Reading Diary Moleskine Cahier Hack

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Reading Diary Template for Moleskine Cahier

You needn’t use this template to print on a Moleskine, different printers have different placement and margins. So, you can make your own and the principle is the same. Moleskine Cahier pages are 8″x10″ so this layout is hedged toward the right top. I did find that Moleskine paper doesn’t have a laser finish. Printing on the first side is fine, but when sending the page back through some toner may flake off. Download pdf template

1. Disassemble a Moleskine Cahier, which is fairly easy.
2. Number the pages in pencil, this is important. You are working with pages that have already been back trimmed, and therefore the first and last leaves are wider than the center leaves. If you don’t put them back in the same order, you will get a ragged edge.


3. Flatten the pages and run them through your laser printer, first one side then the other. If it is a vertically fed machine, you may have to do it one page at a time, to keep the machine from grabbing more than one page or printing crooked.

4. Reassemble the pages in the order they were originally.
5. Resew the pages, using a blunt needle with a wide eye, crewel needles work well. For thread use something thick, like carpet or button thread. (of course bookbinding needles and thread are useful). Moleskine sewing involves starting INSIDE at one end, zig zagging through each hole to the other end and then starting back through the same holes and ending where you started. Tie a knot.

6. Decorate your cover as you like.

Moleskine pen tests


Moleskine pen tests
Originally uploaded by molly1216.

Took my pen collection out for a walk around the block.

tracing in my moleskine

Face it, with apologies to Danny Gregory, I still can’t draw.
So, I bought a 5″ x 7″ Porta-Trace for about $29 bucks at the arts store.
it’s 5/8″ thick so it doesn’t slide nicely between the leaves.
But if I attach the original to the back of the page, and clip back the rest of the book.
(lucky thing moleskine spines are forgiving) I can get a decent trace.
It weighs under 2 pounds and is alas NOT battery operated.

The Primascolor markers tend to bleed right through normal Moleskine paper.

But strangely enough gouache paints do not bleed through at all.

it’s a book!


The second edition of my book repair book has finally seen the light. but i have been so infected with the whole moleskine thing, it’s basically a clone of the cahiers. For the 1st edition I used Wausau 70lb Royal Fiber Balsa, [the 'Balsa' has embeded natural speckling, that resembles handmade. it is not as smooth as the moleskine paper] some most excellent paper, the cover is Wausau’s Astrobright Eclipse black which is EXACTLY what the cahiers are made of. (I wish I could find the moleskine skin, I would sew me up some volants.) then I dug up a white pigment ink stamp pad and a really nifty new rubber stamp device from My Sentiment’s Exactly It’s a lucite block with clear plastic letterset that attach to it. So you can make custom stamps. They work out rather well, I am gonna look into more letter sets.

btw the pigment inks from either Colorbox® or Stazon® will adhere to anything including a REAL moleskine cover.

this is the coolest sticker ever – that just screamed :”PUT ME ON YOUR MOLESKINE!”

philatelic

yes, now i are a stamp dealer too…..well at least i found use for my small moleskine accordian folder. it holds #2 and #4 envelopes and a 4″ pair of tongs AND a small moleskine cahier in a nice package.




my newest hack

I added a foldout map of my hometown to my moleskine.
I took a street map and trimmed away everything but my town and then folded it into moleskine size. and attached it. granted i probably should have torn out 2 or 3 moleskine pages to make it fit smoothly. but i just couldn’t.
perhaps I will make my own travel book.




my 1st moleskine

Okay so it’s not my FIRST moleskine…it’s like my 5th, but most of them are empty. As far as journalling these are the 1st pages i am willing to show anyone.


I finally found something I like to draw with. the Pilot Varsity is my favorite pen, however the ink runs when wet, so i can’t use it with watercolors. I bought a Lamy Safari but it’s causing me problems, so i mailed it back to Lamy to ‘fix’. But I found the Prisma Color Markers to be my salvation. Being able to add grey shadowing to my pen and ink images, keeps me from ‘over’ drawing my images. I can ’stop’ trying to make it better.

moleskine blotter

One of the 1st things I figured out about moleskines, is that things don’t dry quickly. So I cut up a large piece of blotter paper to moleskine size. then clipped the corners with a $5 corner rounder. I slide it under something i am working on. And when I can’t wait for something to dry, I slip one on top and can still close the book.

This is watercolor over a solvent transfer.

creativity

I’m still fussing about as a moleskine newbie – but all the creativity has been beaten out of me. I need to relearn to draw – I keep reaching for a ruler or a camera.
I did find a super nifty book The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to be the Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory

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