The Creative Identity

Dear Kitty

This is the wonderfully twee diary I bought for 2014: Now, really, it is a perpetual diary, so it isn't for 2014 in particular. I have to add the days to the dates hence there's nothing twenty-fourteen-ish to it, except having been on my radar almost for the entirety of 2013. You can find it online from multiple retailers, but I bought mine from Ladurée at Harrods, which meant I later realised it is an authentic French almanac, while the ones in Waterstone's and on Amazon are in English (so bear this in mind if you're French-challenged). I like it a lot not merely because of my visceral love for all things Ladurée-related, chief amongst them the Marie Antoinette macaroon, a limited edition which I hope will make another appearance in the spring, but because it's filled with recipes, dictons and tips for entertaining and, yes, eating. I like it that the paper is thick and matte and that the illustrations are whimsical and delicate. Blimey, I sound tragically Hello Kitty on this one. And talking of Kitty, I find the purchasing of a diary so difficult, so fraught with internal debate, so rooted in my intrinsic dislike of committing to anything for an entire year that I start scouring offerings in August, if not earlier. Ultimately, I think of a diary in the Anne Frank sense of it, in the sense of a journal that becomes your friend and confidant. Thing is, I've never been that person and never... Read more →

2014, Almost

Where do you stand on calendars? Are you a copious, even reckless buyer? A minimalist one? A stingy one who waits until the end of January and its 80% off sale? One that only uses the computer's soulless raft of dates? Do you peek ahead at images and quotations? Are you a desk calendar person or a wall one or both or neither? I mean, all of these questions had never occurred to me before yesterday, when I was browsing stacks of them in the big Waterstone's in Piccadilly, moved by a subtle sense of thrill of the new mixed with dark anguish at the passing of time. In short, and I promise I'll leave it at that, I just do not believe that it'll be twenty-bloody-fourteen next week. I remember 1999 so clearly and it was only... well, yesterday. My mum loves calendars, so much so that the only room in the house that does not sport one is the bathroom. My dad is pretty much the same. In fact, he's got this weird, weird habit of, wait for it, recycling his calendars by cutting the pics he likes, creating new ones from last year's and such like. I can't even formulate my dismay at all of this; I'm merely wondering what freakish habits I may develop in my middle age, if indeed they do run in the family... will I start using hairpins as earrings? Will I recycle q-tips or used matches? Let's stop here. Back to dad,... Read more →

Stationery Porn – Part Three

I didn't quite expect the third part of my forays into stationery to turn up so soon right here, but following part one and two, I received quite a few emails suggesting I take a look at some other mouth-watering places. So here it goes... *** Curly Girl Design is the site for quirky and sassy stationery, from journals to notecards, calendars and paper napkins. It's very much for girls this one and I love it all. Zetta Florence is an Australian site that is big on Cavallini (always a plus point) and on 'Australia in Print'. I love birds and stationery with birds is where it's at for me. Uguisu is a Japanese site that sells original Japanese masking tapes, notebooks, stickers, rubber stamps and so on. The stamps are just to-die-for but, of course, the masking tapes are the ones that make us squeal the most these days... Finally, Puro Papel is just shock-inducing, as far as I am concerned. Bright and beautiful I just cannot imagine how great these papers must smell. Mega-drool. I know I said that ink and pen porn should really be a separate thing, but I cannot resist the Windsor and Newton inks, which come in fantastic little bottles in fantastic little boxes, and I am going to tell you right now. I use these for drawing and sketching (I cannot abide pencils, although I like to smell them), or simply to ogle them. And if you're ready for Art Porn, head over... Read more →

Stationery Porn – Part Two

Good morning dear reader and welcome back to stationery porn. Here I am to continue where I left off, with another string of great sites that sell fabulous paper-related items. Please excuse the paper-centric nature of these posts; I am well aware that inks and pens elicit similar excitement for many writers but I really do feel that they are worthy of their own special posts (forthcoming, don't you worry). Today I shall finish with a slightly self-indulgent digression along 57th St in New York and next week I will tell you about one incredible bookstore (but there's already one here today, scroll for it). As ever, click on the images below to go to the sites. *** Not long ago I was mindlessly browsing and you know what happens when one browses mindlessly: she finds something she never knew she needed which she must acquire immediately. It so just happened that this something was a fabulous Korean, vintage-like diary with stickers, thick paper and a tight, transparent plastic cover. I took it home glowing and proud, and then undertook a few investigations and came to know that the same range is sold by UK site Katy & June. They sell diaries and notebooks and cards; plastic covers, files, decorations, pouches and so on. If you like the faux Japanese/Korean stuff that some of our shops stock, get thee to Katy & June for the real thing. No stationery porn post could fail to mention the Moleskine range, which I... Read more →

Stationery Porn – Part One

When I did Unravelling last year, I posted a thread in the forum which began with: Confession time: I think I have a fetish for stationery. How many notebooks can one need? How many diaries and journals? Heck, how many sets of stickers and labels, of Cavallini postcards and notecards, of Moo mini cards and cards, stickers and stick-notes? I need therapy I am telling you. At the time I knew that there ware addicts of porn (the regular sort), of shoe porn (the ultimate fetish surely), of kitchen porn (see the Lakeland catalogues but be careful they are truly hardcore), of food porn (may or may not involve regular porn) and even of tangle porn, people who take pics of impossibly tangled skeins of yarn and collectively drool over them in a dedicated forum on Ravelry, a knitting and crochet community. The whole Stationery Porn thing as a collective affliction had bypassed me. I could not know that ten months after those seminal three lines, my thread on Unravelling would still be going strong, 128 replies and more to come as we continue sourcing high-inducing papers from all over the world. Last week we took a break from regular transmissions when I shared two extracts by the excellent Lynne Truss and Chris Pascoe. This week I decided to take another mindless detour as I went back to the recommended sites and decided to consolidate the findings here for fellow stationery junkies. And then maybe we should start a Stationery... Read more →