Y’all have no idea how much I dreaded this project, and now how I’m kinda dreading this post.  Mostly because I don’t want to re-live the misery that is the POCKETED KEEPSAKE BOOK.

Where to begin?  Here, you make your own book.  From scratch.  Like, not from a binder, or a map, or a scrapbook, you have to freaking construct a book from the air.  Wha?

Here’s Martha’s version, in all its splendor:

Now, I am the first to admit, this is a thing of beauty.  Mine?  Not so much.

The problem is, you have to sew fabric to cardstock and then bind it all together… have I mentioned I can’t sew in a straight line?  Prepare yourself for the horror of my finished product.  But first: FRUITLESS SHOPPING!

There was basically nothing BUT fruitless shopping on this one.  I needed two things: organdy fabric, which is apparently the thinnest cotton fabric around (so that it’s see-through), and cardstock in 2 weights, 65 lb and 300 lb.  These items, as usual, did not appear to be rare or exotic.  So I thought it would be no problem.  Just like with the airmail envelopes.

First, the organdy.  I had to look it up on Wikipedia to figure out what it was, but discovering it was just the sheerest cotton I felt armed and ready to take on Jo-Ann Fabrics.  Keep in mind I had a 7 year old and a 3 year old in tow.

We meandered around a bit, and then I asked a sales woman on the floor if she had organdy.

“What?” she replied.

“Organdy.”

“No, I’ve never heard of that.  Claudine, do we have or – gan – dee?”  She asked her co-worker this question like I was looking for a lawn mower in the middle of the craft store.  This crazy broad wants organdy!

Now, Claudine was at the cutting station, where they cut your fabric for you.  I’m thinking, Claudine will know.  Even if they don’t have it, she will know what it is because for Pete’s sake, she works at the cutting station at a fabric store.

“Oh, you mean organza?”

“No, I mean organdy.  It’s a sheer cotton?  Like, thinner than muslin?”

She stared at me and looked at her co-workers.  ”No, I’ve never heard of that.  I mean, I’ve heard of organza, but not organdy.”

One more employee got dragged into this miasma of ignorance, and he, too, had no idea what organdy was.  I was defeated.  And I really didn’t think I needed to trek to the garment district to find somebody who knew what the hell I was talking about.  So I settled for some nice muslin, which is still too opaque, but I was, you know, defeated.

Cardstock should be easy, though, right?  While we were at Jo-Anns, I looked for what I needed, but they didn’t really have it.  Next stop: Michaels.  Where virtually none of the cardstock has a weight listed on it.  I did find a few packages of what I normally buy for scrapbooking that was labeled 65 lb, so I figured I had some of that at home.  All I needed was 300 lb.  And I intuited (cause I’m good like that) that the 300 lb would be significantly thicker than the regular scrapbooking stuff.  Where to find really thick cardstock?

I called Kelly Paper, which is basically a professional paper company.  They didn’t carry it.  I had to stop at this hobby store for some balsa wood (oh, yes, just you wait for the next project), and they didn’t have it.  In the interim, I did some iPhone googling and discovered that 300 lb cardstock is kind of a misnomer.  It doesn’t exist.  What does exist is watercolor paper in 300 lb.  So I went to Aaron Brothers.  They had watercolor paper, but 160 lb was the thickest they had.  I asked the sales guy, and at least he knew what I was talking about, but he said they didn’t stock as much watercolor paper as they used to.

So, my last effort?  Staples.  They have lots of paper stuff, right?  Their motto was, “Yeah, we’ve got that,” and now it’s “That was easy,” so I’m golden, right?

I decided to call first, though, just to be safe.  I got someone on the phone and asked if they had cardstock.

“Yeah, we’ve got that.”  (I swear.)

“I’m looking for 300 lb cardstock.  Do you carry it in that weight?”

“Well, we have 250 or 500, but not 300.”

Jackpot!  250 will work just as well as 300, right?  It’s my last chance.

“Great!  We’ll be right over.”

If you can see where this is going, don’t spoil it for the others.  I was too giddy with hopeful optimism and blinded by fruitless shopping fatigue to realize what had just happened.

Now, I need to mention that during this whole process, I had the 7 year old and the 3 year old with me.  Seriously.  They were real troopers, but we were all so delirious by the time we were headed to Staples that everything they said cracked me up.  As we pulled into the driveway, I said, “OK, boys, one last stop!”

7 year old: “Ugh!  We have to go to Staples?”

“I know, sweetie, but this is our last stop.”

7 year old, in a totally fed up tone: “Thank GOODNESS.”  This response sent me into hysterical laughter, which usually triggers contagious laughter from the boys.  Total silence in the back seat.  As we parked, the 3 year old asks in a tremendously weary voice:

“Mom, do I have to put my other shoe on?”

That one sent me over the edge.  I was almost crying, I was laughing so hard.  Lukcy for me there were guys welding on the roof, so I had something to point out to them as we entered the third circle of Hell.

I immediately found the cardstock aisle, but could only find 65 lb and 110 lb cardstock.  Not wasting any time, I found a guy in the computer area and asked for help.

He shouted to a guy at the cash register, “Jeremy, can you page someone in office supplies to aisle 8?”

I heard the page as we headed back to aisle 8 to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  With a 7 year old and a 3 year old.  No help.  I went back and told the guy no one had come.

“Jeremy, can you page someone to aisle 8?”

Another page, more endless waiting.  No one.

Back to computers, where I told the dude NO ONE HAD COME and he said he’d find someone.  But I knew I was on my own.

At this point, realization began to dawn on me, but I wasn’t leaving without verifiable proof that they did not, in fact, have anything I could use.  So I flagged some employee down and accosted him and demanded that he take me to an office supplies specialist.  We found her in the pens aisle, stocking new highlighters.

“Do you carry 300 lb cardstock?”

I kid you not, she laughed at me.  ”Nooooo… I don’t even think they make that.”

YES, OFFICE SUPPLY LADY, THEY DO, BECAUSE IT’S IN MY MARTHA STEWART ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CRAFTS!  AND I NEED IT TO MAKE A BLOODY POCKETED KEEPSAKE BOOK!!!

And then, the realization of what had happened became abundantly apparent, and all my efforts were for naught.

I’m nearly 100% certain that the person who answered the phone and told me they had 250 and 500 lb cardstock had no idea what he was talking about.  In fact, I’m sure he was telling me how many sheets per ream they carried.  So, totally talking out of his ass.  And forcing me to make a trip to Staples that produced nothing but frustration.

And hysterical laughter.

So we went home.  I gave up.  I did a little more searching online and realized that I probably needed to get watercolor paper at a real art store.  Which I did the next day.  But I was pretty peeved at Martha’s crew for the misleading supplies list.  There is NO 300 lb cardstock.  In fact, if you look it up on Google, you get basically diddly squat.  You need 300 lb watercolor paper.  Which is an important distinction because it sends you to a whole different set of stores.  And by the by, it’s WAY expensive.  I went to the art store and bought what amounts to a watercolor canvas– one sheet, mind you, although it’s big, about 54″ x 36″– and it cost me over $13.00.

Since this is the most epic post EVER– is anyone still reading?– I will cut to the chase.  Making the dang thing was as hard as finding the stuff.  Problems:

• When I cut the muslin, it just kept fraying.  So all the edges look unfinished and raw, not like the beautiful one in the book.
• BIG PROBLEM: if you make a book of any size, and I think you want to since they are pockets, the cardstock doesn’t fit in the opening to the right of the needle on the sewing machine.  I should’ve taken a photo of this.  But you essentially have to curl up your cardstock and shove it through the machine, and then it pulls the wrong way and permanently bends your $13 cardstock.
• When you’ve made your pages and are ready to sew them to the cover, the instructions tell you to put thin strips of organdy as binding and to clip them, and then sew.  I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to clip them to make sewing easy.  I have advanced degrees and am a pretty experienced crafter, if not a good sew-er, and I probably spent 15 minutes trying to work it out.  If it’s that hard, folks, put in a diagram.  ”Clip it” is rather vague, hmmm?
• The above organdy bindings are listed as something you need to buy in the supplies list.  I’m fairly certain there is no such thing, and it seems clear from the instructions that said bindings are merely strips you cut from your fabric.  LET’S PROOFREAD, OK, PEOPLE?  I could’ve spent days running around looking for the bindings if I hadn’t read and re-read the instructions.

So, lots of problems.  I’ll bet you can’t wait to see my “Was it worth it” assessment!

Here’s the sad, sad result:

TIME INVESTED

Good GRIEF.  Not including fruitless shopping:

About 8 hours (for a 10 page book)

TOTAL COST

• organdy / muslin: $9.23
• 300 lb watercolor paper: $13.76
• 10 pages of 65 lb cardstock: $6.90
• hours and hours of fruitless shopping: PRICELESS

Total: $29.89

DIFFICULTY

Epically hard

WAS IT WORTH IT?

Who are you kidding, people?  NO!

If you’ve read all the way to here, you are super troopers, just like my kids.  Kudos to you, and thanks for sharing my misery.

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