspects he found in them. That was really good to hear as a fine art graduate who felt out of place with the other students to some extent. It actually helps me to feel more positive about those experiences despite the not-so-great elements.

Following that, I am now reading 'The Driver's Seat' by Muriel Spark, which is very interesting. Odd and building and eccentric and detailed.

Other than that I've mostly been slowly turning into a puddle of goo. Hopefully I can reconstitute myself by next week. Wish me luck.

Black & White Film Ghosts

One thing about analogue photography is that you always end up with surprises. The film plays games with you. You accidentally shoot film twice (I don't know how, but it happens). You develop a roll of film five years later and remember things you might've have never remembered again. It's weird.

I mean, it's fun - you get a strange sense of adventure and mystery - but it can be a bit exhausting too. I wonder how many rolls of film are out there, neglected and undeveloped, full of secrets. Spooky.

This roll of film has lurked undeveloped in my bedroom for five years. On development, it shows me this desolate, underexposed little world. It's weird to visit this point in time. This should've probably been left undeveloped forever, but I guess I brought back a tiny ghost or two.

The Humour Of Final Fantasy VIII

I take my Final Fantasy games pretty seriously and develop a lot of feelings about them and all of that stuff, but a huge reason I find them so replayable and delightful is the humour peppered throughout each game. I've been replaying Final Fantasy VIII for the millionth time and taking screenshots of some of its silliest moments, many of which are little things I'd forgotten about.

Please enjoy some of my favourites.

1. Laguna's "manly charm".

Laguna's storyline and flashbacks are super silly in general, since Laguna himself is a bit of a fumbling, awkward mess. I mean that as lovingly as possible, because he's a very sweet mess, but you know what I'm talking about. This line gets me every time, though.

2. ;-)

Squall is canonically a hunk. That's hilarious,

3. Ughh.

This drunk guy slumped in the alleyway behind the pub in Timber is me after two gin and tonics. It's such a perfect semantic representation of intoxication.

4. Laguna being reckless with everyone's safety.

It's Laguna again, and this time he's detonating whatever he wants and pushing boulders around. This is his response to having his bumbling incompetence questioned. Glorious.

5. Pot, meet kettle.

Here we see Zell dissing an actual minotaur who is a little too rambunctious without any sense of irony. Enjoyable.

☆☆☆

I'll leave it there (I gotta make a run for the hot dog queue).

4 Cute Amigurumi Animals & Free Patterns

I was doing my thing, browsing the net, when I stumbled upon a bunch of adorable amigurumi toys with free patterns. I'm not someone who remotely understands crochet, but I wanted to share some of these adorable little creatures anyway, just because they're cute. If you want to try making them yourself, I've also included links to free patterns. All were found via this aggregation of free amigurumi patterns, and some of the source patterns are not available in English.

So let's take a look at these cuties.

1. First up we have these sweet and simple bunnies by Polina Kuts. I love the style of these (they look like lanky Miffys) and their simplicity and nuance. Really great use of darts on the ears and face, and satisfyingly long limbs to wave about. Here's the pattern.

2. Next we have some very cute sheep people (they're secretly wolves) with some wonderful patterning going on for their outfits. This is the 'Mini Lupo' by Anna Beltschenko, adapted from the larger 'Lupo the lamb'. Here's the pattern.

3. Third, some cats. Of course there had to be cats! These little rascals are by Mari-Liis Lille. This pattern gives you some clothing options, although personally I would make a naked cat. Here's the pattern.

4. Last, but certainly not least, is this big, blue bear from Pierrot Yarns Patterns Club. This bear could be a great sidekick, I think. With those big feet I'm sure he could kick all of my problems away. Here's the pattern.

☆☆☆

That's all the cute little crochet pals I have to show you today. Whether you can crochet or not, look at them all. Look at their sweet little faces. They're so nice. Bless 'em.