for National Stationery Day!
Well – it was yesterday but I didn’t realise in time and couldn’t bear to miss it, so here are a few of my favourite things…
Moleskine notebooks, great piles of them: black for Proper Writing, occasionally red for moments of wild frivolity. Sometimes, if a story is going badly, I convince myself that the notebook paper isn’t QUITE the right shade of off-white, or the right thickness, so I rush out and buy a pile more.
Little notebooks for my bag (getting smaller and smaller if I lack confidence in what I’m writing in them)…
Muji notebooks that look like passports – although there’s always the fear one might pick it up by mistake and present it at passport control…
ANYTHING French – why does it always look so much more intellectual?
masking tape from Present And Correct in all shades and patterns…
as many different pens as you can get in through the front door (I do like a Staedtler)…
paper bags for EVERYTHING…
my lucky pencil case…
and graph paper at all times.
But best of all by a mile, when I’m sitting at my desk staring out the window waiting for inspiration:
to fiddle with, to wind round my finger cutting off the circulation, to throw over my shoulder and see if it spells something interesting…
is the humble ball of string. It’s a wonderful thing.
So – I’ve shown you mine. Will you show me yours? Comment below or tweet me a pic (to @ClaraVulliamy) – that would be wonderful!
I am overcome with longing for ALL those things! I need to organise myself before I can photograph anything, but I do have two lovely notebooks I am writing in (though a lamentable shortage of pens). I have NEVER seen such beautiful masking tape!
How lovely that you left a comment, thank you! Two lovely notebooks most important of all, pens less so, coloured masking tape hardly a necessity – and organising oneself very much the least important!
But it goes without saying of course that it isn’t the notebooks, it’s what’s inside. How is the writing going, Anne?
I think if I had those things I’d consider them way too beautiful to use! I’m afraid I’m more of a cheap notebook from the supermarket/jot things down on the computer sort of person. Mainly computer, as I can’t read my own handwriting! I don’t think I’m grown-up enough for proper stationery like yours yet.
Well, it’s probably a displacement activity to get too attached to the bits and pieces! And when I think what emerges from your cheap notebooks I am all awe.
I’m very interested that you write straight onto the computer. There’s something very flexible about it, in that you can move things around, cut and add, but also definite: no equivalent of the tiny light pencil scribble on the corner of an envelope…
I loved reading this blog post with your gorgeous little photos. I’m loving the simplicity of the stationary you’ve chosen: these beautiful little objects that we usually take for granted : )
Hello Angela, how lovely to hear from you! I’m so glad you like the objects I’ve chosen. Our desks and belongings are so personal, aren’t they – a little bit of us.
I’ve very much enjoyed looking at your site: the illustration of the whale and balloons is really lovely!
I have drawers full of beautiful notebooks which I’m scared to use! (Daft, I know!) But my fave stationery item has to be the humble Bic Crystal biro (black). I wrote my first ever novel with one when I was 13, and even now, no other pen feels quite right!
Great choice! No wonder it’s your lucky pen. In fact, haven’t I seen it on your blog, or you described it perhaps? I’ll have a look!
Oh dear, the beautiful notebook problem, I suffer from that too.
Why are our best thoughts scribbled on the back of an old bus ticket?? And then there’s the problem of the first page: once that’s gone wrong it’s all downhill…
a notebook made of old bus tickets – now there’s a thought…