Making a book to contain my computer which is full of books

Ben made this amazing cover out of a book for his Kindle and I asked him to do a guest post to share how he made it. 

My wonderful wife got me a Kindle for Christmas a year and a bit ago, and I love it. I use it every day and it is full of books. I wanted to make a case for it and saw some cool projects online, so I took a bit from here and a bit from there, added some ideas of my own, and ended up with this.

First, materials. I found a book for $1 on the outside racks at the Strand. I loved it. An old ex-library, hardcover YA sci-fi adventure from the 1950s with a beautiful cover, and just the right size. (I have since researched the book and discovered it was written under a pseudonym by Isaac Asimov, an unexpected bonus bit of cool context.) For the inside I looked around a bit and eventually found some great fabric at Purl. It has trees and turtles and hedgehogs and squirrels. I like these things.

Next, I eviscerated the book. That was hard to make myself do, and took a lot of psyching up, but once I began it took all of 15 seconds.

I then cut some cardboard to fit just inside the front and back covers as well as the spine. I cut the fabric to cover the cardboard in two pieces, one containing the front cover and spine, the other for the back cover. For the front cover, I wanted to include a pocket to hold a small notebook, so I cut a square of fabric and sewed that to the fabric for the front piece. I then sewed the front and back pieces of fabric to their respective pieces of cardboard.

I used hot glue to attach the front piece to the inside of the book. I cut four segments of elastic fabric to use to hold the book in place, and glued them around the corners of the back piece of fabric-covered cardboard. Finally I glued this piece onto the back cover of the book, overlapping the fabric from the front.

I was very happy with the finished product, except that the elastic was not quite tight enough to hold the kindle firmly in place. This turned out fine, however, as I need a place for a pen. I found a pen at Muji that fit perfectly in this space and provided the necessary snugness to keep the kindle from escaping without my consent. The end!

Smoothie Popsicles

Guestblogger Ben!

Catherine had mentioned wanting good popsicles to munch on after the recent heat wave that hit the city. So I made some! I put:

1 Banana

1 Kiwi

8 Strawberries

A glass of orange juice

In a blender and made a fairly thick smoothie. Then I poured it into little popsicle molds and froze them. They came out nicely, just about the right size for a small snack, and very fruit-flavored.

Guest Blogger! Cooking with Ben.

Hello! I am guest blogging today, as Catherine is overwhelmed with work. Last night for dinner I made some roasted vegetables...Cauliflower with balsamic vinegar, and sliced potatoes. They go with a secret sauce that is basically my attempt at brava sauce. Also there was quinoa. I started making this dinner in the fall when we were getting excellent cauliflower and butternut squash from the local farmer's market...but even without the squash it is good, and super easy. Unfortunately, I had to eat it alone because Catherine didn't leave work until after 10:30.

Potatoes just out of the oven.

Everything all together.