My first zine

I made my first zine a few weeks ago. Normally I'd share what I made, but this was a one of a kind, very personal gift for G, so I won't be sharing any photos. But I did want to talk about the process a bit because it's got me excited to make more zines, something I'd never thought I'd say.

I had a list that I wanted to get into a good format for a gift and couldn't decide how to do that. I'm not a natural designer, preferring to use hand writing and sketching for things, but this was a large list (50 things) and I didn't think hand writing was the way I wanted to go. Enter my RSS feeds and Scott Bohm who wrote about getting ready for SF Zinefest and I realized that a zine would be perfect for my purposes.

Then it was on to figuring out how in the world to lay out a zine. I ended up using a free online zine maker, Zineroo, which made things infinitely easier for me. I could lay out the piece in the sequential order of pages and then when I went to print, Zineroo moved things around so it would work when folded. The font selections were limited, which I didn't love, but it ended up working. I left my front cover and back cover blank to be able to draw and write on them myself.

In the end, I really, really enjoyed the process. I want to make more zines and am already thinking of topics. It's quite possible that we'll be sending out a zine about our 2026 with the few holiday cards we do and I'm thinking about a few other ways I want to make use of the format. It's clever, mixes well with doing portions by hand, and the possibilities for themes and content are endless. Once again, I'm incredibly grateful for RSS and people who are sharing on their sites, this isn't the first time I've read something and it's sparked me to push forward to try something new and make something in my own life.