Art, books, Cachet, creativity, Links, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, Places to Buy Notebooks, Sketchbook, Writing Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Week: D. M. Cornish

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This week’s addict is the author and illustrator D. M. Cornish, creator of the Monster-Blood Tattoo series. I’d never heard of these books, but they seem to have gotten some great reviews. I often enjoy fantasy novels for kids, so now I’m tempted to check them out! But what I’d really like to see are these notebooks:

The red and black notebooks seem to be the type commonly available at Chinese stores. I don’t recognize the blue ones. The black notebooks look like the Cachet Classic Black Cover Sketchbook often found in art supply stores. At Blick, the 4×6″ size is only $6.29, with bulk discounts available that will get you down to only $5.31 each if you buy 12 or more… I hope Mr. Cornish took advantage!

Read more at Monster-Blood Tattoo: Notebooks.

creativity, Links, Places to Buy Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

OCD or Being Prepared?

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Quote of the day:

“I bought ten blue notebooks from Walmart and I have filled five of them so far. It’s not OCD or anything, I’m just prepared in case it turns out that it’s the blue notebook doing all the work.”

I’ve been meaning to check out the notebook offerings at WalMart… this has given me yet another reason to do so.

From Do Some Damage: Writing Without a Net.

Leuchtturm, new products, Places to Buy Notebooks

Sneak Peaks from the Secret Shopper

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I thought I’d share a few photos from some notebook shopping trips around NYC over the past few months. These were furtively snapped with my cell phone, so I apologize in advance for the image quality.

The first few pictures were taken at McNally Jackson Bookstore in the SoHo/NoLIta area of NYC. It’s a fabulous bookstore, and they have a very eclectic little stationery section too.

I wish I’d bought this first one, I love the look of the cover.

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It’s hard to tell, but that’s a Leuchtturm notebook below.

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Another attractive cover… I love white birch trees in real life, and I guess I like them on notebooks too.

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A Moleskine lookalike branded as a travel journal from Rick Steves.

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The photos below are from Kinokuniya Bookstore in midtown, right across from Bryant Park. I went there before Christmas and was in total overload at the shelves and shelves of cool Japanese notebooks, pens, stickers and other assorted items.

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If you like the charmingly random use of English sometimes found on Japanese products, then you’ll love the notebook below. The cover reads “Guildford is the most charming and lovely town in Surrey. It has maintained its attractive rural villages, riverside walks, gardens, and Tudor architectures.”

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I didn’t take good notes on all the brands I found in either place, but I bought a couple of things at Kinokuniya that I’ll review soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend a visit to both shops if you happen to be in New York!

Journal, Links, Mead, Moleskine, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping, Scientific

Notebook Addict of the Week: An Amateur Naturalist

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This week’s addict is Jace Stansbury of Texas, who keeps notebooks devoted to a very specific purpose: recording observations of nature. Here’s some of the collection:

Jace’s thoughts on keeping notebooks:

I have stacks of pocket-sized notebooks full of observations made over the years and I’m in the process of re-writing these notes in a neater format along with photos that are related to each entry. Some folks use word processing programs and type their recordings, but I prefer mine to be handwritten. I do this because I feel something is lost when you type them up. Handwritten notes have character and personality. Each stroke of the pen or pencil contains a part of the person that made the observation.

More details on note-taking methodology:

At one time I used 4”x 6” lined spiral notebooks, but now prefer Moleskine notebooks, specifically the 3 ½” x 5 ½” unlined reporter’s version which has acid-free paper. My pen of choice is the Sharpie pens that don’t bleed through, are water resistant and acid free, specifically the Sharpie Ultra Fine Point and the Sharpie Ultra Fine Point Retractable. But sometimes I’ll use a good old fashioned #2 pencil.

And here’s a sample interior:

This makes me want to stop and look closely at things more often…

See more at Journals of an Amateur Naturalist: Capturing Notes in the Field.

Gama-go, Journal, Links, new products, Places to Buy Notebooks

GAMA-GO Pocket Journals

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Here’s some funky, colorful notebooks:

These 4×3 1/8-inch journals are filled with 48 gridded / perforated sheets, making them perfect for notes on-the-go. And with their five slip pockets and elastic band for security, they’re also a good hiding placce for those secret love notes.

They’re only $5 at the GAMA-GO website.

Via GAMA-GO’s ‘Pocket Journals’ | Collect3d.

Art, creativity, Diary, HandBook, Journal, Kikkerland, Moleskine, My Collection, Personal, Piccadilly, record-keeping, Sketchbook, Travel Notebooks, Writersblok

What I’m Using Now

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I haven’t updated my “using now” photo in a while– the photo that’s been there was of a Piccadilly graph notebook. After that, I went through a Moleskine graph notebook within a couple of months– this was one of the ones I got for 50 cents and it definitely had some quality issues– some of the pages had some ink smears on them and the black oilcloth covering was kind of loose and wrinkly around the spine. So I couldn’t wait to get through it and try out another Piccadilly, which is what I’m now using again as my main daily notebook. I’m already more than halfway through it and I’m just as happy with it as I was with the last one.

The Piccadilly is on top of the stack in the photo.

Below it, the red notebook is one of the monthly booklets from the Moleskine Color-a-Month Daily Planner. I have to say, I’ve been ambivalent about using this planner since almost the day I started. It’s nice to have a very slim booklet to carry around rather than the bulk of a full year page a day planner, but I’m still bothered by all that frontmatter, and there’s no bookmark to help you keep your place– I’ve been using the small binder clip you see in the photo. In the first few days of January, I didn’t think I’d be able to stick with this planner for a full year, so I ran out and bought a softcover page per day Moleskine planner. Now I’m on the fence about which one to continue with– the further I go in the Color-a-Month,  the more it seems like a waste not continue… but it also seems like a waste not to use the other planner. I wish I could do a drawing a day (like these) but I think that’s a little over-ambitious!

But I do manage to draw more intermittently, and that’s what the bottom two notebooks in the photo are for: two Hand-Book Journals, one of which I used for sketches on a recent trip, and another that’s been used for drawings at home. I didn’t fill the travel journal completely, so I’ll either continue it on a future trip, or use the rest of it once I’ve finished the home sketchbook.

Not included in this photo are a couple other notebooks I use occasionally: a 2001 Moleskine Daily Planner that I’ve been using to jot down dreams, and a small lined Piccadilly notebook where I’ve been keeping track of books I read. And a Kikkerland WritersBlok notebook that I use for my French class.

So that comes to 7 or 8 notebooks with some degree of active usage right now. It almost doesn’t seem like enough to make me a true notebook addict… maybe I should start a few more!

Fun & Weird, Mead, My Collection, Nostalgia

A Batch of Childhood Notebooks

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I found this batch of notebooks when I was home for Christmas– I guess I’d missed them on all previous sweeps of my parents’ house. It’s an odd assortment, from when I was in junior high school through my first post-college years when I was living at home again for a little while.

Most of this bunch are the usual 3×5″ spiral notebooks but there are a few interesting oddities. The Doctor Who Diary is not something I ever used, but must have been a gift from someone, as I loved that show when I was a kid. The silvery-looking notebook in the bottom row was handmade– I glued together a stack of little paper slips that my aunt used to bring home from work, and then I covered the outside with duct tape and put an orange address label on it. The duct tape actually made for a nice flexible, durable cover and the notebook is surprisingly intact after about 30 years! The black notebook in the upper row is another odd one– it’s a standard plastic-covered looseleaf, but for some reason I must have decided the covers were too stiff– I sliced them open on the insides and slid out the cardboard inserts.

I can’t even begin to describe all the goofy, fun stuff I found inside the notebooks, so I’ll just leave you with this one mystifying tidbit:  in the 1981 Reminder With Maps, there was a page where I’d scrawled this one word in large letters: “DYMAXION!!!!”

creativity, Links, Other People's Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Week: John Hughes

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Just in case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, I had to post this photo from an article in Vanity Fair, displaying the notebook collection of the late John Hughes, the creator of all those memorable 1980’s teen films such as Pretty in Pink. I first came across it at Pocket Blonde, and two readers also emailed me to make sure I’d seen it! (Thanks!)

If you look closely at the upper edge of the image, just left of center, you’ll see two of the Northern Central Co. memorandum books I reviewed in this post.

What a great looking collection. I wish I could identify more of the brands, but I’ll bet a lot of them are long-gone from stores…

Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…