It's all about the paper products

Amazon gift certificates are the best! A kind reader sent me a gift certificate last night and I used it immediately, lol.

I ordered the book Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End by David Gibson. Yay! Twitter graphic tweeted by Matt Smethurst, lol-

I use a small, leather blank journal with thick handmade paper for notes during sermons and small group Bible study. I love it because it's small and therefore portable. The paper is thick and stands up to painting on or collaging, which I occasionally do in order to illustrate a thought or insight I'd had. The paper feels good to the touch, also important. The clasp is metal and medieval looking which is a style I enjoy. I'm almost to the end of this notebook so it's wonderful I can order a backup to have on hand for when I need another one.

I love paper products overall. I'm a sucker for notebooks, journals, paper, legal pads, and ephemera. I take just as long choosing refrigerator pads to put on the fridge as I do for my spiritual journal and my online classes' notebooks. And you had me at Post-it.

Along with the notebooks are the careful selections of the pens I use. I have arthritis in my hands so I need a thicker pen. I like retractable so I can 'close' the point and it won't make stray ink marks all around, which I hate. I like ball point and not gel or marker type pens, for the same reason, no stray ink marks. I prefer black ink to blue or colors. The ink needs to lay down on the paper immediately with no warm up, and spread smoothly as I go. And the pen should be pretty. The design should be delicately balanced when I hold it, with a nice taper, and overall pleasing to use and to look at. You didn't know there was so much to choosing a pen, did you?

A friend gave me some Paper Mate pens a few years ago. They have become my preferred pen. I love them. The Paper Mate Silhouette is my absolute favorite, it meets all the above requirements for use by moi. The Silhouette Paper Mate is is a pen that is becoming hard to find, though. The pens she gave me are so good it's taken a few years to run out, so I ordered some Paper Mate pens with my gift certificate, This one isn't a Silhouette but it is also a good pen.

I've used journals of all kinds throughout the years. I don't really write down my thoughts and emotions like a diary, but I use them for picture thoughts, insights into things, collages and so on. Here are a few of my journals.

Clockwise. The leftmost large fabric journal with the sunflower on the front and the turned cover is actually a placemat I'd bought at the Lubec Historical Society annual July 4th yard sale sometime in the early 2000s. I turned it into a journal using a pamphlet stitch.

The beaded journal is festooned with sequins overlaid on black velvet. The paper is good. I rarely use it though...

The flowered one is a journal I'd started about the town I was living in. It has a hand written introduction and pasted-in scraps of life in the town. I started that one in 1990.

The green journal on the right is a Fabriano journal I use for an art journal. I'd written about finding a journal with Fabriano paper here. This one was started in 2016.

The brown ring journal is a Strathmore Visual Journal from a second hand store. Strathmore is another well-known paper outlet. I wrote about finding this expensive and lovely notebook, here. It's another art journal. I really prefer smaller ones to larger. It's from Nov. 2016.

The red small journal is one I'd made. The cover is paste paper and the inside contains hand written thoughts on spiritual books I'd been reading. That one dates to sometime around 2000-2001. I have a LOT of these little notebooks I'd made for the same purposes.

The red one is my very first journal. My parents gave me a trip to London for my graduation. It was a Spring school trip along with other seniors in my High School. Yes, our field trips were to foreign countries. I wrote about what I saw and did and that little journal from 1978 started me both on my world travels and my obsession with chronicling everything I see and do in some kind of journal. I have other travel journals, too, of various kinds, but you get the idea.

I like paper, journals, and notebooks! With me, it's all about the paper products. I think I'll always be a Luddite when it comes to notebooks. I don't have a cell phone and I don't like keeping track of things on any electronic device, portable or not. I love the feel of notebook with a fine paper, and writing my ideas, lists, and thoughts with a well-balanced pen. Blackberry calendar just doesn't have the same thrill for me.

How about you? Do you like notebooks? Keep it all on your phone? Use some other method? Or none at all?

Some really nice, (mostly) empty journals and notebooks.

I receive emails from Creative Market.com, a graphic design and art studio kind of online place. They send out a weekly email to subscribers that offer a host of links on the aforementioned topics. If you enjoy reading about fonts, logos, and design, that is the place for you.

I have always kept a journal and I've never kept a journal. That is, I love to write and I love notebooks and I accumulate them but I never manage to sustain any kind of ongoing chronicle of writing in them. I just like notebooks for themselves.

The top left journal, the beaded one, is one that I bought at Border's Books one New Year 8 years ago, intent on keeping notes of my life. I love the beads and the black velvet. Most of the book is empty. I think

The one on the top right is a linen covered purchased journal I had intended to keep notes of the thoughts about my town, 20 years ago. I used about 10 pages then I ran out of thoughts. But I liked the feel of the linen and the sturdiness of the journal when handling it.

Then an office product and service store named Kinko's started offering binding services. I put together a little journal with a binding on the top and used that one to keep track of my health. I took some notes about drinking water and miles walked but then as usual, I stopped. But I had a lot of fun making little journals.

The green one with the white tissue paper over the cover is a dos-a-dos journal I learned to make during my bookbinding phase. The green is paste paper, a hand made painted kind of decorative paper and the binding is a personally stitched. I kept track of my night-time dreams in it. I don't know why, but I felt it was important to keep track of dreams I was having, for a while. I don't know if I could make a dos-a-dos journal now but they sure are fun.

The small leather one with the cool latch is one that I'd bought through Amazon. It has soft, handmade paper inside and the exterior binding is also handmade. I like it. I jot down prayers and answers to prayer in it. But not consistently because I do that on the laptop in my Logos 6 software that has a place to keep track of prayers and answers. So...again, the journal is mostly empty. But I like unclicking the latch.

Here is Creative Market's article on Amazing Sketchbooks, Notebooks and Pads to Try in 2016

In the final quarter of 2015, the search was on to find the most creative, imaginative, original products and experiences of the year. And there were a lot to choose from. From eye-catching graphic tees to super-inspiring podcasts, the inaugural Creative Market Awards showcased the best in design, technology, and innovation.
In the Best Sketchbook for Designers category, the competition was fierce, with an assortment of chunky pads and brilliant books that are sure to spark design ideas and stimulate thoughts. In a tech-savvy world, where email and SMS have replaced pen and paper, these top sketchbooks are the ultimate companion for any designer who needs an outlet to draw, doodle or draft concepts.

At least my hoarding tendencies are with an item that's pretty small!