There's a new year ahead of us, and the blank pages of my 2018 planner are just waiting to be filled. Not only am I, once again, head over heels for my planner of choice, and decking it out with stickers galore, but I'm also making a few more changes to my personal stationery this year.
With a journey back into journaling already in the works, and a special surprise to get me writing in the new year, I figured it was time for another installment of my planner updates!
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| 2016's multitude of materials - including a 2016 Day Designer, my art journal, a small portable calendar, and even a tinier journal - squares up against this year's brand new 2018 Day Designer and my new journal |
2018 Day Designer - Why Mess With a Classic?
Truth be told, I actually did consider almost not purchasing my trusty Day Designer again this year... mainly because I wasn't sure if I needed all of the room in a daily planner.
When I first got going with this particular format, it was because I was not only a full time student and active sorority member, but I also was taking part in plenty of other activities across campus. Now that I freelance from home, there's a lot less in my life that requires concrete planning and organization, especially blocked out hours of scheduling.
I toyed with the idea of getting a Rifle Paper Co. planner instead - because they're just SO PRETTY - and using the weekly setup rather than the daily. I even considered pursuing the bullet journal path, because not only would it be a way for me to work out some daily creativity, but, hey, maybe I could get a few new Instagram followers out of it!
However, I had to just think realistically about myself and my habits: at the end of the day, I am a girl ruled by to-do lists. So when it came time to make the choice, I knew that I needed a Day Designer in my life again. This year's selection, from the Flagship Collection in White Marble, was absolutely the right move (and in my mind, it kind of looks like mountain ranges, which is definitely this PNW girl's kind of thing!).
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| My brand new Day Designer, with some brand new stickers to go inside it! |
Sticker Haul - Because We All Need More Gold Foil in Our Lives
A couple of days before the New Year, just before my family was about to embark on our Portland Trip (book haul forthcoming!), I decided to make a spur-of-the-moment Scrapbook.com order for some stickers to bring into 2018 with me. What I found was honestly more than I knew what to do with, and I did everything in my power to keep my order under $25.
You see, I don't know when it happened, but American Crafts recently came out with a large listing of sticker books - each 30 pages, with plenty of decorative, functional, and washi stickers packed throughout - from all of your favorite artists. From Heidi Swapp, to 1canoe2, Paige Evans to Maggie Holmes, Shimelle to Jen Hadfield - there are so many sticker books from so many cool people, each retailing for about $20.
After doing a significant amount of soul searching - as in, a good 20 minutes of review reconnaissance and light Instagram stalking - I decided to pick up the sticker book of one of my favorites, Dear Lizzy. But to keep myself from feeling too bad about all of the other sticker books I was walking away from (for now!), I picked out a cute sticker pack from Simple Stories - in the Beautiful collection - as well.
Back in October, I had purchased stickers from one of my favorite YouTubers of the moment - Cheyenne Barton on YT, cheyenne barton illustration on Etsy - when she first opened her shop, and I've been saving those for 2018, too!
I had plenty of new washi already purchased this Fall to bring into the new year with me, as well, including three 9 pk. collections of washi from Ms. Sparkle and Co. Paperie, in Camping, Floral, and Red Floral (and yes, I am aware that equals a total of 27 new rolls of washi). I also got a set of the Hearth + Hand washis from Target (which rounds it out to an even 30).
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| stickers from one of my fave YouTubers' Etsy shop (gentleandruthless), the best Office Max purchase I've ever made, and literally two separate orders of Redbubble stickers that I'm equally obsessed with |
Jammin' in my Journal - Getting Back into Daily(-ish) Writing
I knew I wanted to get back into journaling in 2018 as early as October, when a quick trip to Office Max for printer cartridges yielded this striped notebook, college-ruled and hardbound, on sale for less than $5. If I was thinking a little more clearly about my ability to write on a yearly scale, I would have picked up two!
This notebook is perfect, because it is incredibly sturdy, comes with a ribbon placeholder attached, and the paper inside does not let ink bleed through easily (if at all! However, I have yet to try out my Tombow markers on it, at least right now). The outside of it isn't too bad, but I'm looking forward to decorating it sometime in the very near future with a huge assortment of nerdy stickers from Redbubble.
I actually got all of these stickers in the last two months of last year, when I realized what kind of a bargain they were: getting 10 stickers in the small size reduced their overall price by 50%, and there was an additional 20% sale going on across the whole site. Two sticker orders in two weeks left me with twenty new stickers, and I already knew I was going to use them to decorate my planner for the new year (Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest!)
{quick sidenote: When I told my sister this story, she asked me how I always know what stickers to buy. She said it was hard to think about all of the fandoms she's a part of, and didn't know what to even begin searching for. So here's my tip: first, make a list of various categories that are important to you, like bands, movies, books, and TV shows, then go through them and write some of your favorites from each.
Think about things that really express who you are, from ties to where you come from (like my 10 Things I Hate About You sticker), to how you define yourself (the Ravenclaw badge), from things you loved as a kid (like the map from Treasure Planet, an illustration of the infamous pirate Anne Bonny, or the Mindelan crest from Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series), to things I love now (Troy and Abed from Community, the front page of the original Frankenstein manuscript, and the tooth fairy from Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy franchise). Pretty soon, you'll have a solid list of items to search for, and at least one is bound to find a worthy spot decorating your laptop, or water bottle, or journal!}
Having an Inkling - My New Fountain Pen
And here is my New Year's surprise... my own fountain pen, and a pot of ink!
My younger sister Delaney's girlfriend came along for the ride when we went down to Portland, and over brunch one day, pointed out that she had seen a shop she thought I would be interested in, that sold paper. Upon entering Oblation, we ascertained that it did, in fact, sell paper - from Rifle Paper Co. calendars, to Moleskin notebooks - but it also carried stamps, wax seals, journals in every kind, vintage typewriters, and, as you can probably guess, fountain pens.
While I was busy wandering around the home-printed cards, my mom was already laying ground with one of the very kind salesladies to purchase me my first fountain pen, and by the time we left the store, I was the proud owner of a cost-effective, glamorous, and exciting Pilot fountain pen, and a pot of Namiki ink.
I've already decided that it's going to be pretty much the only thing I use to write in my journal for the coming year!
What does your planner look like for 2018? What kind of journaling are you going to be doing in the new year? Let me know, in the comments below!
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