Front Porch Peanuts is the first zine I made where I distributed multiple copies. When I sat down to create the content, I found it was a challenge to find the right amount of content to fit a zine. There’s a front page, a back page, and 6 pages of content. I decided to focus on the characters that come by for the peanuts I put out on the front porch across from the bird feeder. These are all the actual names we call the animals near our house. You’ll notice they are frequent subjects of the daily art journal.

I wanted to have a zine I could distribute easily, so I cut out individual sheets of paper and drew each picture separately. This allowed me to mess up multiple times and choose the pictures I liked best for the final zine. I then colored the pictures with my water color pen, and then taped the individual panels down on an already-folded sheet of paper. This is a traditionally folded zine where the completed folded paper makes a little book. I then ran copies on my color printer. The edges of the pasted pieces of paper come through on the copies, but I decided the look was more punk rock and decided to leave the lines rather than erase them. I then folded the sheets and glued the interior pieces of paper together.

Here’s a slideshow of Front Porch Peanuts that you can flip thru.

And that’s it! I run additional copies off my color printer as needed. I’ve been leaving copies of Front Porch Peanuts in book distribution boxes and Little Free Libraries of the places we visit. This summer they have been placed in several state park book boxes and around my neighborhood. Have you found a copy of Front Porch Peanuts out in the wild? If so, let me know! 🙂