We will need Ration book two when we start our year of 1943. We signed up for this book two in December 1942 but we have not been issued the book at this time. You can make it now or you have time because we will not be using it in January but we will be studying it.
The stamps will look different in book two. In the book there are 8 pages of stamps that have letters and numbers and colors blue and red. It looks complicated but only because we haven't started using it.
On the other post we made "Book One" to look like the real ration book. I am making a simple version for book two after doing a study on this once before.
So I took some card stock, (thick paper) and I penciled in a square six inches wide and five inches tall to make a pattern. Then I made marks around that square. One inch across the bottom and top the six inch width. Then I marked 1 & 1/4 inch marks up the sides. Then I cut it out.
Then I took a ruler and connected the lines like shown above.
I decided to use a composition book, it could have been a spiral wire notebook or any kind. This is what I had. You can make them look like the real ration books or anyway you want but you need the stamps.
I took a marker and traced around my pattern guide that I made on to my page in my book I was going to use.
Then I made marks outside the pattern at each place to draw a line.
I connected all the lines with my marker. I will say here that I placed a piece of thick paper under the paper I was working on so the marker would not bleed through to the next page.
So on the front page inside I wrote Ration book two. I will use this same book to enter book three and book four.
Shown above, is Page one in this ration book 2. We have letters N, P, Q R, S, T on every line across and we have the number 8, 5, 2 & 1.
I have outlined this page in red, this is important because these were red stamps.
This may make no sense to you at this time but it will when we start rationing.
Page two above. Letters, A, B, C, D, E & F. Same numbers 8, 5, 2 & 1. This is another page of red stamps but different letters.
Page Three shown above. Letters N, P, Q, R, S, T and numbers 8, 5, 2 & 1. Notice that I outlined these in Blue because these were Blue Stamps.
Page 4 shown above. Letters A, B, C. D, E & F. Numbers 8, 5, 2 & 1. These are blue stamps.
Above Page Five. Letters M, L, K, J, H & G. Numbers 8, 5. 2 & 1. Stamps are Blue
Above is page 6. We have letters Z, Y, X, V & U. We have numbers 8, 5, 2 & 1. Stamps are Blue. You can shade them in with color if you like, I am just short on markers and colored pencils.
Above is page 7. Letters are M, L, K, J, H & G. Numbers are 8, 5, 2 & 1. The stamps are red.
Above is page 8 and the last page. The letters are Z, Y, X, W, V & U. The numbers are 8, 5, 2 & 1.
Because I used markers the ink bled through the page so the back side of my paper looks like this. This shown above is the back of the stamps. Each page you do in the ration book needs its own page in case you decide to cut them out or mark them off.
It is worth the time of making the stamps when we start doing the history study to see how all of this works. These letters and numbers and colors and the order of all of this is for a purpose. We will be learning about this soon but what is important is to get our Ration books made. We will not be using this book two right away, we will still be using our Book One.
And since I am mentioning book 1, a blog friend emailed me with the question, the question is, Since people buy more in bulk than they did in the past do we really buy a pound of sugar? We could if they sold it but the way we do this is we weigh out what we have here in the home such as sugar and put it in the canister and use only that until we have a ration stamp come available. Then we weigh out another pound. Charles and I use our pantry as our store. Since we are still in a pandemic in real time we do not want our supplies to get too low.
We use stamps to take out anything that is rationed. Not everything is rationed and I will post information about what is rationed or you can research this.
But also remember that the study will show us how much food we waste and help us improve. When we are "living" the study we do not buy anything they did not have during 1943. We are going back to long ago when life was more simple times. :)
Book Three will be different than book one and two, it will have stamps like book two but also tall narrow stamps. We will also be drawing out our shoe stamps and gasoline stamps soon.
Each family member gets a Ration Book. That is a lot of drawing out if you have several family members. What you can do and what Charles and I are going to do in this study is have sections in our stamp. I will show what I mean.
If there are two of you, make a slash across and initials inside that area. When you use a stamp, say I used a stamp out of my book I will black out that area.
Either marker or pencil in. Or cut it out or somehow show that this portion of this stamp was used.
If you have many family members you could divide it like pie servings. If it is done this way you need to make your stamps larger. Or you can make each family member a ration book. It all depends if you have children that can help make these or you have the time to make them.
I need to make a new apron and pack away some items we would not have had. We are quickly getting closer to 1943 and there is more to come.
Grandma Donna
