On Journaling...
A unnecessarily deep dive into my journaling.
“[from "On Keeping a Notebook"]: It is a good idea to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about…I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not…Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.”
―Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
I have still been pretty obsessed with my Journaling in the past two months, and just for fun, I wanted to talk about my favorite stationery supplies I have been using. Math has been quite hard this semester, and although I did finish the class nearly 5 weeks early and passed my final and therefore the class, I have been feeling a lot of stress. Journaling helps me stay sane. I recommend that anyone and everyone start a notebook, whether it be commonplacing, a diary, a journal, or just a sketchbook or place to dump ideas.
I will explain a little of my process when I get to the actual journals, but first, I’ll talk about some of the instruments I use.
FOR WRITING:
These are the writing utensils I use the most. From left to right, there is my first ever fountain pen, the Pilot Kakuno. I wanted to try out a fountain pen but was intimidated by the price point. So I opted for this cheaper pen to make sure I even liked writing with a fountain pen, and I’m happy to say, this is a quality pen. I wish I had a bigger converter for more ink, but I can always get one later. I love how smooth it writes and I was pleased with the fine nib, because I write very small and my handwriting is kind of messy.
The second and fourth pens are just generic pens I got off of Amazon, and they work ok, but have a tendency to smear, so I only use them in certain notebooks. I’m still trying to use them because “waste not want not”, plus I tell myself I can get new pens once they are gone.
The third pen is a Hobonichi Techo pen, I got like three of these as freebies when I ordered from Hobonichi back in December. It has three ink colors, red, blue, and black. While this is not the most high-quality pen, and normally I prefer gel to ballpoint pens, this one has charmed me. I write all my notes in it for school, and I use it to fill out the Hobonichi Techo original notebook. Other members of my family also like this pen a lot. It reminds me of being in elementary school with this style of pen with the different inks, so there is nostalgia there, and it is not bad to grip, but I find it lacks the control some of my other pens have. I think it’s a 0.5, so not amazing for my style of handwriting, but also not bad, and it was free.
The fifth utensil is the only pencil I ever use. It is a Muji Low Center of Gravity mechanical pencil in 0.5 lead. I use this a lot for drawing or Math. I really like the feeling of this pencil, it’s a little bit heavy, so it feels substantial. I find it has good control, and the Muji lead I bought, while not the toughest lead, performs well enough and is not very washed out. I bought more lead for this after I started using it because I enjoyed it so much. I hate the cheap BIC mechanical pencils because I break them constantly, and I find them uncomfortable to hold. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, so comfort while writing is very important to me.
The sixth pen is actually my favorite pen I own. It is the Muji gel pen in 0.38. I have kind of naturally scratchy handwriting, so thinner pens amplify that, but thicker pens sometimes make my writing unreadable if I don’t try to write big. The 0.38 is perfect. I also love the flow of this pen, and the way it doesn’t smear very easily. I use this pen every day, and it’s the only pen I use in my creative diary, which is a Hobonichi A5 Day-free. I find the paper in Hobonichi’s just plays nice with this pen. Also, it’s quite black and I do enjoy a saturated black ink. It’s about 7$ for three, and I’m on my second pack of them, so I know I will use them, and it feels good to use a pen to completion. I am hyper aware of not losing these pens because I love them so much.
The other three pens I use that I probably don’t have to explain why I like them are my Gelly Roll white and silver, and gold pens. They are great for details or adding embellishment. (The pens pictured are not the only pens I use, just the main ones.) Obviously, I use my Apple Pencil with my iPad when I’m making digital art. The last pen I thought I would mention is the Pentel Slicci 0.25. This is about as fine as I like to go for writing and is kind of my in-between pen. When drawing in analogue, I do use thinner markers, but in this post, I’m just focusing on Journaling activities.
HIGHLIGHTERS, GLUE, AND SO ON..
I don’t think I have to go through each thing, but I own many colors and Styles of Highlighters. I kill Highlighters on the regular when doing schoolwork, so I don’t invest in anything more expensive than Midliners by Zebra. I like the Midliners because they don’t bleed very much, they have cute aesthetic colors, and they last a medium amount of time. Some of the cheaper highlighters you find on Amazon or other sites like it run out fast and don’t have the same pigment. While I think the Midliners have sufficient pigment, the Stabilo Boss Highlighters and Tombow are a little more juicy, but might bleed on certain papers. I still use Blick Studio markers I got years ago from time to time, and I have some random markers that get thrown in the mix every so often. I also use acrylic paint pens quite often in my larger journals and art. The kind I have are just some cheap brand, and while I like what they can do, I wouldn’t recommend this brand because they run out pretty fast, but again, I didn’t invest in a nice set, so I’m not too mad about it. I use the paint pens to decorate, and also to make section divisions between different days’ entries. I like how they look on Hobonichi paper a lot, and they are smooth and have very vibrant colors. My pack has 60 different colors. The glue I use when I use glue for larger ephemera is the Scotch Creative glue pen. It has a larger side that is about the size of a glue stick and a narrower size for more precision. So far, nothing has fallen out that I’ve used this glue on. I have given up on cheaper gluesticks because they seem to dry out, and things I have glued into books have fallen out.
WASHI TAPE, SCISSORS, GLUE TAPE, INK…
These are the other things I use very often while Journaling. Most of the time, I use these glue tape dispensers to affix things in my journal that are just paper or thinner materials. I don’t have any brand loyalty to any specific type of Glue Tape, I find that any will do. Glue tape is something I wish I had discovered much earlier when I used to Journal a lot as a teen and young adult. It’s so easy and convenient. The ink is what I’m using in my fountain pen, and it is a nice dark blue-gray color. It is by Pilot in the Iroshizuku line and the color is “Shin-kai”. I am impressed with this ink and I love how it reminds me of a stormy day by the sea.
The scissors are the only pair of scissors I have managed to not lose, and I am obsessive about them because I love he way they cut. They are Westcott Titanium scissors. They were reasonably cheap and they are small, so they fit my hand well. I find even though they don’t look it, they are great for sitting out small details!
I am not a big Washi Tape person. I used to be a few years ago when I was doing more Bullet Journaling. But I now kind of prefer more basic tapes when I do use them, so I like the plain gray and grid ones pictured here. I do have some others, but I just find they aren’t very versatile. Oh, and the tweezers are for picking up small or delicate stickers.
SPEAKING OF STICKERS…
I have so many stickers, I can’t even photograph them all. I have so many. But I will recommend some places, I love Stickii Club and Megan Rhiannon a lot, but I try to buy most of my stickers from smaller indie artists. Some that I’ve bought recently are Gloomy Child Studio and Alisa Aydin, Dear Whoever, and Renmeleon. I recommend looking at Journaltube for inspiration. I do own some big packs I’ve gotten from cheap sites, but I find I enjoy the ones made by smaller artists more.
STAMPS…
Also- I love stamps, but I find that they aren’t something you can use over and over again (at least I don’t), but I do love these letter stamps. I usually make most of my spread headings out of them. I always seem to use black ink, and this color box pad has lasted literal YEARS! I would like to get into making my own stamps, I did it a little back in High School, and it was fun.
JOURNALS…
These are the journals I use the most, pretty much every day. They are the A5 Hobonichi Day Free, the cover I have on it is also Hobonichi. The A6 Hobonichi Original Techo, and finally the little guy is the Hobonichi Weeks.
The Hobonichi a5 Day Free is my favorite of the journals.
Here is my cover. I apologize for the nasty glare. All I keep in the cover is a flower and some Hobonichi tracing items. I haven’t really gone crazy with the decoration on the cover, but I put a little bit on it because I really hate the blue color it is. I would pay extra to have a different color. I’m also not super fond of the yellow on the inside of the cover, but I really liked the outside of the cover.
This is kind of what an average spread looks like in my journal. This also shows my tiny handwriting lol. I use this as a place where I just free write, think my thoughts, ruminate, whatever. I don’t write every single day, but most days I do. I like to make pretty aesthetic spreads with different themes and feelings to them. Sometimes I fill them out on the day, sometimes I do the decoration the night before to get some inspiration. I should mention also that in all of my journals, I use a Hobonichi pencil board to keep the writing nice, especially when the notebook gets more chunky. I love feeling free to just write whatever in this book. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, but also as a person who writes a lot, fiction and for school, it’s nice to have my own space without rules. I see a lot of people get creative with the layout of Hobonichi, but I mostly ignore the lines. One thing I love, though, is the grid. I love grid paper, and it’s really all I handwrite on anymore. I think the grid is just dark enough on the Hobonichi products as to not be intrusive.
I get most of my photos from Pinterest, or I often use my own photographs. I am planning to start collating more with magazine clippings I have, but they are packed away until we finish my office (hopefully next week!) I also sometimes use gauche on pages to make more texture, and on this page, you can see I have a little cute twine bow. It’s usually very colorful or very themed, and it’s fun to just play in this journal. And it’s so much fun to flip through every so often, to see what I was feeling on certain days. This is my second Day-Free and I plan to do a flip through of my completed one on my YT channel.
The Hobonichi A6 Techo is a Classic for a reason…
The Techo Honichi A6 is my everyday notebook. I use it to write about my day every night and as a media tracker of what I’ve been reading or watching. I used to be against writing the mundane details of life down, but as I get older, I find it more and more important to have records. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this journal, but so far I’ve written every night or early the next day. (Some days my health is unpredictable.) This journal is less embellished, but I do try to put one thing on every page, as a touchstone. The cover is also from Hobonichi, and I like it a lot even though it is plastic. I also do all my habit tracking in this journal, food, water, pain, sleep, writing, HW, and so on.
The little Hobonichi Weeks is my scheduler and planner for real life, and school stuff. It’s a lot less aesthetic and mostly just has lists, book ratings, and plans written in it. I love it so much as a way to keep track of my schedule. I found that the reminders on my phone were not working well for me, and this system helps me a lot more to remember where I need to be and what I need to do. I do decorate a little, especially on the month pages, but they aren’t super interesting, and this is getting long already, so I decided to leave out any further explanation. I do highly recommend this book, though if you need a databook, it’s really nice and well formatted.
AND FINALLY…
This is my commonplace notebook/binder. I prefer to commonplace digitally, because it’s easier to type out long sections than handwrite them, and the setup of the pages looks nice. Commonplacing is really fun, and I used to do it all in a small Field Notes notebook, which I love, but my hand started to cramp a lot writing that much. This is the book where my fixations and special interests are allowed to run rampant, and I can paste in articles or just notes, or essays I write for myself about topics I like. I use an A5 6-ring binder, and I print directly onto pre-punched pages. It took a minute to figure out with my printer, but overall I’m happy with the look. For the setup of the pages, I use Megan Rhiannon’s template that she released to her Patrons. I am so happy to be a patron of hers because she makes so many things that help with digital journaling quality of life. I love that the binder of this is like a frosted plastic; it reminds me of the Y2K era. So this is kind of a random “journal”.
I think that is it, if you made it to the end, thank you for humoring me! I have some other notebooks that I use for drawing and writing, but I wanted to focus on journaling this time. I hope to be back soon, with some exciting news and updates! Don’t worry, not every update will be this long and rambling. I just wanted to talk about my special interest for a moment. Have a great Day/Week!
-Aisling