The joy of a new notebook

[MyMachineAndMe]

I'm surely not the only one? I was telling dh that I've almost finished my current notebook and that it's exciting because it means I get to start my new one. It's a beautiful notebook - it has a gold, shiny cover - and I've got the nice gold shimmer ink to use in it.

When I said all this, Dh looked at me like I've got two heads, as did one of my dc (the other has a better understanding of all things stationery).

Light-hearted question obviously, but do you get excited by new notebooks?

Words not works. 🙈

People buy me notebooks and I have zero clue what to do with them! Everything is on my phone/iPad/laptop!

Yep!
Notebooks are the only thing I hoard.

Anyone else tempted to go notebook shopping now?😂

I'm browsing the Paperblanks website right now and adding everything I like to my basket. It's going to take me a while to whittle my basket down!

I'm in town today. At the very least I'll be stroking a few.

Do they take ages to dry? I'd love to use shimmering inks but I need something that dries quickly because I flip back and forth between pages a lot.

Id be very wary of writing anything you want to keep with Frixion pens, the writing disappears after a few years. DH once left a stack of papers to mark in the car in the sun, all the kids who had written with Frixion pens had their work vanish (we did manage to salvage most of them by putting the papers in the freezer, not ideal 😅)

Great thread OP and like many other here I love buying them with the general feeling of 'I've got loads of stuff swirling round my head that I want to write down'.
Alas, the reality is a different story.
Apart from my work notebook and my reminders/ stuff to do notebook, the others tend to stay blank.
I did finish a poem recently but that's once in a blue moon.
I am looking for some great inspiration from you all!
P.S. I visited the Anne Frank museum recently and the sight of her black and red notebook as a piece of history was just...wow.

Yes to sniffing a new one, much like a new book - always have to sniff the pages first before reading it.

There is nothing I love more than buying a new notebook around October/November time to write all the lists and prep for Christmas 😍

@LaChatte I don't find Diamine's shimmer inks any slower to dry than their normal inks, but I do keep a sheet of blotting paper in the back of the notebook to use when I can't wait for it to dry (cut so it completely fits inside the notebook when closed obvs, can't have it sticking out 😁). It still has shimmer even after using the blotting paper, although maybe not quite as much - I've soaked up a bit of the ink, after all.

I have this book. I wrote two lines for each line and wrote on both sides of the page so it lasted the best part of a year. My shiny gold one is the same size and brand.

Id love to see some of these beautiful inks if anyone has any pictures or links? I fear though, it may start a new obsession and along with my stationery, book and plant hoards!

Wow I have def found my people!

I went to the Anne Frank museum almost 20 years ago @shadypines and don't remember the notebook, strangely, but I was haunted by its emptiness. I'll never forget that.

@LaChatte I did that with a pile of books too; I put them on the radiator out of the way and when I came to mark them they were empty! The freezer trick did indeed work!

What to write in them? A lot of people suggest writing your life goals etc but I don't have any; neither do I have much planned other than work assignments (though with it being the summer hols, as a supply teacher my work notebook is going to be empty this month). I just write my daily journal thing and use another for calligraphy practise.

I recently discovered diamine inks; so far I only have the one bottle but it is a lovely colour.

some of these note books are lovely but what do you wright in them?

I don't have any deep or meaningful thoughts so I do sometimes feel that I'm not doing my fancy notebooks the justice they deserve by writing my banal thoughts in them, but that's what I do. I am a Mass Observer as well so make notes for the directives in one of my books.

Oh hell yes! I have been known to lovingly stroke the empty pages of a new note book....

See also new packets of gel pens, washi tape and those mini post-it tab things. 😍

I recently bought this one, it came wrapped in tissue paper in a lovely box. I will never write in it, it's just too beautiful! Square Moon dotted Journal

@MyMachineAndMe ah, maybe it was on loan, shame, she had such beautiful writing too.
I am reading all about people's fancy pens and thinking, oh no, another slippery slope for me to go down. I've already got more craft supplies than you can shake a stick at!

Id be very wary of writing anything you want to keep with Frixion pens, the writing disappears after a few years. DH once left a stack of papers to mark in the car in the sun, all the kids who had written with Frixion pens had their work vanish (we did manage to salvage most of them by putting the papers in the freezer, not ideal 😅)

I've been ok with mine so far and some things have been a couple of years or more. I might see if I can go over the top of anything I want to keep with a nice fountain pen in the future though, I'm less likely to make a mistake if I'm going over something at least!

@shadypines I have a printed, abridged version of her diary but have never managed to read the whole thing as I find it too much.

@GalileoHumpkins that is indeed a thing of beauty. My work planner is a scribble and dot undated planner. I shall have to buy a new one ready for September. This is the best time of year for stationery!

Can any of you recommend a fountain pen? My hand writing has become so bad I can hardly read it sometimes so maybe a fountain pen will slow me down a bit.

Both my dc use a lamy safari with an extra fine nib. Generally speaking, I think that if you have small writing, a fine nib is better. The lamy is fairly cheap so if you don't get on with it you haven't blown loads of money and it has a shaped grip section so you know where and how to hold it.

I have so many notebooks on the go, I’d love recommendations for some really beautiful ones. I love grid (graph?) paper or dotted rather than lined. I’m addicted to writing things down. I also keep a gratitude journal in an app on my phone!

One for Morning Pages, fifteen minutes of free writing first thing in the morning. I always start a few pages in and leave a couple of pages between entries, I never reread what gets written in there. I always use a fat cheap A5 bullet journal from Amazon for this.

One ‘all purpose’, Miquel Rius notebook with birds or leaves on the cover, also A5. Its pages are divided into blocks of different coloured edges so I use one colour for work and all the others for everything else. Words or phrases in a language I’m learning, budgeting, story ideas, notes from online courses or anything inspired by books I’m reading, knitting or crochet patterns I dream up but rarely test, poems.

Then I have two notebooks for a novel I’m writing - one Logbook, where I build the world of the novel and its characters and also jot down any descriptions of people or places or incidents I might want to use. This is the same sort of book as the morning pages, fat and cheap, A5 with reams of gridded paper inside. The second usually has a more interesting cover and that’s where I write chunks of the novel longhand, ready for typing up later. I’m always looking for a beautiful notebook for this. I have used a whole range from Amazon basics to leather bound and happily fill them but haven’t found The One I want to buy dozens of yet.

And then there is the mini A6 version of the morning pages/log book notebooks which fits into my bag in case I urgently need to record a thought or an idea or an overheard conversation on the train. There are notebooks everywhere, I don’t often go anywhere without at least one but if I do there are a few apps on the phone to use in an emergency!

I use really cheap pens though, I like those fat Berol handwriting pens with black ink that come in multipacks. They’re a bit like felt tips.