Trying and failing

                             

I guess it was around two years ago that I decided to start paring down my card collection. I was running out of space, and was also just tired of looking at all of the extra chafe (dime boxes aren't always a good thing).

Despite having always been a binder person, I moved a lot of the stuff I was keeping over to boxes. It seemed like a good idea at the time, not only would space be saved, but it also made it easier to separate the keepers from the goers. I did keep about a dozen binders intact - player collections that weren't going anywhere - and had always planned on returning the majority of the keepers back to binders when I was finished.

Well, at some point I did finish, and then an unexpected thing happened... I didn't start returning what was left of the collection to binders!

I think I was burned out from having just done all of that sorting, or maybe it was something else, I don't know. Either way, the majority of my collection was now in boxes, and there it would sit, and sit, and sit some more; that is until last month when I finally found the motivation to start moving things back to where they belonged, in binders.

I mentioned a couple of times recently that I hadn't been doing much, if any, card sorting this year. Because of this, stacks have been building, lots and lots of stacks! I know that a big reason for this was that I really disliked just filing things away in boxes, only to not be seeing them again. This also sort of confirmed a theory that I've had for a long time about how often folks that store their cards in boxes actually ever look at said cards in boxes. No matter what anyone says, it's not convenient to pull out stacks of cards, sit down, and look through them that way. As I've gotten older I've also fallen into the mindset of why bother having something if you're never going to look at it/interact with it? If it's just to say that you have a particular thing, well, I for one will not be impressed by that thing that will take you hours to find if someone did actually want to see it. And if keeping all of these cards around in boxes that you never go through is meant to impress anyone with the sheer number of cards in your possession, just remember that he who has the most cards doesn't win. In fact, you're just setting someone up else to be the loser, that being the poor soul(s) who's gonna have to deal with your accumulation when you're gone. I don't know about anyone else, but that's not a burden I'd like to leave behind, nor would I like to be remembered as the person who left that kind of burden on someone else's shoulders.

I'm starting to get a bit preachy here, apologies, that's definitely not what this post is about. 

Anyways, the point is that I wasn't doing any sorting, and I'm pretty sure that it's because everything was in boxes. I've now spent at least an hour a night for the better part of a month returning the majority of my collection back to binders, and have noticed an immediate resurgence of interest in all things cards. Some of the cards are being grouped by player, for player collections of course, but I've also been creating themed pages, which I'm finding are much more interactive than pages housing player collections. Some new mini collections have been started as well, but it's the themed pages that I'm having the most fun with. The only small problem - and this where the point of today's post finally comes into play - is that some of these themed pages contain cards of different sizes, the smaller of which causing said problems.

It's no secret that the common sized tobacco cards, or the modern minis of the same size, look like hot shit in 9-pocket pages. Cards of that size rarely stay in place, and almost never remain completely upright. There's also an issue with empty space, and the poor aesthetics that are caused by it. I know that they make special penny sleeves now that center minis in the middle of the sleeve/toploader/page, but that still doesn't help with all of the empty space around the card. With all of this in mind, I decided to see if I could come up with a solution, or even a partial solution, which I may have done.

Ideas can often come at the oddest of times. After a few days of nothing, one decided to show up last week while I was making dinner, more specifically, while a pot of noodles (chickpea elbows) were simmering on the stove. I had a few minutes before they'd be done, so I figured I might as well see if the idea had legs or not.

Now before anyone says anything, remember, I had about five minutes or less to do this, and it was just a prototype, or a proof of concept if you will. The idea was basically just to try and make a cheaper version of those frames that are used for the A&G mini autos and relics. With no time to waste, I grabbed a Golden Age mini from my "to get rid of" box (just in case I f'ed up), cut a few strips (unmeasured) from my last little bit of Dollar Tree poster board, cut down a penny sleeve to secure the card in, and stapled all together. There's no doubt that even for a five-minute proof of concept project, that this is pretty darn hideous. But, it did at least tell me that I may be on the right track. Oh, and in case you're wondering, no, I didn't overcook the noodles :)

The next morning I decided to give it another go. This time I actually measured the opening, but with my last X-Acto blade being terribly dull, I had to use a box cutter to cut out the frame. It didn't go so well. Dollar Tree's poster board is prone to shredding, and that's exactly what happened here. Also, with math not being something that I've ever been good at (which I don't say with any sort of pride, unlike most modern idiots who do. It's constant source of embarrassment for me, and has hindered more than a few projects in the past.), one can clearly see that my measurements were off. Despite that, I closed it up anyway to see how it would look, this time using some double-sided tape.

And here's what I'm calling my "this shit is getting on my nerves" attempt. No measuring, and I switched over to my dull X-Acto... and it shows! It is funny though, I can draw a perfectly straight line freehand, but can't cut one (Cut one! 😆) to save my life. This was also the last of my white poster board.

If there's one thing worse than Dollar Tree's white poster board, it's their black poster board. The black isn't even the same material as the white, it's much thinner, kind of like slightly thicker construction paper. It has a white middle too, which you can't hide from the final product. I had a little bit of the black left over from a past project, and decided to give it one more go, this time using one of the cards that I actually want to put in page. Once again, I just eyeballed the measurements, but this time I broke out my old paper cutter (paid a lot less for mine though) to do the interior cut. It's very hard to see where the knife is stopping on this particular model, so I had to do the corners with the dull X-Acto again. Overall though, aside from the slanted cut on the top and bottom of the window, I don't think that this one turned out half bad. It would look semi-okay in a page as is. Certainly better than the card just floating all over the page by itself would. Had I measured it, this one probably would've been a keeper. Once again, the card is safely encased in a trimmed down penny sleeve, and I used a few tiny spots of Elmer's glue to close up the frame.

I realize that there's no way that I'm the first person to try and replicate the A&G frames, but I haven't seen anyone share their attempts, so I thought some folks might like to see mine -- terrible as they may be. 

If I had absolutely any computer skills, I'm sure that frames with the correct measurements could be printed onto poster stock, and this whole process would be considerably easier -- but I don't, so trying to make these by hand is the only possible option for me. Custom borders could probably be done with a computer too, but again, not an option for me. Hobby Lobby sells 12" x 12" paper squares made out of very thin paper. They come in all different kinds of designs, as I believe they're for scrapbooking, but I don't see why I couldn't get some of those and cut out an overlay to jazz up the borders some. I don't know though, I'll probably try and go there in a few weeks and see what's what. I need some more poster board too, I can't do anything else for the moment with out it.

I'm not overly happy with how these attempts have gone so far, but even if nothing ever comes from them, I did get a blog post out of them, that's gotta be worth something, right? I suppose too if there's any interest, I can do an update at some later date, and show off the next batch once I get the aforementioned needed supplies. Until then, I attempted to solve another tricky sized card in pages issue via crafts just yesterday, and actually liked how the prototype turned out. It's got real potential. I'm thinking I'll do a shorter post about that one next week. First though, I got to come up with something to post on Christmas...