Pocket Sized Address Books--Purchase Online or at Office Supply Stores

Soon a new year will begin. For many of us this is a time to organize and declutter. One of the ways that we do this is to update all of our contact information for family, friends, and associates on cellphones, I-pods, or Blackberries-- and for some, our paper address books.

Recently, unable to find a pocket-sized paper address book at my local stores, I went online in search of one.

If you, like me, are not yet ready to make the transition to an electronic address book, paper address books are available through several online companies.

FlexAddress, featured in Oprah Magazine, makes updating paper address books easier. Judith Moncrieff Baldwin, the inventor of Flex Address Systems, says she came up with the idea for Flex Address Systems because she had so many friends and associates moving so frequently that her address books became obsolete almost as soon as she had finished rewriting them. To solve this problem, she created FlexApeel® pages-so unique they received a government patent and won the Best New Product Award at the National Stationery Show. Simply peel off the outdated entry and replace it with a clean, new label. This eliminates the need to rewrite your entire book to keep it neat and organized. FlexApeel pages are at the heart of all that you see in the products section. If you have an organizer that you already like, upgrade it by adding a package of pages from the accessories section. Not only will changes be faster and easier, the peel-and-move (up to 10 times) feature means that inactive addresses can be moved out of your book to a file or Rolodex® card.

The following companies also make pocket-sized address books:

Lang makes beautiful, decorative pocket-sized address books, as well as many other stationary and office supply items.

Horchow offers luxury leather address books.

The Find My Address book a is another nifty product.

Moleskine includes a service where you can print your address book information onto their address books. Download all your contacts from Outook, Plaxo or your phone and print them out in your Moleskine. Export your contacts in Vcard format and choose how you want them printed.

Day Runner, famous for their planners, also sell address books.

MAKE YOUR OWN POCKET-SIZED ADDRESS BOOK WITH INDEX CARD GUIDES

For crafters, interested in making an address book, here are two ways to to do this.

First, cut paper to the size that you want your paper address book. Then, cut a tab in a blank piece of paper for each section of the address book. Label the tab with the letters of the alphabet. If you don't need a lot of pages for each letter, you might group your alphabetical index by threes, listing ABC for the first tab, DEF for the second tab, etc.

Your actual address pages will be thinner than your tab guide. Handwrite or print your contact information on the paper.

The second way to create your own address book, is to use Microsoft Works, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Publisher. Set your printed output to be in booklet form. Microsoft provides templates to make this easier. Apple also offers contact manager software.

Stack the paper you wish to print on in your printer and print the addresses.

Also, if you prefer not to make your own alphabetized index guide, these can be purchased. Globe-Weis, Oxford, and Avery make these and sell them at office supply stores such as Office Max, Office Depot, Staples and Amazon.com.

For the cover, find a used greeting card or buy one with a pretty cover. After cutting your printed output paper to a size that you want, slide inside the greeting card. If the paper sticks out of the greeting card, cut it to be narrower than the card. Next, punch three holes in the folded side of the greeting card and paper. Then, weave ribbon or hemp rope through the holes and tie.

Rather than a greeting card as a cover, you could also cut a cover out of an empty plastic water jug. Once the jug is empty, dry the inside thoroughly. Then, draw a rectangle (twice the size you want your address book to be) on the plastic with a marker. Cut the rectangle out and fold it in half. Slide your paper inside along the fold. Punch holes along the fold of the plastic and paper. Paint this with plastic paint, cover with fabric, or glue decorative paper or a greeting card picture onto the plastic.

Stampers who own the Zutter Bind-It-All binding device can easily make book covers for their address books.

One rather cool idea for a paper address book is to use invisible ink. That way, if the address book was lost, all anyone would see is a blank book!

Amazon sells a UV Reactive Security Marker Fine Invisible ink Spy Pen,7820, which could be used for writing invisible addresses. To read these, you would need to purchase the 395 nM 51 UV Ultraviolet LED flashlight Blacklight 3 AA, 7202UV395 sold at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Q70A0G/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk.