Will be getting some of these up on Folksy soon:
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Month: April 2013
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I love pens
Pencils, too. Writing implements in general, really. Love ’em. And I don’t care who knows it! Yes, it’s National Stationery Week, here at last to help get Britain writing.
It’s actually got me thinking about my own pen collection and how I write, and I’ve come to realise that I’ve neglected things of late. Even though I write often, draw often, always carry a pen with me along with something to write on, I seem to have lost that urge to always write with a beautiful pen, on quality paper, taking the time to write carefully and neatly (though it doesn’t help that most of my writing is done on my rather rickety train journeys to and from work.)
However, I’ve decided it’s time to get back on track! Starting with a good spring clean of my pens, which are all over the place. No more grabbing the first ball-point I see and scribbling things down! To inspire me, I’ve been browsing the internet looking for… well, looking for inspiration. And inspiration I have found:
Is just an awesome pen/writing/stationery-related blog!
“Specialists in classic, hard-to-find and niche pens, pencils and refills from the world’s biggest manufacturers.” A brilliant selection, good for browsing.
Doesn’t have the most enticing website, but gets almost full marks for it’s range of writing implements and the glorious ink ‘Col-o-rama’ (they lost points due to the Americanism – ‘color’ not ‘colour’ – though I agree that they couldn’t exactly have ‘Col-our-ama’). They also have some pretty sexy ink bottles:
Plus the best pencil sharpener EVER:
Moving on slightly from pens and writing… plantable paper! Who knew? Not I. This is a wondrous site dedicated to eco-friendly paper and seed paper:
“Why do we use seed paper in our products? Because seed paper from Botanical PaperWorks is made with post-consumer material, meaning that no new fibers were used in the production of this paper. And because when the paper itself is planted, it composts away leaving only wildflowers (or herbs, or vegetables) and NO WASTE!”
I NEED to get me some paper that turns into flowers.
A lovely shop situated in Bloomsbury, with a wonderful stationery section; but don’t worry if you can’t get there in person, they have an excellent on-line store for your perusing pleasure. As well as some great pencil sets:
They have a fantastic selection of washi tape:
What are your plans for National Stationery Week?
In light of the upcoming National Stationery Week, I’ve decided to run a little competition amongst my Facebook friends (indeed, the ones who are actually my friends!).
All they have to do is post me a hand written letter. That’s the whole brief, they can make of that what they will!
As a prize, the best one will be able to commission me to customise a lovely set of envelopes and note papers.
I will be posting the best entries and of course their customised prize. Watch this space!
While National Stationery Week is a mere 7 days away, I am glad I’ve found out about it at least a little in advance.
As it says on their site, ‘National Stationery Week is a celebration of the written word and all things stationery.’ And just to be clear, that’s stationery with an ‘e’, NOT stationary.
The idea is to encourage more people to write by hand and I for one am all for that. Not just because I want to sell people my notebooks- although actually, that is the main reason I started making them in the first place. I love writing things down, I wanted to do it more often and to create beautiful, fun places to write thoughts/ideas/lists in!
Here, then, are my favourite stationery items from The Craft Fantastic:
Simple, single section notebooks with beautiful paper all the way from Florence:
Japanese stab-bound notebooks with hand-drawn stencils adorning the front:
Delicately detailed A4 landscape notebooks/journals/scrap books:
Fun geometric shapes on simple stab-bindings:
Miniature books, for miniature thoughts:
Fancy Coptic binding:
Beautiful black hardback with a metal key:
Keep your eyes peeled for new stock, plus some goodies especially for NSW!
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It was the cover that caught my eye… #13
Beautiful cover, beautiful title, beautiful insides!
It’s a 21st Century Bestiary. “Ranging from the depths of the ocean to the most arid corners of the earth, Caspar Henderson captures the beauty and bizarreness of the many living forms we thought we knew and some we could never have contemplated, and invites us to better imagine the world around us.”
You can take a sneeky peek at the introduction on Amazon – you won’t regret it.
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Weekend baking – Happy Birthday to me!
Pink strawberry flavour cupcakes, cream cheese frosting and good old sprinkles.