London Stationery

Happy Thursday!

When I decided to go to London a few weeks ago, I knew that stationery shopping, after tea drinking and museum going, would be a priority for my short trip. Over the course of the three days I spent in London, I visited a few stationery shops that have been on my wish list for ages, and picked up (more than) a few goodies that I am eager to share.

KIKKI K

A few years ago when I became super interested in the planning world, I had a brief love affair with Kikki K, a beautiful brand based out of Australia. For a while, I could only find their supplies online, as there were no brick and mortar stores near me. However, they have a store in Covent Garden, so I went. And found some seriously beautiful pens, stickers, and creativity prompts.

These pens are surprisingly great! They are fine tip, black gel pens that don't bleed or ghost through the pages in my Leuchtturm 1917 notebook. And, the colours go great with the yellow! 

So pretty. I just love the color and prints! 

The salesperson helping me was the sweetest! When I mentioned that I was a teaching assistant, she pointed out these creativity prompt cards, from the "We Are All Creative" collection. I've used some as discussion and writing prompts in my classes, but mostly I've been using them for my own journal and creativity prompts. 

I love the Kikki K sticker books and I've always wanted one. So when they were buy 2 get one free... well. You know how it ended. I got the Creative, Inspiration, and Sweet sticker books. 

LIBERTY LONDON

Liberty is a department store that is both legendary and beautiful. It has an interesting history, which you can read about on their website. Thanks to an Instagram friend's suggestion, I decided to swing by and visit the stationery room. It did not disappoint!

Friends, they have different nibs painted on the wall. LOOK AT THE NIBS. #apartmentgoals

They carried many well known brands, like ban.do, Kate Spade, etc. They also make their own guest books and notebooks which were gorgeous, but too large to carry with me back to France. I opted for a notebook made by a smaller, U.K. based creator, and I love the cherry blossom print! It's a hand bound notebook made by Esmie, and the website is as gorgeous as this notebook.

I also got a set of post cards. I love post cards, and so this set featuring some of the famous fabric prints was perfect!

PRESENT AND CORRECT

Somehow, I found Present and Correct on Instagram, and have been following them for a while. So when in London, I decided to pop in not only to see the beautiful shop, but to get some beautiful stationery.

First of all, I was totally enthralled by the front window.

Giant. Paper. Pencils.

How beautiful are the pencils in this display?

Yes, I totally geeked out over the capsule vending machine. I got some cute little erasers!

I also bought a thin bookmark ruler that I am planning to stick in my journal for any time I need a ruler, as well as a little dot grid notebook with a grey cover. It's such a beautiful color, and I love the gold detail on the cover. 

In addition to stunning products and a beautiful shop, the bag and business card details are so cohesive that I am just in love. The card went directly into my journal. 

So it's not stationery, but look at this great enamel pin! 

London was so much fun, and the stationery scene was absolutely amazing! Do you have any favourite London stationery shops? 

Belgium + The Netherlands Stationery Haul

Happy Wednesday!

I recently took a trip to Ghent, Belgium, The Hague, The Netherlands, and London, England where I found some gorgeous stationery, and visited a pen lover landmark (or two). Tomorrow I'll post my haul from London, but for now here's the goodies I picked up in Ghent and The Hague.

GHENT, BELGIUM (GENT)

I was only in Ghent for a day and a half, and most of it was spent wandering around and taking in the sunshine, architecture, and incredible history of the city. I took a boat tour, and was the only person on said boat tour, so had a friendly chat with the tour guide about the city. He kept saying it's a "living city," which I can see, but to me, it seemed more like a city that has been lived in and loved, adjusting and changing along with the people who inhabit it. I only went to one shop, but I found two beautiful little goodies.

First, I found this notebook which is adorable and has a Z on it, which is perfect for my name, Zoe. I can never find anything with a Z on it in the USA, so I snatched this notebook up as soon as possible. The paper is a little toothy, but it has a nice texture that I think will agree with pencil. The pages are also a muted yellow colour, which looks nice with the sage green cover. 

The second thing I picked up was this ruler/tab set. The tabs were so fun, as the three different styles feature patterns instead of regular colours. I thought it would be good for dividing the months in my Bullet Journal, and the colours of the tabs look great with the yellow notebook. Plus having the small, flexible ruler is nice for planning on the go. I keep this in the back pocket of my notebook.

THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS (DEN HAAG)

I knew that alongside the historic and political significance of this city, as well as the proximity to the coast, The Hague was also home to important Dutch artworks, and a sort of paradise for fountain pen lovers. As I walked from the train station to my hotel, I actually found P. W. Akkermann, which is an amazing pen store that is really well known for their collection of inks in beautiful bottles. I wanted to buy all of them, but that was logistically not a great plan as they were unlikely to fit in my tote bag. Instead, I was content to buy my Lamy Al-Star Pacific and matching ink, as well as a mini Rhodia dot-grid top-bound notebook which is perfect for tossing in my smaller bags and testing inks. Plus, I met the dog which was fun.

I had also received some advice to go to another stationery store closer to the Peace Palace called Damen/Papier Royaal. This store was a more typical stationery and paper store, as they had notebook, sets of cards, greeting cards, correspondence sets, etc. The owner was nice and I found a beautiful blank notebook that I want to use as a commonplace book, and a correspondence set. The notebook has a beautiful patterned cover, and is stitch bound. It's sturdy and beautiful (and it photographs really well). Truthfully, I used all of the cards already because they were so darn pretty so I wanted to send them everywhere. They were gone before February ended, as I ended up using them for InCoWriMo. They were very high quality paper, and I used fountain pens on them with much success. 

My final stationery purchase were these large Lyra coloured pencils from Dille & Kamille, a chain store popular in Belgium and The Netherlands. I was looking for napkins for my mom and ended up buying pencils. So it goes.

I did not buy a lot of things in Belgium and The Netherlands, but I am totally in love with the things I found. Tomorrow I will share the goodies I picked up in London, and lemme tell you, I got some great stuff. 

À demain!

Thoughts On Filling a Notebook

Happy Monday, friends!

If you're anything like me, you have a billion notebooks scattered around your house or apartment, all in varying stages of completion. There are few simple pleasures that bring me as much joy as cracking open a notebook, the smell of the blank pages, the feel of ink being absorbed into the fibres for posterity. Making a mark, however small, that I was, in fact, here. I had thoughts.

As poetic as keeping a notebook may be, it is quite a challenge for me to fill them completely. However, when I do fill a notebook, I find myself in a state of bittersweet pride. Pride for having a completed, beautiful, and full notebook available for those nostalgic moments and "when did I..." musings. Sweet for having such a perfectly preserved glimpse into the enigma of existence, coffee stained pages, ink smears, and ticket stubs glued for preservation.

But then there's the bitter. The sort of melancholy acceptance of the fact that this wonderful little piece of paper and glue, ink and ribbon, will be archived and I will move on to a new one.

I recently finished a notebook that I had kept since November as my Bullet Journal. This particular notebook is a Berry Leuchtturm1917 notebook, A5 size, dot grid. Pretty standard. At first, I didn't like this notebook. I felt like I couldn't bond with it, and my pens kept bleeding through the pages and it was bulky... etc.

For a bit of backstory, I moved from my hometown of Denver, Colorado, USA to the North of France, a small town near Lille. Moving to a different country has been the experience of a lifetime, but it has been daunting and terrifying and lonely sometimes. So this notebook, a little pink block of paper, became more than a way for me to record my to-do lists and notes. It became a sort of catch-all for my brain and my life.

Everything went into this notebook. Quotes, musings, questions, notes. Ticket stubs, the addresses of my best friends to send letters, travel plans, travel notes. Snapshots of my days that my personal journal doesn't provide. Glimpses into those small things that are big things. Coffee. Wine. Tears. Parisian rain, Dutch sand. Crumbs from croissants.

All this to say that I love my notebooks, and maybe some people find it odd, but filling a notebook always makes me a bit sad. For a period of time, my notebook was an extension of my brain, an extra appendage, always in my bag if not glued to my hand. Filling a notebook is one of my greatest happinesses, and filling these pages with the authentic snapshots of a brief period of time is a pleasure that does not compare.

This notebook will be archived with joy and gratitude, and I am eager to start a new adventure with this happy yellow sunshine book by my side.

InCoWriMo 2017 Review

Happy Monday!

February was such a fun month, and I have so many wonderful memories and had such fun experiences. First, I traveled a lot, which is always fun, but it was also quite a special month for stationery lovers, as February is a month known as International Correspondence Writing Month, or InCoWriMo.

2017 was my first time ever taking part in InCoWriMo, and I am so glad I decided to do it. The goal of InCoWriMo is to write a piece of correspondence, such as a letter, postcard, or note, every day and either mail it or hand deliver it. I opted for the mail option, and gathered my stamps, pens, and postcards in preparation.

For my first time participating in this challenge, I decided to go the postcard route. I knew that February would be a busy month with traveling for about two weeks, so I wanted to make sure that I was able to write to everyone and mail it within the time frame. By the end of the month I had fallen a bit behind, but managed to get every last postcard and letter in the post box by March 3. I even sent some postcards to friends from the places I visited, like Ghent and The Hague.

Overall, I would say that InCoWriMo 2017 was a great success! I felt quite accomplished having sent out more than the initial 28 postcards I promised. Throughout the month, I added people who I had told about the challenge, and friends who knew of my love of stationery and volunteered to receive a letter or postcard from me.

Like most month-long challenges, by the end you learn a little something about yourself. InCoWriMo was no exception. Here's what I learned in my 28 days of sending mail to people around the world:

• How to ask for stamps in different languages. At the French post office, I ask for "timbres mondiales, pour aller aux États-Unis" (although really, they are just global stamps that I used to send letters to every country on my list). In The Netherlands, I asked for "postzegels." 
• It takes much longer to write a letter or a postcard than you think. I write by hand a lot, as I journal and plan on paper. But writing a letter or a postcard for someone takes quite a long time, especially since it is much harder to be succinct in a postcard with a finite amount of space than in an email or Facebook message.
• Receiving mail is such a fun experience! I live at the school where I work, so I was only able to check my mail a few times a week when I went in to work. And while I was traveling, I obviously didn't have access to mail for two weeks. It was so lovely to return from my holidays and have my mailbox full of letters and postcards from old and new friends. 
• Writing letters is a sort of meditation for me. While I was writing each letter and postcard, I spent those minutes completely devoted to thinking about the person I was writing to. As a result, I found myself calmer, happier, and more reflective. 
• You can learn a lot about a place from a postcard. I received postcards from places I had visited, as well as places I didn't even know existed. One of my favourite cards I received was from a small town in Ohio, and the sender even wrote a little bit about the historical mansion featured on the card. It was so nice, thoughtful, and beautiful. It's hanging on my postcard/inspiration wall now. 
• Wax seals are so much fun. I will not send a letter without a wax seal anymore. 

This was such a wonderful experience, and I definitely plan on doing it again next February. Until then, I found some wonderful pen pals that I will be writing to diligently, and hope to make some more analogue friends in the future. 

Hello! Bonjour! Hola! Ciao!

The first post is always awkward, isn't it? I have no idea what to say except hello and welcome to Paper Story Studio. I'm excited to give this stationery blog a go, as stationery is one of my passions and I love writing about it, talking about it, sharing it, and nerding out about it, yet few of my IRL friends share my enthusiasm for all things paper.

Anyways, I'm quite glad to be starting this blog. I have quite a few ideas for posts in the coming weeks and months, so this is what you can expect as I continue to grow and build this blog:

• Mondays: Stationery inspiration to get your week started on the right page! This includes book reviews related to stationery books, links to interesting articles about stationery, handwritten quotes, or more general stationery interests. I'm also quite interested in planners, the Bullet Journal system, and other organisational tools. Therefore, Mondays will be dedicated to the stories we tell on paper.
• Thursdays: Technical stuff. This is the day for product reviews, tutorials, shop walk throughs, etc. These posts are more about the paper and tools used than the stories told, if you will. 

Twice a week is a good start for this lovely little space. I have big dreams for this little blog of mine, and I really love and appreciate your support in checking out this first post.

If you'd like some more paper stories, check out my Instagram feed where I post daily pictures of my notebooks, sketchbooks, snail mail, and other tools of the trade. Also hop on over to my About page to read a little more about the inspiration behind this blog.

Thanks again for stopping by! See you on Monday.