Notebooks Are Awesome!

It’s the first day of National Stationery Week 2018 – I love this week. The internet confirms, with glee, that I am not the only person out there with a weakness for stationery. It’s very much like my weakness for books – I have exactly zero self-control and 100% enthusiasm!

I am going to join in this week, sometimes following the official daily hashtags and sometimes going it alone, and share my love of all things inky and papery. (See, totally the same as books, it’s practically the same thing.)

Today’s hashtag is #makeanote and I do that a lot because I am a forgetful kind of creature. And also because I have to do it to justify my collection of notebooks.

Ah notebooks. There is nothing quite like picking out a new one, deciding on whether you want lined paper, dotted, squared or plain, choosing the size, the colour, the paper weight. Depending on what you want it for, the choices are endless – which is another reason why I have so many – I need different ones for different things, obviously.

Currently I have 5 notebooks in regular use for different things…

First up is this lovely from Nature Planet. I got this as a gift and I adore it, because it has a wolf on it AND because it is super sturdy thanks to the thick cardboard covers. It is the one I shove in my handbag when I go out, the one I take to the pub quiz for note making, the one that kicks around the house for jotting notes in as I go along. It’s a handy size, has a holder for a pen so I don’t have to worry about finding one before I forget what I need to write down and it’s made from recycled paper so it’s feel-good too.

Then there’s these guys. Ah, aren’t they lovely?

The tiny pink one at the front is a Moleskine I was gifted by a friend with a note inside saying ‘for your joyful thoughts’ and after having a couple of rough weeks recently I finally picked it up and started using it. It’s now a mini scrapbook – notes of things that made me laugh, I’ve stuck in a cinema ticket from a film I adored, quotes that stuck a chord. There’s no order to it, but it’s there to flick through on a grey day to find some sunshine when I need a boost.

Next up is my book of Evil Plans, which is in fact my Smut Club notebook. I use it to make notes on the book as I read it so I remember points for discussion at the meetings. Sometimes I only get as far as writing the title, but other times I write pages and pages of stuff – it usually depends on how sucked into the book I get.

It is an A5 plain-paper notebook from House of Wonderland, designed and printed in the UK. I got this particular one in an Illumicrate subscription box that I treated myself to and it has been much admired. I’ve only got a few pages left in it now though so soon it will be filed away on my desk and will be replaced with the Once Upon A Time notebook I got in my Sherbet Box a couple of months ago.

Hiding at the back there, sporting a Happy Feet penguin sticker, is my Bullet journal. A hardcover Herlitz notebook with squared paper inside, that is full of all sorts of notes – from what films I have watched each month, to NaNoWriMo planning, lists of things to do, poetry, quotes I love, doodles, notes about gardening and whatever else I feel like I need it for. Sometimes I use it every day, other times just once or twice a month, but I always know where it is and it can be quite a stress buster.

Lastly is that beautiful Project Planner which is another Sherbet Lane goody. After a bit of thought, I decided to use it for the CFHW HQ Project – namely getting the house and garden ship-shape. That’s a massive project and being able to break it down into sections with their own mini steps in an easy lay out is a massive help. It’s great having notes for things we need to get, ideas for rooms, space for planning garden areas, all in one place. I can think on paper, get stuff sorted in my head and tick things off a little bit at a time without getting overwhelmed by the fact that we have an enormous amount to do and little idea of how to do it! It’s been a bit of a game changer and I love it.