PaperWindows: Blogbook

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Blogbook

I'm quite pleased with my very own home-made blogbook... it really looks home-made hahaha . I am also quite amazed at my unyielding tenacity to inflict torture on myself. I don't know where i started toying with the idea of "blogbooking"; i think it could be from reading a recent Monocle issue on the Top 25 Most Livable Cities in the World. Nothing new, it's basically turning your blog into a book and there are several online services that do it for you. Just that laying out the pictures using their template was a pain so i decided to lay it all out myself then upload page by page which i figured would be simpler. Except that i was attempting to lay out 90 pages of photos and text using my dad's tiny 20cm by 15cm netbook. Scrolling to zoom in and out to align pictures was a pain in the a** as well as in the shoulders and after just 5 pages, the ache in my right shoulder was so bad i wanted to give up. But being the masochist i was, i perservered. And did something like 20 pages a night, over at least 3 hours in each sitting. Only to be disheartened when i realised the cost of the online blogbook totalled $150. I checked with a couple of printers and they quoted me double the price. So last night, when the rest of Singapore was watching the National Day Parade, i was printing pages and pages of my virgin blogbook, and painstakingly glued the white sides together and stitched it all up into a book of sorts. It's super fragile and the glue doesn't quite hold the pages together but it still resembles a book at the very least. Hardly professional looking but it has my sweat and blood (okay, i dramatise) and i'm super pleased with it.

Sample pages below. Nothing particularly extraordinary about the layout but it's my very first home-made travel journal in print so forgive me if i gush.

Read the rest of my travel journals on ready.jetset.go!
Check out my other design work by returning to paperwindows!

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on work & leisure

My work is in architecture and i like my job but i also love having free time to pursue other frivolous interests like PaperWindows. i absolutely love travelling and being in european train stations. i like the rush of arriving in a new place and finding my way around and the excitement of seeing new sights and being in new surroundings and absorbing all these different experiences. However i never had the urge to study or work overseas for the sake of trying a different experience when i'm still young.

on pecularities

I am somewhat obsessed about order and arranging/ displaying stuff, especially stuff in my room. I like arranging a box of colour pencils according to their hues and hate it when i can't decide if blue should come after purple or after green. I remember being scolded in a shopping mall by a sales manager when i was a kid for pulling all the pastel coloured stuffed bears out of their shelves onto the carpet just so i could put them back according to their colours. Not surprisingly, my wardrobe is arranged in colours and trust me, other than being efficient when it comes to putting together an outfit, it's real good for the soul.

and more pecularities

This is not really relevant here but my numbers have gender for as long as i remember, like 1 is a boy, 2 is a boy, 3 is a girl, 4 is a girl, 5 and 6 are boys, 7 is a girl, 8 is a boy, 9 is a girl and 10 is interchangeable. They have personalities too, like my fingers. My favourite number is 7 and least favourite is 8. 9 is like the docile understanding elder sister, as is the 2nd last finger. 8 is the obnoxious pompous brother who always wants his way, as is the middle finger... my alphabets have colour, like A is red, B is blue, C is yellow, D is brown, E is green, F is light green, G is yellow, H is brown... i better stop here lest i sound any weirder.

on sensorial pleasures

I like rubbing my fingertips against a terry-cloth towel until they become numb with a tingling sensation. i used to do this every night before falling asleep when i was a little girl. now i like dipping my hands into flour and squishing the tiny cold butter pieces with my fingertips when i'm baking scones. I like hearing the sound of a yellow wooden ruler tapping against the chalkboard. I like numerous food for the textural joys they bring to my mouth. i like watching certain people draw and each stroke that forms brings another kind of tingly sensation to my heart. oh and this one is a bit gross but once in a while i like to replay one scene in biology class where we disected huge white lab rats, cos i like the feeling of snipping through its taut belly skin bit by bit and the tension that is released with each snip. i doubt i will ever be in a situation where i'll get a second stab (pardon the pun) at this.

on books & movies

I love reading fiction and hate self-help books, not that i think i don't need self-help. I grew up on enid blyton and notice the authors of the novels i own are largely asian, amy tan and haruki murakami among the most recurring. sometimes i like reading mindless chicklit as well and i think calvin and hobbes is a great comic. I like watching Project Runway for the amazing fashion design creations. i'm not really a jap anime fan but really really love The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. My all-time favourite movie & novel is Joy Luck Club even with all its cliches and a very close second is Before Sunset and Before Sunrise. i like that i watched Before Sunset before its prequel cos it kinda allows me to go back in time for more. i totally dig the charmingly witty sexually-charged repartee and brilliant split screen effect in Conversations with Other Women and think Aaron Eckhart is one of the finest male actors ever! i enjoy playing board games like pictionary and am always on the lookout to secretly slip in boardgame sessions during get-togethers with friends.

on journals

I started keeping a journal in Nov 2005 not long after the end of an eight year relationship when i thought my heart would never heal and since then, it's become that hole in the tree for me to whisper my secrets into, that empty paper cup where i pour out my screams, that crumpled up paper plane whenever i miss him, that strange land in the passing cloud above the magic faraway tree i go to whenever i want to explore my thoughts and dreams; it's like a kaleidoscope where different fragments of my life get freeze-framed and hopefully re-combined to form a bigger more beautiful picture for my future self. Perhaps someday when i'm in a strange mood i'll link it up here.