Merlins Tower

Miguelrius Journals Found in Target

Posted on March 1st, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Journaling, Miquelrius.

Recently a reader submitted a few comments to the Miguelrius Journal article I wrote that he has found the Miguelrius Lined Journals in the clearance section of Target. 

If any other find them - Please let us know where and how much

Today I am going to hit a few of the Targets in my area (Pittsburgh, PA) to see if they have any.

Joe reported the are only $3.95 each.

Thanks Joe for reporting that back to all of us.

Technorati Tags: miguelrius,, journal, Miguelrius+journal,, notebook,, Notebooks,, Target,, Clearance,, Sale

3 comments.

Backup your thoughts to Floppy Disk and Pencil???

Posted on February 23rd, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Communication, Computing, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office.

Yes, you read the title right. Now you can keep your notes save and secure between two floppies. The people at ThinkGeek.com have done it again and created a pretty cool item. They are calling it a Floppy Disk Journal. What they have done is to take two floppy diskettes and a small stack of paper cut to diskette size and put it all together with a plastic comb binder spine.

So, now you can use the power of the floppy again. They come in three different sizes (Floppy 3 1/2", 5 1/4" & 8") show this to some new computer users and they will not even know what this even is. It really has been a long time since I have used one of these diskettes. Almost everything I have is on cd, dvd, or a external hard drive.

The 3 1/2" was available in DD (Double Density) or a whopping 720k and in HD (High Density not High Def) which would hold about 1.44mb. In case you are interested Wikipedia has the history of Floppy Diskettes. Boy Times sure have changed. Now you can easily get 1GB, 2GB, or Higher in the form of a USB Flash Drive for under $50 and the smaller sizes under $20. I remember in the Late 80's going to a computer club and 3M stopping by to talk to us about their new 5 1/4 inch diskette and gave everyone at the meeting one floppy diskette in a really nice marketing folder. We where in awe as those diskettes cost about $25 to $30 a piece and not everyone even had a floppy drive back then. Many of the users were only using tape drives. Ah, those were the days. The day of black and white screens with colored plexiglass to make the screen easier to read and only 16k of memory in the computer. When you called up a BBS (Bulletin Board System) and waited sometimes hours to get a free line to connect. Just to see the latest ASCII Art and animation.

Technorati Tags: Floppy+Disk, Diskette, Disk, Floppy, HD, DD, DS, Flash, Drive, ASCII, ART, BBS, History, Journal

0 comments.

DIY: How to make your own Parchment Paper

Posted on February 18th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Coffee, Craft, DIY, Hack, Journaling, Leather, Tutorial.

Today I decided to write about a project I did some time ago it was make a new sheet of paper look old. Or how to make some good olde fashioned parchment paper. To the left is an example of what it could look like

First - I wrote in my best calligraphy handwriting on the page - (I used a heavier high cotton blend for the fiber look and feel).

I had to use Noodlers black ink as this ink will not run when adding the paper coloring. I let this dry while I gathered up the rest of the items needed.

• 1 cup of strong brewed coffee (I made two - one for me to drink while working on the Calligraphy and one to sit and wait till the right time to be put to use)
• 1 tablespoon of any instant coffee (This is to add the extra color on to the paper in a varied pattern)
• 1 baking pan - large enough for the paper to be put into.
• 1 sponge or several paper towels
• an Oven or hair dryer - I prefer the oven method - but both work
  if using the oven pre-heat it to 200-225 degrees
• An Iron (Optional)
• A zippo lighter (Optional)
• Woolen Yarn or Leather Strip (Optional)

Now this is the hard part - after you finished the calligraphy work on the paper - You need to first tear the edges in varied patter to give it that old torn look (Do this if you want to) Doing this before adding the color helps the edges get better coloring in them. Next is the really hard part - you need to crinkle the paper up into a small / medium size ball. Then you need to unball it and flatten it down - almost flat but will some of the crinkles still showing to hold the coffee to help break up the solid pattern of color.

Place the flattened sheet into the pan and pour the coffee all over the page. Making sure to cover the whole page. 

Now wait a few moments or about 1 min then sprinkle the instant coffee randomly across the page. Don't make it even as these will soon dissolve and give the page that extra color that will make it look more like beautiful old parchment paper.  

Next you want to use the sponge to blog the coffee off the paper - I waited about 2 or 3 mins to let it soak in. Use different amounts of time depending on how much color you want.

Now empty any remaining coffee back into a cup if you intend to do another sheet or throw it away. (I heard coffee grounds were good for some plants - I wonder if you could use this for some of them plants)  

Now put the paper on the tray into the oven for about 5 to 7 mins. (Make sure to watch and check often - you don't want the paper to burn after all this work)

The last step is optional - I used an iron on low setting to remove all the creases in the paper and make it flat again. Some people will like the the creases in the paper. It does look good both ways.

Now this last step is also optional - I only did this to one of my parchments and it looked really classy but I was afraid of redoing all my work. Get out the zippo lighter and light it up and get near the edges to "Burn" them slightly. This really will give it that old world look - just like this was an old pirate treasure map.

Now you can mouth this in a frame or if you want to use these for other uses you can roll this up and tie a woolen piece of yarn around it or a strip of leather to tie it with a bow. 

You can use this for creating a beautiful love poem for your wife or girlfriend, or if you are having a party and want to have some cool invitation (Great for a kids Pirate Party) or You are running a scavenger hunt - these make cool looking location maps or scavenger hunt lists. The Ideas for what you can use this for is endless. I have seen a photo printed out on a laser printer in a grey scale pattern to make the photo look like an old sepia type print.

Good luck and Stay warm (Brr)

Technorati Tags: parchment, sepia, old, fashioned, olde, diy, paper, craft, hack, calligraphy, fountain, pen, ink, noodlers, black

5 comments.

Free Font: Caliph Font

Posted on February 10th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Craft, Journaling, Photoshop.

I was looking for a nice calligraphy font to use for a greeting card I was sending off and I found this Font - Called Caliph - I really nice looking Calligraphy Font.

0 comments.

Online Tool: Visuword - Online Visual Dictionary

Posted on February 1st, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Freeware, GTD, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office, Search Engine, Web Service.

Previously I wrote about the Visual Thesaurus and now I found another cool online word tool - VisuWord - They call it the online visual dictionary. I have to agree - I like how it interlinks the words and visually shows you which words are related and which ones are the same and which ones are opposite. This can be a fairly useful tool - Not something I will use everyday but can be quite useful to have in your arsenal of word tools. Like using a mind map but of words and their inter-relationship.

Technorati Tags: visuword, visual, word, words, dictionary, thesaurus, online, tool, online+tool, mind, map, mind+map, gtd, hack

0 comments.

Guide to Writing in Elvish - Free Online Tutorial

Posted on January 29th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, Art, Communication, Drawing, Freeware, Hack, Journaling, Movies, Sketching, Tutorial, Weird Stuff.

Had a long hard week and for some fun I learned a new language - well only learned how to write in Elvish. Ever see those fancy scrolls in Lord of the Rings or any of the other movies / books / games that have Elvish Language written on them? Well This web page has a quick and easy guide on how to convert any english writing in very artistic and fancy elvish writing. Well To the left is my first time trying to write Merlins Tower in Elvish. It really is pretty easy to follow along and accomplish. I can see doing this with a nice broad nibbed fountain pen or a wide italic cut nib. I didn't have any of my wide nibs with me so I had to make due with what I had at hand. This was accomplished with my art book using a find sharpie marker to get the nice broad strokes. (I filled in the lines I drew) I really want to try this out with some of my calligraphy pens when I have a free moment. This guide can be printed out for ease of use. This would be pretty good for making your own scrolls and Mystical Books. Or if you just want to hide what you are writing.

Well thats all for today - Enjoy - Stay Warm and enjoy some nice tobacco in your pipe - You know I am. 8 :-?  <– Merlin Smoking a Pipe  

Technorati Tags: calligraphy, handwriting, fountain, pen, fountain+pen, ink, art, elvish, lord, of, the, rings, scroll, writing

4 comments.

Free Sample of Various Handwriting Font Styles Print and Italic

Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, Art, Communication, Craft, Firefox, Freeware, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office.

Did you ever wonder what we are talking about when you see the different styles of handwriting. Here is a link for homeschoolers and / or anyone interested in seeing the visual style of the various handwriting that is taught all over the world.

Draw Your World has sample sheets in the form of smaller images showing all the letters for all the forms of writing. From Getty-Dubay, D'Nealian Style, Palmer Handwriting Italic and Cursive,  Handwriting Without Tears, Zaner-Bloser Style. I am sure if anyone wants a small reference card these can be easily printed out. (I have not tried but looks like they should be large enough for reference) - These samples were printed out from the Starwrite Handwriting Software - Which if you want to try it out lets you try it unhindered for one time only. (So, make sure you get the most use from the first time you run it. Even Print it out to a PDF) From what I saw if you were homeschooling I would recommend trying this out and purchase if you like how it works, By the Way the program is only $39 at Starwrite Handwriting or $35 at Draw Your World.

But if you are just looking for a few FREE graphics to print out check out Studio Arts Guide to Italic Handwriting. (Click on the image on the left column to display it on the right - At that point if you are using Firefox (Highly Recommended) or IE you can right click on the image and hit the save as to save the images to your hard drive and print out later on) They have a nice chart, font families, guide, practice sheets and more for your use.

You can also check out dnealian.com for some addtional samples and primer on the D'Nealian Style of handwriting - Very Similar to the Getty-Dubay Style. 

Technorati Tags: Italic, handwriting, font, art, calligraphic, word, free, palmer, zaner, bloser, cursive, getty, dubay, dnealian, getty-dubay, homeschool, practice, adult,

1 comment.

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