I am obsessed with anything to do with pens, notebooks, washi-tape etc. I just love buying notebooks with pretty patterns and inspirational quotes on, and if you're like me then you might've come to the realisation that you've got too many notebooks (even though I personally think you can never have too many). You've seen some more you want but how can you justify getting more when you've already got so many you haven't used. Well then this post is for you my lovely.
We've established we both love notebooks and obviously their main purpose is to write things in. Whether that be school work, if you have regular meetings for your job, maybe you use them for uni if you go, life admin, maybe you use them for bullet journaling, an everyday note taking book etc. So the reasons for using a notebook are endless.
A lot of people say, 'Why use a notebook when you can just use your phone?' which is true in our day and age. Everything pretty much uses technology these days and our whole life basically revolves around it. But with my area of study and work (drama) I've always used notebooks to brainstorm ideas when starting a project before "getting things up on their feet" as we say in drama. I always find writing things down a great way to almost see a section of how your own/ other peoples brains work in relation to whatever they're working on or creating. It helps me to physically write it down in order to get my creative juices flowing.
In the past year I've being using notebooks for pretty much everything. Uni work, creative work, blogging. For example I got a new notebook recently and decided to dedicate it to Blogtember. So all of the different posts ideas, writing up a rough draft of the posts, making notes about the posts before they are typed up in bloggers format etc. It also means I've got everything for this current segment on my blog all in one place. It'll also be nice to look back on in the future. One goal of mine is to have a bookshelf full of notebooks from my life. Everything from college, uni, blogging, and whatever else life has in store for me. So sort of creating an archive of creativity through my life.
At the moment I have three main notebooks for my blog: my everyday one where there's post plans for every month and just things I like to jot down. Especially if I all of a sudden have an idea for a post that would be good for like December but I'm not going to do it now as it's only September. So I'll make a note of it to remember for a later date. I also have separate notebooks for bigger projects where I'm gonna need more planning space. For example my new series 'BORN TO BE' which I mentioned a couple of posts ago. If you guys haven't seen that post and wanna know more then click here. And I also started a new notebook for Blogtember as blogging everyday for a month requires a lot of space to create ideas and write etc. I'm definitely going to get another new notebook for Blogmas this year and maybe one to track my post engagement and views etc when I sort my life out and I'm in a proper routine.
So if you've got a big pile of notebooks just sitting at home, here are some potential ideas to take advantage of them with!
Let's start with the obvious - school, university, and work. All important areas of your life where you might need to write something down and remember at a later date for, e.g. an exam. So jotting things down is always handy, even if you don't necessarily use all the information given to you, it'll give you a better grasp on the subject area you're studying/ working with.
Content creators have a busy schedule with creating ideas for posts/ videos and then actually making the posts/ videos. Whether that is blogging, YouTube, your own business; always a great way for creativity to flow and that way all your work and ideas are in one place. This works so well for me when it comes to my blog and I would recommend for other people to give it a go.
If you live a very busy life where you're always on the go (I'm sure we all do at times) then it's probably best to have a place where you can keep track of everything in your life. Whether that's using a filofax, bullet journal, or just a general notebook. When I used my filofax (hence the term used because I need to get back into it) I tried to use it for everything and personally that didn't work for me as having everything in one book felt too much. So I separated my everyday life, blog, drama society (when I was president) etc into different sections as I found that easier to direct my focus on to each thing when I needed to. But in the weekly section of my filofax I just put little bullet reminders of things to do with my blog or drama society. E.g. When a post was going up and when rehearsals for drama society were. But I didn't have everything dedicated to those two things in there. So you can still use your everyday planner/ notebook to relate to other things in your life, but you don't have to just use one way of working for every aspect of your life.
Another thing you could do is have a notebook where you fully recap your day. I did this for a little while but I just lost it. So it's different from planning your day; I tracked things such as what I did on that particular day, what time it was when I was filling it in, what I was wearing, what I'd eaten, drank, my favourites at the time, if anything I'd seen, heard, experienced etc had impacted my day. I thought it was really interesting and I kinda wanna get back into that at some point.
You could also use notebooks to track your exercise/ workout routines if you're into that, you could food track, sleep track, track your water intake, perhaps a photo or art notebook or sketch pad, a tattoo notebook, writing journal, track the books you've read, films you've watched, theatre shows you've seen, travel journal, do shopping lists, your expenses etc. The list of what you can do with a notebook is endless.
So a notebook is always beneficial but I personally like to do little doodles throughout my pages and use washi-tape to decorate the pages. It just gives plain paged notebooks a little something more which makes them more eye catching. For me as well I want to use my notebook/ notebooks more when I've decorated inside how I feel like. It's another great way to burst your creativity and your personality into what you do, even if it's just a work notebook.
At the moment my dominant notebook that I'm using every day or every other day is my one for Blogtember. Which is the one in this post that has 'big ideas have small beginnings' on the front. Everything I've mentioned to you guys about how I like to use my notebooks is pretty accurate through the pictures. You can see the different washi-tapes applied down the sides of my pages and paired with complimenting colours. You can also see a few doodles, I'm particularly into little hearts at the moment.
I know that accessories for planning and organising can be quite expensive sometimes and hard to get hold of. When I got into planning and being decorative with my planners, notebooks, etc I was watching a lot of American YouTuber's as I think the planner community with filofax's and Erin Condren planners is a bit bigger over there than it is over here. And they would always use all this pretty washi-tape and nice stickers to help make their weeks more appealing to look at and have gorgeous accessories. Which always came from places like Target, Hobby Lobby, or Etsy. Two of those we don't have in the UK and although Etsy is great for a lot of unique markets I find it can be quite expensive especially because the things you might be looking for you can't get all in one shop. Another place where I have been and do still go for things like washi-tape is Paperchase. I love Paperchase, they do some gorgeous stationary and notebooks and accessories etc but again I can find it to be quite expensive sometimes for what you're buying.
In the last year a place I've bought a lot of notebooks from and washi-tape from has actually been Wilko. Anyone who lives in the UK will know this shop to be a bit of an all rounder. They've got kitchen things, homeware accessories, DIY, cupboard food, makeup, skincare, garden and home appliances, stationary etc. They've normally got things selling for better value than some other high street stores which is why I always go in there often, even if it's just for a browse. Wilko have always sold stationary but in the last year they've started to sell more pretty/ eye catching stationary which is perfect for the Instagram and Blogger vibes. So they've had 3 or 4 different ranges I think.
They've had the woodlands one which was all like browns and golds with animals like foxes, owls, rabbits etc. They also brought out a decelerate range which was all based on butterflies with the mix of black, gold, and pastel/ mint green as the colour palette. The expression range which was all based on florals and pastel colours which I loved during the spring. In the summer they brought out a sassy range which had an illustrated female on with massive glasses and bold lips. Which played with the colours pink and purple and created a leopard print esk background. And now they've brought out the range you see in these pictures which is called hypernatural. Plays with a mix of golds, deep greens, hot pink, white, and black which is a really nice range to transition into autumn with I think. I'd love to see them release a winter range as we get closer to Christmas. In each range they come out with loads of different notebooks in different sizes, pens, washi-tape, accessories, different journals, phone cases, desk organisers, pen pots, storage boxes etc. So you get a great variety for an insane price. Everything you see through these images was all under £5.00!
The notebooks were £1.00 each, you can get slightly larger ones for £1.50 in the same designs if you wish, the set of three pens were £1.00, and these washi-tapes come as a set of six for only £2.50! Absolute bargains. They've still got some of the items from previous ranges as well as this range on their website. So if you guys wanna check them out click here.
I hope you enjoyed today's post my lovelies and it has given you a bit of inspiration on what to do with your notebooks or has inspired you to use a notebook for whatever you please or has made you wanna go and buy some more.
Thank you guys so much for reading and I will see you tomorrow.
Love,
Katie
