Paper journal, Staedtler Triplus pens, collage stuff, and printable DIY creativity kits
In the recent past, I haven't felt much like doing any kind of online journaling. There are plenty of reasons, but the ultimate one was that there was little I felt like sharing with the world. So, in mid-April, I started keeping a paper journal (something I never did with any regularity in the past, and have not even done sporadically in the past decade of slice-of-life blogging). I have the largest Piccadilly (Moleskine-style) Notebook, and a set of 20 Staedtler Triplus Fineliner pens that I love, and the variety keeps me faithful.
My favorite thing to do is to make a gradient of paragraphs down the page, with successively darker shades of ink. The molded plastic case that the pens come in is a small marvel of engineering, with a little tube for each marker, a snap-back lid that also forms a stand, and an interesting ridged texture. The triangular shape of the pens is ergonomic; they're lightweight and comfortable to use; in effect they're like a longer, triangular version of Marvy's LePen with fewer design flaws. I'm also happy with the notebook, but its ribbon marker did come loose the other day. (Here's Black Cover's review of the Piccadilly Notebook.)
(Oh my god click on "molded plastic case" and then look at the other fineliner stuff on the menu. I'm geeking out over the pen-shaped pen cup you can get!)
I'm also using some scrapbooking paper I've had around forever for collage backgrounds; when cut to page size, The Old World Stack and The Rock Star Stack are both great, though Old World has more papers that are usable in this way. The patterns are muted, and most of them are smaller scale and cover the whole page. I use a page I removed from the center of one signature as a template for cutting the papers down. The cutting is done with a craft knife and a self-healing mat.
I have recently become obsessed with the idea of a Lamy Safari fine point fountain pen filled with J. Herbin ink in "Poussiere de Lune," but we will see if I can force this obsession to GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY.
Anyway, along with all this paper journaling happiness, there are two free printable creativity aids, one of them recent, the other older. I thought it would be nice to post them here.
