Don’t get me wrong, I love gadgets and apps but not matter how many I try…you’ll never find me without a basic, in-real-life, hold-in-your-hands notebook.

The feel and sound of the pages, the satisfaction of a smooth ink pen running across the lines, endlessly trying (and failing) to improve my awful handwriting—sorry, apps, you just can’t compete with that.

Which is why when danger!awesome contacted me to design a product for me to share with Idle Hands Awake readers, we realized pretty quickly that a custom notebook was just what the doctor, err, nostalgic organizer in me ordered.

While I love learning new skills and stretching my comfort zone, there’s one area in which I just have no talent—drawing. My “drawings” look like the scribbles of a highly distracted 4-year-old. So I was thrilled to meet danger!awesome, a local Boston-area design firm that makes custom, affordable products for its clients. Clients like me, who can’t draw (and also don’t own fancy machinery).

danger!awesome prides itself on “bringing making to the masses.” Which as you know I am ALL about! With a staff of designers, illustrators, videographers and more—and a fleet of 3D printers and laser cutters—the team of danger!awesome works with regular non-designery folks like you and me to turn our ideas into actual products.

Hence, the “just pay me in craft supplies” notebook:

In order to make its design services affordable, danger!awesome functions on a pledge model. Once a certain number of people have pledged to buy the final piece, it goes into production and gets shipped off to you and your friends. (I can see this being really epic for a club, team, or a group of friends who wants to bring an inside joke to life).

And if all this weren’t fun enough, danger!awesome also shares the profits with their clients, either by giving 10% of the proceeds to the client, or 25% to the charity of the client’s choice.

A local company that lets you make custom creations AND gives back to the community? Yes yes yes please.

And here’s where I get to share the love with you, dear readers. (This is also the sales-pitchy portion of this post, but it’s for a good cause!)

If you liked my “Just Pay Me in Craft Supplies” DIY tote bag but don’t want to fuss with iron-ons, or you need a fancy new notebook for all your plans/ideas/doodles, OR you just want to support both an independent maker firm and a charity at once, you can buy this beautiful notebook—designed by me!—for $15.

25% of the proceeds will be going to the Animal Rescue League of Boston (where we adopted our beloved cat Wally, they are a really awesome shelter!).

The notebook will be available for sale next week, Tuesday 4/12. I would love love love if you would support danger!awesome by pitching in—we just need 15 people to buy a copy for it to be produced, so please share!

So what do you think of danger!awesome’s design model? Do you have any ideas cooking for products you’d love to make? Don’t forget to check out their maker gallery at the bottom of the homepage for inspiration!

A HUGE thank you to danger!awesome for reaching out to me, and to Atma for interpreting my jumbled ideas to make such a beautiful design! danger!awesome did provide me with a free prototype of the notebook in exchange for this post, but I pinky-promise that all opinions are my own. I truly think this is a great organization, and I only work with brands that I love and think you will too!