A nice way to create a little dip into booklet with sheets of paper is to keep covers from old diaries. The nice ones are easily adapted into a scrap paper cover. If you have a habit of not finishing diaries, or get given more than one, it’s ideal. Rip out or cut away the old paper gently, find a nice lining paper to cover the inner, now empty, inside covers and spine and secure with a covering tape. I just wrap a piece of hemp string or leather around the covers to keep them closed. Or a hair elastic band type thingy-me-bob. Those little circular ones in all colours/thicknesses/sizes. They hold a pony tail in place.
Scrap booklet or cheap to posh journal. Which to choose.
Usually holding and using a fountain pen in either playful Mindfulness or with intent, does bring a sense of calm. Whether it is a random writing down of a ‘produce any old thing’ scenario. Or more considered applied thinking. Considering the latter, fountain pen use still allows some strange support of flow to serious thought. Then the former? Opening up a converted diary with a bunch of single ‘cut/ripped to measure’ sheets inside is great to explore and experiment.
Not actually being able to buy quality paper choices because I can ill afford to be an avid stationery collector and then simply write on well made pieces of ‘respected’ expensive paper with inclusions that warrant a throw them away afterwards result. So I cut up thick cream coloured plain lining wallpaper. Or use sheets of handmade paper torn to smaller uses. Lining wallpaper is rolled and means you have to iron it flat sometimes though. I’ve left it for weeks under a tight elastic band in one of these diary covers and it still comes out and says ‘Nice to ‘C’ you!’ The curve can’t be written on easily.
Please tap on individual photographs to enlarge.
Mindful writing.
There is a wonderful satisfaction that results when the flourish of a nib creates lines of glistening ink. This joy in providing the experience of seeing ink simply appearing on paper. No thought re: content or theme. Writing rubbish just to actually write……something! Anything. To create weird letter shapes and watch them morph into random patterns. Not all words and content are creative and earnest. The Mindfulness colouring books come to my mind. As does calligraphy enhancements in the form of surrounding decoration.
A notebook journal is a different story. As it is the receiver of thoughts, plans and…… well, stories, it determines more aim and purpose. Little back page testing experiments happen with journals. Does this ink/pen/nib combination suit the paper within. Will it ‘letter feather’ and bleed spidery web like into surrounding spaces? Will it show an unwanted echo script, a reversed ghostly imagery, through to and on the back of the page? Useless to use. Like putting two negatives, one of them upside down, in the darkroom enlarger and producing two images on the resulting photograph print. David Mitchell, the author, would possibly write ‘A half-filled journal is like a half-finished love affair’. He wrote that ‘a half-read book is like a half-finished love affair’ in Cloud Atlas.
Choice for elongated use of one specific appropriate pen. Or spur of the moment of ‘Oh! Hello old friend. I haven’t seen you for a while’, spasmodic choice. It differs. One is comforting in familiarity. One is ‘Let me introduce you to something you’ve never seen before. If you get along….then enjoy yourself. If you don’t…..sorry you attended the wrong party’.
For example. When writing in the Paperblanks diary, the Rotring Art Pen really suits. A quick change to another Rotring cartridge and off you go again. Routine. A year of routine. A regular meeting of friends down the pub. The Leuchterm, Legami, Moleskine, etc. journals and notebooks are different and serious considerations. You have to try to realise and consider getting the right pen/nib/ink guest invitations to the paper host’s one off dance party. You, the party organiser, do have some responsibility in getting the combinations to suit the paper host best.
So, because of their booklet nature, these little recycled diaries, which house scraps of paper inside, can be put alongside the more serious reflecting journals, yearly diaries, planning bullet journals and those tomes which house precious memories and collected thoughts alongside the various flotsam and jetsam of photos, love letters, recipes, favourite poems, etc.
I have chosen a few pens to use this month because three or four journals are ready to start off the year’s projects again. The Mindful travel journal, a garden bullet planner, a new self written songs with chords/lyrics journal and one for deeper reflections greater than what my diary currently records. The pen choice idea came from another blogger, Chronicles of a Fountain Pen site. His blog site is well worth a visit if you are either new or familiar to the world of fountain pens. Great informative knowledge and insights. Link here below.
https://fountainpenchronicles.blog/2023/04/01/its-a-new-month-whats-in-your-pen-cup-20/
And the choices this month for myself are here in my photographs. They, from past experiences, perform consistently well.
Gray Summers 
I love the way you’re using your old diaries. I think I may follow your lead and store my scrap paper in a tidier fashion
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Hi Brenda. It’s late here in the UK. Burning the midnight oil aren’t we! Writing blogs is nice in the quieter hours. There is a nice tape you can get specifically for covering the inside spine mess after removing the paper. It is a bookbinders tape. Bought some from eBay. Also the inside covers are great for decoupage or fave images and if you stick decent envelopes onto one or both of the inside covers it acts for housing keepsakes. Cheers for the reply.
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Insomnia Gray. I had a bad migraine for 4 days. For some reason, once these migraines clear, I can’t sleep
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Thought you may be having an insomnia event. Didn’t realise migraine relief contributed too. My enquiring mind will now have to go research. 😊 Glad your head is now clearer. I slept fir an hour siesta yesterday. Not a usual event. So that was why the late blog got written. Twilight is the usual time to write, store in draft and shove the whole caboodle out later. Your recent writing in the third person was brilliant and one that had me thinking. I write off the cuff and often get the past, present, future tenses mixed up too. Strange business writing correctly. I can’t do it and not bothered enough to try to put it right. Reynard talks of the professional blogger getting diction correct. But that has never been of interest either. Write for yourself or not at all. You seem to achieve in both areas really well. Ah well! Interesting fir my reflection here. My essays were panned at times because if it. But to myself? The practical ‘on the ward’ nature to nursing was far more my cup of tea. A pass at a low % was a pass nonetheless. All the best Brenda.
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I keep getting ‘for’ as ‘fir’. My right hand ring finger has a trigger finger problem and right sided lettering on the iPad keypad can throw up some interesting weird words changes. Fir example! That one was on purpose. 😊
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I’ve actually been managing to schedule my last couple of posts ahead of time but I’m not sure the timing is good, so I’ll maybe need to experiment.
As for your writing, I think your style suits you. I think its fine for a personal blog and represents your character. If I were to mark it as a piece of submitted coursework I may give some tips to improve the structure but you get your message across, it’s not jumbled or incoherent. Also for our HNC/HND students, the the most part, it’s either pass or fail and I suspect, given your passion for learning and seeking out information, that you’d pass my assignments 😉
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I was 1% off a first in my staff nurse training. A lecturer failed a good 2/3 of us on the last essay before the dissertation. It was actually, as most of us said, our strongest individuals’ essay too. I don’t have any complaints. Life is too short to dwell. And learning is for keeping patients safe. Not for personal ambition. The nicest thing I heard back after retiring from my colleagues? It was about a medical query in hand over. “If Gray were still here he would know the answer”. Thing is, I usually was okay, but not all knowing. If I didn’t know I could quickly access correct and appropriate sources to read, analyse holistically and so find out. Learning is now, thankfully, firmly on the back burner. Relaxation, social re-building post Covid, a nicer home environment, get the VeeDub up and running, write songs and generally enjoy retirement.
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Retirement should certainly be enjoyed. And now I’ve found blogging, and writing, I’m getting impatient for my turn 😂
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Retirement is a fantastic opportunity to discover new horizons in a more gentle way I have found. And if it doesn’t suit….simply leave it be and move on to something else. Passion still exists for new experiences. But the need to succeed in them doesn’t matter anymore. Mindfulness by living in the moment suddenly makes total sense. You yourself have dropped into great blogging writing like a duck to water. It simply works so well. Cheers Brenda and thank you for all your thoughtful responses. Much appreciated.
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Thanks for the tips
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Great idea to use old covers as storage for stationery – I love it. I’m a bit of a pack-rat so my wife will appreciate more clutter. Plus your content has provided a solution to a quandary – I am going to reference this post for World Stationery Day (26 April). I am not familiar with Rotring Pens or I have forgotten. Thanks, Gray for the reference. All the best
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Thanks Danny. The reference to your site is because of your knowledge base, clear views in writing pen reports, the humour and it’s good to spread fountain pen enthusiasm when you yourself actually ooze the enthusiasm. Bit of inspired thinking on your part that first of the month ‘What’s in your pen cup’ suggestion idea. I’ve even turned the ethnic angel cup into ‘the receiver’ as an homage. 😆 The Rotring pens I had first came from a charity shop. Four Graphos ones of 2 Rotring/2Pelikan alongside and a whole bunch of different nibs. I’ve been noticing that my Graphos nib blog is getting a lot of outside traffic visits Worldwide. So there must be some keen interest in them from many different places. They act like fountain pens in principle. A sort of ‘dropper’ system. The Art Pen is a simple specific Rotring ink inherent cartridge affair. Standard cartridge universal size so can take other choices if need be. Rotring ink is fairly dry. For drawing really. But it writes beautifully too. Again, the Art Pen is popular on eBay with many watchers when they come up. World Stationery Day? That is going to be an interesting one. I’d love to be able to try more of the paper I’ve read about on other sites here. The Well Appointed Desk do some great reviews. Thanks for the support re: reference. Much appreciated. All the best.
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Thanks for the info. I always have an eye open for an interesting pen. I have a couple Graphos, one of which is broke and I still have not finished the repair….
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I like writing to the side of the nib to change line size. Bit of a challenge. Also, I have 3 small plastic boxes of the different plastic ink feeds. About half a dozen each of the 1,2,3 sizes. And about 100 plus choices of certain nibs with many of them the same sizes. Far too many to use. Shame your not in giving distance. Cheers Danny.
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