TDM,  Travel Light

November 2020 Favorites: DIY & Amazon Kindle reviews

A small article to share with you my favorites of the moment.

Workshops on Zoom

I’m following the Zoom workshops with Zack from @paperandwood_ He’s very talented and is a very good teacher too. I learned how to make birds out of wire and also butterflies out of paper and wire. The classes are quite long (between 2h and 4h), and only in English, but he explains very well, is very positive and everyone follows the steps at the same time on Zoom.

I didn’t buy the kit sold by Zack because I’m not sure I can receive the packages in Italy. I just paid for the course, but if you don’t have the materials yet, you can buy the full package (kit + course on Zoom)

I think it can be a nice Christmas gift for those who like DIY (do-it-yourself). More info

You can see that I have not yet completely mastered the threads, nor the painting, but I like it very much.

Each butterfly takes me 4 hours. The golden butterfly is made with a golden paper at the base + some paint. The white butterfly is 100% hand painted. I think you can still see that it’s paint. Maybe one day I will reach a more realistic level. To be continued…

For the moment, the butterflies are huge because they are easier to make, but I will try to reduce the size to the real size. It will be even harder, but at least it will be more realistic. Using the wire allows you to twist the butterfly in any direction and make it do “poses” 😀 The butterfly in the lower right corner even has legs, which allows it to land on the lamp. I like it too much!

Scabiosa Pods

I almost died of fatigue also after making these “scabiosa pods” out of crepe paper but I wanted to do it for months. They are impossible to find at the florist. Usually they are put in bridal bouquets. I’ve never seen them in my life, but only on pictures.

Left: Mother Nature’s
workRight: my creation
.

Kindle

I travel a lot and can’t buy paper books, that’s why I’ ve been buying books on the Kindle app for years. I read a lot more these days and since JB never lends me his iPad, I find reading on the screen of my little smartphone very tiring. I decided to buy a real Kindle, the machine, on Black Friday. I bought the version with white advertising for 60€ (the black version without advertising isn’t available until January). You can easily deactivate the ad later by going to your account and pay 10€ extra for that. In reality, the ad isn’t annoying because you only see it when the Kindle is on standby.

My Kindle is 6 inches, it’s the right size and weight for my little hands. I’m glad because it hurts a lot less to my eyes to read on the Kindle machine.

This version of Kindle has a built-in light and you can adjust the intensity of the light, turn it off completely (I recommend turning it off). You can also adjust the font size and the space between lines

We had a Kindle 5-6 years ago that wasn’t tactile (it died unfortunately). I must admit that a touch screen is much nicer to enter the Wifi password, and search for books etc..

I advise you to take a protective case. But not the type of case that attaches to the Kindle, because it will make the machine even heavier, and you want something light when you read. I opted for a simple protective case.

If you already have a lot of PDFs to read, you can “dump” them on Kindle. What I do is open the PDF on my smartphone, then I “share” it and choose the Kindle app. The file will then be converted into a Kindle-compatible file and will be available on my library on any device. Thus, this PDF will be available on both my Kindle app on my smartphone and my Kindle machine.

Advantages :

  • Very small
  • Pleasant reading, does not hurt the eyes
  • Battery that lasts a very long time, it’s cool for those who never recharge like me
  • We don’t have access to anything else than books, so it allows us to read without being distracted by other notifications or the desire to go surfing on the Internet
  • You can transfer the PDFs to your Amazon account and read them directly on the machine

Disadvantages :

  • only in black and white
  • plastic is a bit cheap. The version from 5-6 years ago used a plastic that was a little more chic than that
  • i would have liked to have physical buttons to change pages, instead of having to touch the screen to turn the pages. Older models were better for that.

I leave you and wish you a happy holiday season!

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