Plastic sheet modification time!

So Night Owl loves 1975 Topps Mini cards. He doesn't love that there are no plastic pages designed to hold them tight. That can be remedied! You can make your own custom sheets that hold '75s snug as a bug in a rug! Let's make some now!

I already had my craft stuff out for a different project so this took hardly any time at all. You just need some normal 9 pocket pages and a little ingenuity and elbow grease!

Also: a ruler, an X-Acto knife, some useless cardboard to protect the pages and some scotch tape. I don't actually have any scotch tape, so I'm using blue painters tape instead. Actually I have about 47 rolls of scotch tape, I just can't find any of it. That stuff always seems to disappear whenever you need it! Especially when you're trying to wrap a birthday present 5 minutes before you go to the party. Thankfully I keep some duct tape around at all times for that. I'm using a Fleer Genuine JD Drew card for the plastic page protector. you can't get any more useless cardboard than that.

NOW KIDS - PAY ATTENTION. Using sharp objects is dangerous! 9 billion people in the US were injured by improperly using Xacto kinves last week alone! You need to stay focused while doing this so you don't hurt yourselves! NO distractions! NO Alcohol! (No more at least) NO Ponies! NO staring at your cheap lamp that looks oddly like a robot boob! Pay attention to what you're doing you idiot!

Figure out how wide the new pocket on the page needs to be. By eyeballing both cards in the pocket we can see that the incision needs to be cut right at the team name for the pocket to safely hold the mini card. Or you could carefully measure using the ruler but screw that noise. Are you saying I have inferior eyeballing skills?

Ok, the card is in the pocket. I'm cutting from the back to make the plastic surgery less noticeable. If you put two cards per pocket that's really your problem at this point. Put down the ruler where you need to make the cut. Hold it down firmly and make a cut from just above the seam to just under the top of the sheet. Be careful! The card will want to slide around in there! Don't slip and ruin the page! Or, you know, slice your finger or something.

The slice is in, and thanks to JD it didn't go all the way through the sheet! Now get the tape.

This is a little tricky, but take a strip of tape and get it underneath the little flap on the side. Then stick it on the back back of the sheet. Now the new pocket is sealed, If you're anal, you can put another piece of tape on the back to seal down the flap.

Here's the view from the front. That dark part is where the tape is stuck. You can't see it because my camera sucks.

THIS IS VERY TEDIOUS WORK THAT REQUIRES FOCUS AND CONCENTRATION.
To keep your energy levels up, take a break to have a snack if necessary. I like Blue Diamond Wasabi & Soy Almonds. The Wasabi dust gets all over my fingers, and then I forget and rub my eyes and then I cry for an hour. To avoid this, I'm using some pencils as makeshift chopsticks. Yes, I stole this idea from Wondermark. Too bad I forgot about that pair of actual chopsticks visible at the top of the photo. My erasers taste good when I chew them now though!

Hooray! One pocket is done! You'll just have to take my word for it because this photo is awful! Now I just have to do that EIGHT MORE TIMES! Time to focus!

Oh man, this scene is hilarious! "AS CELESTIA (ouch) AS MY WITNESS, I (ow!) WILL NEVER GO SISTER (oooch!) LESS AGA(OW!!!)IN!" Oh yeah, that's gonna leave a mark.

Four episodes, three beers and a couple band-aids later we have the completed product! It looks better with scotch tape. And less blood. For a team set you just need to do that three more times! For the entire '75 set, just 76 more times! Happy crafting, you plastic page modders!