What Goes and What Comes – a Look Back and a Look Ahead
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
2020 is nearly over and what a year it was! Well, it had some highlights and some lowlights as well. Possibly more low moments than we would like it to have had.
I thought a bit about 2020 and which high expectations we all had for the year in early January. We all had goals which we wanted to acheive and it should have been our Glorious 20s.
COVID in Out Lives
Well, I think we learnt fast that we could cancel a few goals for this year. Disappointments, frustration and shocking moments were emotions which we felt more often than in the years before. Ironically, we learnt to face an enemy which is invisible. It’s also so sneaky that we didn’t know how to handle the situation. It was hard and we wouldn’t get it under control in the next 24 hours like we thought we could.
But we learnt as well that we can help each other in different ways. We found new ways to work and live together; we learnt that we are strong when we fight as a community and follow the rules. We learnt that we can smile and be kind to each other even when we are wearing a mask and keep distance. We learnt to take care for each other in a new way and during Christmas time we recognised how precious our families and friends are.
I am so thankful for all the hard work of medicial staff, people who work in the retail trade and in systemically relevant jobs. THANK YOU! Because of you and your work our countries could function during these difficult times. I can’t tell you how thankful I am and I appreciate your/their engagement. All these people are our heroes of 2020.
Low Points
If I put COVID aside, this year was a challenging one for me. Three of my beloved ones needed an operation and had a lot of troubles with their operations or during the healing process. I am thankful and happy that everything turned out positive in the end.
We also got the diagnosis that our little pug girl Maya is going to be blind one day. Now she is our brave pug girl and she gets eye ointment every day so we can slow down the blinding.
Also, our workload was much higher than last year. We worked more and a quick pause at the coffee machine wasn’t possible because when working from home, many people made appointments right after the next. In the office, you could go and spend a penny while walking from one room to the next. With all meeting being virtual, you had to plan that in your schedule.
Christmas wasn’t the same either. We didn’t celebrate with the whole family and my grandparents stayed at home alone because they were too afraid of COVID.
Highlights
But we had some highlights this year as well.
We moved from our flat in the city to a house in the countryside. Due to that, I can now go for a long walk with Maya, every day for 1 1/2 up to 2 hours. It is so relaxing and we are in great company with our friend Andrea and her dog.
We had some great road trips like the one to Quedlinburg. I hope that we will do more road trips next year (as far as it will be possible).
I played Animal Crossing and loved it (and still love it) 😀
I learnt that even a virtual cup of coffee with friends can be fun.
I learnt that 6-8 journals/planners for one year were too many even just to compare them. 🙂
Expectations for 2021
Well, after 2020 my expactations for next year are quiet low. I hope that the vaccinations are helping and we will get COVID under control.
I hope that no one of my friends or family will get seriously ill and can live his/her life happily.
I hope that we all as a community will grow more together and enjoy our friendships more.
Goals for 2021
If you know me or read a little bit about me, I am not the woman who has goals for a year. A goal is a moment and when you achieve it what will be after it? Do you set yourself a new goal? No, not my style 😀
I’d like to walk a new path together with you. Let’s explore new things, different ways of journaling and stay true to ourselves. Life is a process where we all learn from failure and success, and we shouldn’t stop doing something because we fail or someone told us to do so.
No, we decide what we want to do, what we want to explore and what we define as success in our lives. I won’t have any goals but I can promise you that my journey will be interesting and exciting without any goals. 😀
My Way in the Next Year
What I want to promise you, is that I will blog more about stationery, travels and my personal little chaotic world. There will be some changes and big adventures ahead. Don’t be afraid or worried, it will be fun 😀 or at last I make you smile.
So stay tuned, tell your friends about the blog and let’s all enjoy it together. Get in touch with me through the blog or my social media, like Instagram.
Wisdom of the Day: Enjoy your life and appreciate the people around you!
Stay healthy!
Love to you all and a happy New Year,
Chrissi
Welcome to our new home
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
Long time no see, but I was thinking a lot about writing a blog post. November and December were so busy and I was happy that I managed the 80 % of my plans.
November
Well, what a busy month. We had a lot of things to do at work and we packed boxes for our house move after 8-10-hour shifts. My husband tried to help, so we decided that he would pack boxes and I would stack them in our spare room. To be honest, I was sometimes afraid that the packing cases would be too heavy for the moving company. So I scaled the boxes and the heaviest box was 22 kilograms (about 45 pounds). I started googling as well to make sure that the packing cases wouldn’t be to heavy for somebody. Now I know that according to work safety a person shouldn’t lift more than 30 kilograms (60 pounds).
Well, I was really happy that our boxes weren’t too heavy.
There were moments I was asking myself why two people lived in a five bedroom apartment. I can explain it easily 😀 We are book lovers, I love my plants, my stationery and before I started journaling really intensely, I loved to bake. And three years ago my husband started his second passion: board games. Because of all of that we lived in a five bedroom apartment:
- Kitchen
- Living room
- Bath
- Bedroom
- Office
- Guest room
- Storage room
I loved this flat. It was flooded with light and on the 5th floor. No one lived above us. The view from the balcony was incredibly beautiful because we could see our city forest nearby. We had a lot of wonderful and funny moments there.
While the days flew away, my nerves were on edge. Normally I am a relaxed person but during this time I was really stressed. I couldn’t sleep well, my concentration wasn’t really existing and my body was hurting.
Finally, on 23rd of November we had vacation. I thought that we wouldn’t have so much stress because we didn’t go to work but honestly the stress level was even higher then. One positive highlight was that our good friend Christoph helped us. My husband and Christoph brought the board games and plants to our new home while I was packing more boxes in the flat. We brought Maya to our friend Ute because our little pug shouldn’t notice all the stress.
November 30th came and the moving company did so too, very early. It was four men and a van. They managed to clear the flat in 3 1/2 hours, which was so impressive. They stacked everything in our new home in 2 1/2 hours. What a day! The men were so kind and brought a lot of furniture to the rooms, so we didn’t need to bring the furniture up- or downstairs ourselves.
December
The first night in our new home was horrible and short. We just slept on the mattress because we were too exhausted to build our bed together again. So be built the bed and cupboard for the bedroom the next day. And we missed our little pug girl so badly that we picked her up three days earlier than we had planned. It was so cute to watch her while she walked excitedly through the house.
We built up our new office first because we needed to get ready for work. After that was finished, we were back at work.
Our kitchen is still quite experimental:-D We knew that we would need a new kitchen and unfortunately IKEA has some delivery problems so we have to live with this „kitchen“ a few months. We haven’t got any cupboards in the kitchen but the cooker, sink, dishwasher and refrigerator are working perfectly.
For me something positive changed next to movement: Maya and I have friends with whom we can go out for a walk every day. It is really great and Maya has a lot of new fury friends. It is so adorable.
Today it is the 20th of December I finished baking cookies for Christmas and we found a way to lighten up the hall and staircase.
Christmas and COVID
In Germany the numbers of infections has been raising and since 16th of December we have a strict lockdown. Only shops for everyday needs like grocery stores are open but shops like hairdressers or construction markets are closed.
For Christmas there will be special rules too. It will be allowed to meet with four people even when it would mean that more than two households met. Unfortunately every federal state can have some deviations. Anyway, it will definitely be a different Christmas this year but honestly I think we will all learn from this experience and we will cherish the time with our beloved ones more than any time before.
My parents will visit us on 25th of December for coffee and cookies. My mother in law and my father in law won‘t visit us, which will be the first time since my husband and I are a couple.
Journaling during moving
Well, did I journal? No, not in the usual way. Normally I journal every day or at least every two days but it was difficult to find time to sit down and write some lines. I sat down every week and sometimes it was hard to recapitulate what happened.
My hope was that I could write my first blog post on 6th of December but it didn’t happened. No space, no time and a lot of stress.
I am happy to tell you, that I can finally make it happen that I have time to post on a regularly period again. I‘m so much looking forward to writing more for you again from now on.
Wisdom of the days: Sometimes it is better to step back and lower your ambitions than getting too much stress!
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
sign of life
Hello my lovelies 🙂
I hope you are alright, safe and healthy. 😉 COVID is still a serious situation and in Germany we have to face the fact that our infection numbers are still growing once again.
I know I was absent for quite a long time and to be honest it was hard as well as good at the same time. It was difficult for me because I love my habit of writing a little post for and to get some comments from you. So, I would like to say thank you to you all for being so patient with me.
It was good to take a break because I had to take care of my husband. He had a surgery and stayed at the hospital one night . The next day, when I picked him up to bring him home, he couldn’t really move. He was in a lot of pain and due to that I was so worried.
After the surgery, he wasn’t allowed to lift anything up or carry things which are heavy. Because of his pain I decided to sleep with our little pug girl on the couch. Oh gosh, that really made me feel getting old 😀 I tried to sleep there for three nights and couldn’t really get much of it; but it did give me something: a lot of back pain which isn’t normal for me. I swear I felt every vertebra 🙂 But it was ok because my husband needed some rest. I brought him everything he needed and Maya was in one of her little beds next to him and she was watching him too. She was a cute little nursing pug.
After the weekend it didn’t get better so we had to see our doctor and she said that he needed to get back to the hospital. I was shocked. The hardest part was leaving him alone. Due to COVID, the hospital didn’t allow any accompanying person. So I waited at home. Normally I am a really patiently person, I can wait for hours. But this time impatience was my new friend. I can tell you impatience is a really good companion. Luckily I picked him up at the same day and he got new medicine.
After another week we saw a bit of progress. He moved slowly and he came with me and Maya outside for a walk. I was relieved and my husband was so impatient during that time he couldn’t move or take anything. When he got „adventurous“ he tried to make coffee, which he did, but he couldn’t bring it to me. 😀 Really sweet of him.
Now he is doing fine and next week he is back at work with me. 🙂
During this time I was working my normal 40 hours a week. It was quite stressful because I had a lot appointments and deadlines to deal with.
My husband and I had a great deal who does what at housekeeping. He couldn’t do his part, so I did them as well. So my day started 7 am and ended 11 pm. During this time I started packing and sorting things out which we wouldn’t need at the house where we move. My friends and family thought that I was insane because my to do list was huge for every single day. To be honest a five bedroom flat doesn’t pack by itself nor can one pack it within a week.
Well you know I can’t let things down or ignore them, so I put all my energy together and started packing. Since last week my husband has started to pack boxes but he didn’t move them which was quite good. The whole floor had boxes over boxes and between all that we started to take book shelves apart.
We have to take apart four huge IKEA book shelves and our selfmade shelf. Oh my god! I wasn’t really aware of the huge amount of books we have. I remember that we counted 3000 books before our last house moving and I can tell you that we bought more books in the last couple of years. 😀 I love books. We have fiction and non-fiction books from our study days. I discovered a few books which I will read again after moving into the new house.
And last but not least our little pug girl has a serious eye disease and we have to give her three different ointments. She doesn’t like it but it helps. Two weeks ago we had some positive news because the disease formed a little bit back. I am so happy about it and it shows me that we are on the right track.
I think this gives you a little glimpse of my life in the last four weeks. 🙂 I will start posting regularly again now and I will keep you informed about stationery, my life and all the little happy moments.
Wisdom of the day: You can develop lots of energy in the moment when your beloved ones need you the most.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Shop review: Kiroku
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
today I would like to introduce you to one of my favourite stationery shops. In the area where I live you can’t find a lot stationery shops, which is why I order my goodies online most of the time. For this reason, discovering this shop was like finding a treasure chest full of stationery. 😀 Well, ok I have to pay for it, but still a treasure chest.
Last year I discovered a stationery haul on Instagram by pure coincidence. The young woman showed her order of Kiroku. So I went to the website and saw all this lovely stationery. And then I saw which I could hardly believe: it is a shop not just online, no a real shop too and just in the city next to the place I live. I got really excited. So my husband and I decided to go there for some shopping.
The moment when you enter the shop is great. You feel welcome. The shop is quite small; there is a small table and two chairs and the shelves aren’t packed. Everything is placed in a lovely way. You just take a few steps, climb short stairs to something like a platform and there are even more shelves with stationery.
Everything is bright and open. You don’t feel overwhelmed and it is really impressive how many goodies you can find in this small place.
You can shop there:
- stickers
- washi tapes
- print on stickers
- clear stamps
- wooden stamps
- notebooks
- bag
- products of TRAVELER’S COMPANY
- cards/tags
- and a lot of more stationery products
The owner, whom I met there, is such a nice and lovely woman. We chatted a little about the shop and the products. She is amazing and I am so glad that she opened up Kiroku which brings so much joy to enthusiasts like myself. You can see on her Instagram that it is really important to her to share love and kindness. She shows how important it is in our world to be kind and look after each other. That is very inspiring.
I don’t always go there for my shopping. Sometimes I order online because I am busy or because of the lockdown when it was best to stay at home.
What I can tell you about the part ordering online is, that she puts the same love into the packaging as she puts into her shop. Your order will arrive safely and well packed. There are some goodies inside like post cards and stickers. I personally adore the little cards with people on them.
Wisdom of the day: Look out for the small businesses in your area and help them to survive in these hard times.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Jiyucho Tokyo
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
do you sometimes check your older photo on your phone? I love to do this because it brings up good memories. Which happened in this case too.
Last year, my husband and I visited Tokyo again and he organized a little special appointment for me. I had the chance to create my own ink at Kakimori’s Ink Stand (I will talk about it in a different blog post.). On our way to their shop, we walked past another little shop and in the front window sat a young woman who was smiling. We thought she was just being friendly and curious because there might not be many Westerners walking through this street away from the main sights.
On our way back we walked past the shop again and the young woman smiled again and asked if we would like to come in. So we decided to accept her invitation and entered her shop. It was a small place with only a few tables and some chairs. There were some bookshelves and you could see a lot of wood work. The whole room was really cozy. The young woman explained to us (in lovely English with an even more lovely Japanese accent) what one does there. It was a simple and yet amazing concept. You write a letter to yourself. But you will receive the letter one year later.
So we decided to do this. I got a lovely green tea, paper and a pen. At first I wasn’t really sure what I would like to write. What would you write to yourself? Send some wishes? Give yourself some good advice?
Well, I actually can’t remember what I wrote. What I remember it though is that it is one of my favourite memories of this trip to Tokyo. I relaxed and I did what I always love doibg: write some lovely lines.
We weren’t alone there. I saw a young man who was sitting on his own at a table and he looked so very serious. I had the feeling that he laboured so much about the things he wanted to write. It was really interesting to see. It is faszinating how much feelings and thought one person can put into one letter. It touches my heart every time.
Memories are great and I think that I found my first goal for the rest of this year and the next year: Being grateful for all the lovely memories and talking more about them.
Wisdom of the day: Enjoy the good moments and keep them as great memories.
And in two months time, I will receive my letter – and then I’ll find out what I wrote.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Review: Simply Gilded Subscription Box
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
I hope your week was way better than mine. Since the pandemic I am working from home but this week our internet provider had some huge problems and because of that I had to go to the office. It was quite a change. Oh boy, I got really used to the working from home. 😀 The provider couldn’t fix the problem in 24 hours and so it took nearly 3 days.
Then our door bell is broken. It was one of the postal delivery and unfortunately you can fix by changing the battery. So I tried to get someone of our property management on the phone but no.
There were a few other things which went wrong, but you know what, that’s life. I am happy that today is Sunday and tomorrow will start a fresh week and hopefully without troubles. 🙂
Because of that I thought I write about a subsription box which totally surprised me. Let’s us talk about the Simply Gilded Box. This box is a pricy one. I thought for a really long time about it, because the box costs 30 Dollars and for me as Europaen I have to have shipping which costs 18 Dollars. I saw a lot of people who were really excited about it but I thought that it could be might be a hype. My dear friend Clare posted one day the box and she was falling in love with it. She has a really taste, so I thought that I should give it a try.
At that time I saw this gorgeous Aloha box and I tried my best to get one. I got really soon a notification that my first box is on its way. Well that was fast. It was just a few days between the subscription and the mail. I got a tracking number with it, so I could checked where the box was. The shipping needed three weeks and I got the Aloha box. I was really blown away. Since that I got regularly my boxes.
The Aloha box includes:
- a foiled journaling card
- washi tapes
- a sticker kit with seals
- planning note pad
- a stitched notebook in B6
- a black gel ink pen
- vegan leather padfolio
- drawstring pouch
- double sided pencil board
- a mystery item
Here are some pictures. There is the Aloha box, the Lullaby box and the Painted Garden box:
The items are packed beautifully. The package gives you the right impression what colours will have items inside.
There are things which are in every box the same like the gel pen, a notebook, the sticker kit and the washi tapes. But the appearance is always different so that it matches the theme. The pouch can be missing and instead you can get a vegan leather cover for your journals which fits with the notebooks in B6.
The material of the pouch and the journal cover is really and the workmanship has a high quality. It feels great. I love products which a good quality and then I am willing to pay more for it.
The pen writes really smooth and I enjoy writing with it. The pen isn’t too heavy but it has a little bit of weight, so it lies good in the hand.
The washi tape has great quality like all the washi tapes I bought before. Simply Gilded has a high recognition with the bow washi tape. To be honest, I am not such a fan of bow washi but I am quite happy that in the box is a mix of different washi tapes. In the Aloha box were three bow washi and three other washis. That was ok. I was happy that in the next box were more other washi without the bow.
Well, I think that I will keep that subscription for a while.
Wisdom of the day: Surprises can bring you joy! 🙂
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Happie Scrappie Subscription Box
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
I hope your week started pleasant and that it will continue like that. If it hasn’t, the best is yet to come, you’ll see.
Well to be honest with you I was really struggling with this post because of COVID-19 and all the delays with shipping in and to most parts of the world. Due to that, it is quite hard to express my mixed feelings. But I will try.
At the beginning of the year I discovered the Happie Scrappie Subscription box. You got a box which is really cutely designed:
- Sticker sheets (10 and more sheets at least with full boxes, labels, dates etc.)
- Die Cut Stickers
- a pen
- a notebook
- a little charm or a little metal clip
- sticky notes
- folder in A6 seize
- washi cards
The price was 29,99 Euros including shipping. It was totally worth it. So I subscripted and I waited very patiently for my first box. I knew that during COVID-19 the postal services would be very slow. I waited for two months after I got my tracking details. After those two months, I contacted the customer service and they refunded me my first box. That was rather uncomplicated but I was still quite disappointed. Well, that is life and such things happens, right?
During that time the March box was announced and I was very excited again because I loved the „Sakura“ theme so much and waited patiently again. I received my tracking details again and nothing happened. The shipping of the March box had a delay. I could totally understand it.
Then came the next announcement that the April box will produced and would ship by the end of May. Well, it was shipped mid-June in my case.
May came and the huge announcement was that for May there wouldn’t be a box. The designer Sam explained her decision very well. There were too many troubles with the shipping, production and her health wasn’t quite the best. She needed a time out and it was totally fine. Mid/End of May Sam sent a newsletter that for June there wouldn’t be a subscription box as well. She still had the same problems. Yes, I felt with her and it must be horrible that so many customers were unhappy.
It was mid-June when my March box arrived and my April box arrived in mid-July. I was quite happy. The themes were really cute and well designed. During May and June she created cute stuff with watercolour or pencils. The next newsletter arrived, there would be a July box again. I was happy and thought that it would be better. But wait! She announced that this would be the last subscription box. Her staff cancelled all the subscriptions for the customers. Sam explaint it with all the trouble of the last months.
And there it was, my head was shaking. I rolled with my eyes and I couldn’t find the right words. My feelings were really mixed. On one side I could totally understand all the problems and troubles which caused all this mess. On the other side I was angry, frustrated. It didn’t give me a good feeling. In the Facebook group all the members sent lots of love and understanding to her and no one expressed critic or a negative feeling. It was a strange situation, I thought that I would be the only one with such thoughts. Well, maybe I am.
Now it is September and unfortunately my July box still hasn’t been shipped so far and actually I don’t know if and when it will happen. To be honest, if the subscription had not been cancelled, I would have cancelled it now. Unfortunately a not so happie ending for me.
Wisdom of day: It is ok to have mixed feelings about something even when your environment hasn’t the same feeling as you have.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Update: Bad relation with my journals
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
as you know my journals and I had a very hard time. I think that my experiment to use many journals this years wasn’t one of my greatest decisions. However, I learnt from it.
I thought about what should I do for quite some tome; how should I do my journaling. Well, I decided to go back to the roots. I tried so many different styles and I love them all. I won’t like to stay with one style. So I took my first journal and just flipped through it. There was so much creativity, chaos and improvisation. I would say I was braver than now and I want that back. 😀 So, I am back with my little chaotic journal.
For that I am not using my Nuuna as a journal any more. There are still 87 pages blank which is really strange because I can’t leave pages blank.
I took a standard travelers notebook which is blank and I started journaling like I had when I first tried the hobby. I had so much fun! It was great not to stay with one theme for a month. It was great to use bright, rich colours, lots of washi tape and have lots of wonky lines. It was so refreshing not to stick with a theme.
I am a really organized person. Everything has its place and if it isn’t there, I feel a little uncomfortable. 😀 But there is one place which is messy, wonky and chaotic: And that is my journal.
Because I bought the travelers company insert weekly and monthly, and I really want to use it, so I started to use them and I will compare it with my wonky journal. Maybe I like it; maybe I won’t, but if I wouldn’t try I never knew. 🙂
Wisdom of the day: Don’t be shy to go back to the roots, you might be surprised what you find there 😉
Love to you all,
Chrissi
On the road to Quedlinburg
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
it has been a long time since I wrote about travelling. During COVID-19 travelling isn’t the same as last year. Oh gosh that sounds like a very long time.
Last year we had the idea that we would go to Okinawa and again to Tokyo, and for November we would visit our favourite little vacation cottage in Denmark. Because of COVID-19, we had to change our plans and for a few weeks it has been save that we are going to move into house by the end of this year. We are very excited and so we changed our plans for the rest of the year. We decided to go just for day trips to different places.
When travelling will be possible again and you have the opporunity to come to Germany, then don’t visit only Berlin, Cologne or Munich.
Quedlinburg is worth a visit. It is a great little, very medieval town near the Harz mountains. You can visit the castle, church or the old town. There are a lot of cobblestone streets and the old town is full with timber-framed houses. One house is more beautiful than the next house to it.
There is a little „train“ which one you can take for sightseeing tours and they explan everything really well. Apart from the little „train“ you can take a real (steam) train: the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (Harzer Schmalspurbahnen – HSB) for a ride. With that, you can go up right to the top of the Brocken, the highest mountain in northern Germany. Unfortunately, we haven’t had the time for it so far but I know that it is a musthave as an experience. Especially in the winter months when there is a lot of snow such a ride is breath taking like in a real winter wonder land.
We had started visiting Quedlinburg years ago and two years ago we found another good reason to go there at least once a year: Cheesecake. There are two cheesecake bakeries next to each other and both bakeries mantain that they are the oldest cheesecake bakery each. They are real competitors. Today we bought our cheesecake from Café St. Vincent (the other bakery, Café Am Finkenherd, was closed, unfortunately). The slices of the cake are huge and you need to be really hungry. 😀 The variety of cheesecakes is huge (193 different types). They change the selection every day. You can choose from at least 10 cheesecakes. It is sooo delicious. 🙂
This is chocolate cheesecake with pistachio nuts. So delicious.
Wisdom of the day: Get out and discover a little city and get overwhelmed by its charme – especially in your region.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: Paper Poetry notebook
Hello my lovelies 🙂
today is a really windy day in my home town. Dark clouds in the sky and they are moving quite fast. I personally like such weather because it gives me a cosy feeling. So I sat down with a good cup of coffee and started writing this post for you.
Today I would like to talk to you about notebooks by Paper Poetry. I got a set of two notebooks at a hobby and creative shop called „Idee-creativmarkt“ in Germany. Unfortunately, they are working on their website, so I can’t give you the right link for that. I tried to find them on Amazon but there are just a few other products by them but not the notebook set I bought. Because of that, I can’t tell you the exact same amount of money I paid for it. I guess it was something around 15 Euros.
The two notebooks are A5 seize and they have the theme Japan. One of them is black with a golden circle pattern and the second one is soft pink with a star pattern in gold as well. The first thing I noticed was that the black golden one is easier in the eye. You can see the pattern very well and it isn’t too overdone. The soft pink isn’t pleasant on the eye for me. The golden pattern seems uneasy for me and it is a little too much of the soft colour. The front and back covers are really smooth and you can feel the pattern which I quite like. It seems to be a very thin cardstock material. The notebook is stitched which looks quite cool even though it is a simple stitching.
When you open the notebooks there isn’t any cover page for your name or an index either. You can start with journaling right away. The pages have dots on it and they are the standard ones (0,5 X 0,5 cm). The paper of the pages seems really thin. Unfortunately there isn’t any clue how thick the paper really is. I would guess it is something around 80gsm.
The paper hasn’t got any problems with fountain pens, highlighters and I can doodle with my Faber-Castell PITT artist pens too. The colour of the paper is white but it isn’t a really bright white. You can see the dots really well on the paper. I tested my Tombow brush pens as too and there isn’t any bleeding.
The pages aren’t numbered and on the packaging wasn’t any clue how many pages the notebooks have. I don’t want to be fussy, but I like such information on the packaging. There isn’t any bookmark or elastic band.
For me the notebooks are good quality for the price you pay. Personally I wouldn’t use them as daily journals where I write, into which I draw or stamp. The feeling isn’t right. I would use them just for project planning or for quick notes from time to time.
Wisdom of the day: If the notebook doesn’t give you good vibes, don’t be afraid to search a little bit longer. 😉
Love to you all,
Chrissi
In a bad relationship with my journals
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
I hope you all are safe and sound. Are you enjoying your Sunday?
A few weeks ago I wasn‘ t in the mood to bring my journals up to date. It was too much. I discovered that I hadn’t touched my Bullet Journal for weeks. My Hobonichi Weeks Mega was quite filled. My ‚Some lines a day‘ wasn’t touched for two weeks or so as well. And I don’t want to mention my project planners. My hubby and I debatted about this journal relationships and I said: „I don’t want to have to fill all these journals. I have enough. It’s not fun at all anymore. It does feel like an obligation instead.“ To be honest I was quite shocked. It is my fourth year and I don’t have a style let alone an own style. I don’t and won’t put a label on my style or whatever I should call it.
On Instagram and Youtube you find so many talented people who have a certain style (minimalistic, artistic, kawaii, junk journaling etc.) and I love them all. I love the variety; that journaling can bring out the best of us all. It is an amanzing hobby. You can use all the materials you like; you can start simple and try out new things on the way. However, nothing seems to work for me at the moment. There are people out there who create a whole perfect world in their journal or planner. It is amanzing, don’t get me wrong, but have you ever seen some of them messed up? Have you ever seen a messy, wonky journal? Because every page is planned and they work really hard to create for us/ inspire us. Unfortunately, it didn’t help me. I don’t feel inspired.
In my head is a huge wall, so I see the inspirational spreads. But in the end I can neither feel the inspiration nor derive anything for me. Because of all this chaos in my head, Mr Stationery-Nerd took all my journals and gave me just one. One single notebook. He called it „back to the roots“. He said that the best part of my journaling is that I’ve never had one particular style which I followed all the years. In my first journal my months didn’t have a theme, my weeklies didn’t have theme. It was one week to another week. I know there are so many journalista and planneraddicts who love having a theme for a whole year and they are very straight with it which is impressive. But that wouldn’t be me.
One of my friends would love to see my spreads and to be honest I am too scared to show them. My friends have their styles and they are amazing. I don’t even know how I can explain what I am doing.
At the moment I am not sure whether I can fix this relationship. Maybe I need a fresh start, maybe I need a completely new hobby. Maybe I will find my way back on track and I will do my things as usual. But for the moment I need a journaling break.
I will keep on writing my blog and show you my new shopping goodies. I will keep you informed about my break from journaling. 🙂 And I promiss that the next post will have photos inside again. 😉
Wisdom of the day: If you need a break, take break.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: Citrus Book Bindery
Hello lovelies, 🙂
sometimes I am really surprised how many different notebooks I own and use. 😀
So, today we will have a look at my Citrus Book Bindery notebook. I think that I bought this notebook one or two years ago. I found it by chance and I was blown away by the beautiful covers.
Before we have a look at the notebook you should know that you can create your very own notebook there. You choose between nearly everything you can have in a notebook. The selection out of notebooks is huge and I needed a couple of days to decide which notebook I would like to have. If you like you can have an open spine or not, even that is your choice. The Citrus Book Bindery distinguishes their notebook into open spine, bullet journals, travelers notebooks, and refill & inserts. It is a huge selection. If you fall in love with one piece, the next big choices are waiting for you. You select:
- the seize (there are eight different seizes)
- the paper (standard or coloured paper, the weight/thickness, page count and pattern)
- preferences (bookmarks, page numbers, index and rounded corner pages)
- extra options (decorative stitching, back cover pockt, corner protectors, pen loop, waterproof drawstring bag)
That were tough decisions to make 😀 I fell in love with the variety of the covers, the only thing that I was sure of was that I would like to have an open spine because they are so beautiful.
So I ordered the following: a Nebula open spine book in B6. It is a lay-flat journal and it weighs 390 grams. The paper is quite thick, 140 gms. The notebook has 192 pages with dots. The corner of the front and the back are protected with silver-tone corner protectors. The pages are numbered and there is an index as well. There are 3 bookmarks in different colours which are matching with the cover. The journal has two elastic bands to hold everything together. My nickname is on the front cover in brush lettering style in silver glitter.
The price was 51,56 Euros for the journal and with shipping and tax the costs were 75,24 Euros. Well, to be honest it is really expensive. I had thought more than twice about the order before I said „Yes“ to the notebook. But one of the main reasons why I ordered it was because it is handmade. The company is run by a couple and on the website you have pictures of them. They needed just a few lines to make me understand why they do it and how much they love it. So my doubts were washed away and that made the price reasonable.
Now we are going to have a closer look at the notebook. The front and back covers are beautiful. It is a hard cover and the corner protectors are placed well so that you cannot hurt yourself. The spine matches the colours of the cover perfectly. When you open the notebook you will have a dotted page for decorations. After that two pages as index are there, like I had ordered it. Then you can start journaling, drawing or whatever you would like to do with it. 🙂 The paper surface is soft and with a pen you can write really well on it. At the moment I am writing with just one pen in it and I haven’t got any bleeding or ghosting problemes so far. But if you know in advance what you want to do in the journal you can buy a thicker paper. It is so lovely to see how the bookmarks fit with the cover.
This Nebula journal is quite special for me and I am not using it on a daily base. It is for ideas/projects which I could do in future.
Wisdom of the day: Handmade has its price, but it captivates by its quality and beauty.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Shopping at „ClareBearAndHerShop“
Hello my lovelies 🙂
do/did you enjoy your weekend? In Germany it is Sunday and the weather is stupidly hot and mostly very humid. At the moment, I am enjoying a light breeze while I am writing. I am not a fan of summer although my birthday is in summer. I love autumn and winter more and because of that I am looking forward for those seasons. 😉
Well, today I write about this cute little Etsy shop. As you know, I like to support little businesses and so I will do that again. This time it is a very special review for me because the owner, Clare, is a very dear friend of mine. She is a great soul! She is always supportive and motivative for me. #alwaysaplaceinmyheart
Ok, what can you shop there? If you like cute paper or washi, then you will find some little treasures. If your interests are kawaii style, then you will find some lovely stationery too 😉 Here are some examples: In Clare‘s shop you will find brands like Rilakkuma, Sumikko Gurashi or Simply Gilded washi tape. You can get eight sheets of paper plus four envelopes for 5,06 Euros (since I buy in Euros, I can only state this but US Dollars are not that much different). That would be a letter set sampler, so it is not random. Or if you would like to have different memo sheet samples then you can buy that as well. For 50 memo sheets you just pay 7,59 Euros. The Simpy Gilded washi tape is a set of samples which have a length of 60 cm (which is approximately 2 ft) each. The set can have 5 up to 10 washi samplers and so the price changes accordingly.
The shop has existed since 2020, so it is very young. The products change and so you should not wait for too long if you would like to order paper sheets or washi tape. 😉
Clare told me about her shop and I could not hold back and had to have a look at the products. I absolutely adore kawaii stationery. It is cute, it brings joy and it is fun. Unfortunately, here in Germany are just a few spots where you can buy these items and then the prices are extremly high, so because of that I order a lot online. I scrolled through the shop items and I decided to place an order. And I remember that it did not take long that Clare wrote to me that she was surprised by my order because we swap our stationery goodies on a friends basis.
Which kawaii stationery did I order?
- letter set sample by SanX Sumikkogurashi „ocean theme“
- Washi tape samples by Sumikkogurashi, Rilakkuma, Jinbesan, Melody and Little Twin Star
- memo samples 16 sheets by Rilakkuma “ honey forest theme“
- memo samples 16 sheets by Sumikkogurashi „travel theme“
Everything is packed in little clear bags and has its own labels. Even some freebies are included as well and I got a little personel note too. 🙂 The envelope is beautifully decorated. The products look exactly like in the pictures on Etsy which is really important for me. I love these cute little sheets and the washi tape is adorable.
Please be aware that because of COVID-19 the postal services need more time than usual, so please be patient. I waited three months but it was worth it.
Since we are friends and we swap our stationery, I like checking Clare‘s shop quite often just to see whether there is something which I would like to have and I pay for it. Because business is business and friendship is friendship.
Clare always sends me some lines of the bible and I would like to share this one with you because this one matches so perfectly.
It will be my wisdom of the day for you: „Let us think of ways to motivate on another to acts of love and good works.“ (Hebrews 10:24)
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: The Everyday Book by Galen Leather
Hello my lovelies,
I am excited, my holiday is so near. 😀 Will we go on vacation to a different place? Not really. I think that we will do some daily tours to a few places in the region. Maybe one of the days we‘ll go to a lake for a walk with our little pug girl.
Today we take the road straight to our next address: The Everyday Book by Galen Leather. As you know, I can highly recommend their products so far. So the question for now is whether it will be the same here 😉 Let’s have a look.
The notebook has the seize of 210 x 110 mm and it weighs 93 grams. The price is 24 Euros for a set of three notebooks. The cover is made of very thick paper and the front is printed in an old school way. The letters of The Everyday Book are golden while the other words and drawings are black. It feels soft and it is flexible, the colour is something like dark yellow (ochre). At the moment I can’t really name the colour correctly; actually it looks like my coffee :-D. There are 128 pages in white and it is TomoeRiver paper with 52 gms. The notebook is hand bound and the stitching is really beautiful.
When you open the notebook you can start your journaling right away. There isn’t any index and the pages aren’t numbered. The paper is really soft and thin. I love to write with fountain pens and the pen slides over the paper so smoothly. If you like to use brush pens, stamps or alcohol based markers then you should be aware that ghosting and bleeding could happen.
The notebook hasn’t any bookmark or elastic band, therefore it has something really unique: You get two sheets of paper, one is with lines and the other is with squares. They are put unter the page you want to write on and due to the thin paper, the lines/squares shine through well enough so that you can write straight. Additionally, it also has a leather sheet which you can use as a writing pad during your journaling.
The notebook has the perfect seize for your travelers Company cover. Actually I use the Everyday notebook as an insert with one of my Travelers Company notebooks and I love it.
Wisdom of the day: If you don’t mind trying a thinner paper, then give this one a try.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: Travelers Company Notebook
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
How is your new week so far? I hope you started with positive vibes. In case you didn’t or couldn’t , let me send you lots of positivity, strength and happiness.
It is really interesting how many notebooks we have already discovered together and our journey hasn’t come to its end so far. Our stop for today is the Travelers Company Notebook.
The first time I saw this notebook was on YouTube. I watched a young woman who set up her journal. I loved the leather, the little notebook and a cute charm. I googled the company and unfortunately they don’t ship to Germany. But there are several shops where you can buy the products. I decided to buy it at a store … but in Japan. Well, I did! I shopped it at the airport in Narita right after landing 😀 I am not kidding.
I use different notebooks of Travelers Company. In our case here, I give you an overview of the 026 Dot Grid. The cover is made of paper, so it is a flexible with a smooth surface. The colour is light grey and the Midori paper is bright white inside. The seize is 210 x 110 x 4mm. There are 64 pages and it weights 70 grams.
When you open the pages there is a decorative page and after that you can start journaling. There isn’t something like an index and the pages aren’t numbered. The dots are 5 x 5 mm and they are really lightly visible. The surface of the paper is smooth. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the grams per square metre, but if I should guess, I would say that it is thicker than 60 gms and thinner than 100 gms. There is a little bit of shining through when you are using pens which I personally don’t mind. If you like to use stamps it could happened then ghosting up to light bleeding is possible. I love my highlighters and colour pencils and I haven’t had any problem with it.
The pages aren’t corner rounded and there isn’t an elastic band or bookmark. However, you have the beautiful leather cover which you wrap around.
I use the calendar in this seize as well and I adore the products of Travelers Company as such. The products are of wonderful, unique Japanese quality.
Wisdom of the day: If you like to travel with a notebook then the Travelers Company Notebook is a great companion.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Journal journey: Nuuna
Hello my lovelies 🙂
after the chaos in my head, let’s get focused to the next stop on our paper journey.
This time we will checkout the Nuuna notebook in its Glowing Pixels edition. The cover is a smooth leather in white with light blue dots. On their website Nuuna quote: „…and remind us of nights in New York or, even more beautiful, of the Frankfurt Skyline.“ Well, it looks pretty cool but I can’t see a skyline in there. 😅 It is a softcover and the notebook is a little bit bigger than a standard A5 notebook. What I really like about the cover is that you can feel every single dot.
The price was 17,99 Euros in a local artist shop and it was on sale there. The regular price is 25,25 Euros when you order it online through the Nuuna website. I think that the price is ok, it isn’t the cheapest one though.
The notebook weights 0,62kg which makes it the heaviest notebook in our journey so far. I am using it as my bullet journal at the moment and to be honest, I don’t take it with me all the time because of the weight.
The paper is bright white with light gray dots on it. Normally the dot grid is 5.0 mm, in the Nuuna the dots are 3.5 mm. I never thought that I could say that but seize can matter. 😉 The squares are really tiny. My hand writing looks so huge between the small dots. The notebook has 256 pages and they are numbered but there isn’t any index. The corners are rounded as well and the paper thickness is 120gms. The pages are soft and I haven’t got any problems with pens, fountain pens, pencils, or highlighters on it. However, so far I haven’t tested so alcohol based markers and watercolour.
What I really like about this notebook is that it is a lay-flat. So you don’t have any problems that it couldn’t lay good on a flat surface like your desk. Another huge plus, for me, is the design. It is really something special. If you have a look at the Nuuna website you will find lots of different and unusal designs.
Unfortunately there isn’t any bookmark in or any elastic band on it. In the first week it was a little bit smelly; It smelled like clue, but it was really slight smell.
Wisdom of the day: If you are looking for a notebook with an outstanding cover, give the Nuuna a chance.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Chaos in my head
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
what is going on in your life? I hope there are only positive vibes. 😉
Well, my life was really fast paced in the last weeks. The days flew so fast and sometimes I had the feeling that I was not really living my life. It was quite surreal. Have you ever had the same feeling?
What happened? Well I had a lot of work to do and the working from home thingy is nice but I really need some time in the office. Unfortunately, I am not sure when and if it is going to happen soon or again. My employer wants to make sure that it is safe for us all before we will be allowed to go back to the office. Well, I try my best to make the best of the situation. I had a really important project at work which had to be fulfilled without any mistakes and it had to be done fast. I had a lot of tasks and there was one meeting after the next. Sometimes I started my day at 7.30 am and it ended 6.30 pm. That isn’t really normal. I usually work 8 hours a day and it isn’t a problem to get the work done in that time.
The second part which worried me was that both of my parents had some serious surgeries. These were necessary and very important. So I couldn’t think about journaling or something else at that time. My thoughts were with my parents. I thought a lot of moments with us three being joyful together. I appreciated that my parents told me a lot of character traits like honesty, being helpful, caring for others or independence. Even to learn that you can fail in life and learn from your mistakes so you can get better next time. I am so thankful for that.
Because of Covid-19 and the surgeries we saw each other for the first time again after nearly 3 months. It was great. 😊 Of course, we spoke on the phone but that isn’t the same. During their stay at the hospital it was quite difficult to visit one. My dad wasn’t allowed to get visitors. Meanwhile, I could visit my mom onces. After the surgery of my dad had to go to a rehabilitation clinic and it wasn’t allowed to visit him. I am happy that both are doing well, they are at home and relax a little bit. ❤️
So, did I have time to journal? Well, not in the way I am used to do it. It was really minimalistic. I wrote blog posts and I forgot to post them.
Am I sorry for the missing journaling? No. It was the first time that I didn’t feel guilty or sorry for it. I know it sounds silly but it was a little breaking point in my life. In the past I felt so fast sorry for forgetting things or not doing things. But I learnt that I can’t handle everything (simultaneously). Even in my brain are thousands of things which I have to do, I know now that it is ok to push one task / our hobby / your passion for another part to the next day/week. That is ok and we are all human and should allow us to breath and don’t get stressed out.
Wisdom of the day: When your life is stressful and in your brain is full of thoughts, give yourself a moment, make a cup of coffee/tea and enjoy it. After that you feel relaxed and confident to handle everything.
Love to you all and stay safe,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: Dingsbats
Hello lovelies,
I hope you all have a great week. This week is a little bit special for me. On Saturday, July 4th, is going to be my birthday! I am so excited. Normally I am not into celebrating my birthday, but this year I am looking forward to it. At the moment there are a lot of changes in my life and I am trying to experience the life from a new perspective and I would like to enjoy some changes. 🙂
Changes can help to find a new notebook for your daily journaling, scrapbooking or just keeping notes for school, work or for finances.
In that case, let us check the Dingbats notebook. I ordered it via Amazon (20,22 Euros) and there is a nice collection or you can have a look at their website. The notebook is a Wildlife Grey Elephant Notebook in seize A5+. It has a vegan leather hardcover with an Elephant on it which is really cute. You can choose between a lot of colours with different animals on it. The weight is 454 grams which is pretty fine for a journal.
When you open the notebook, you will find the inside cover printed with the footprints of an elephant. I think that it is a really lovely idea. There is a little space where you can write your details like your name or address on it.
There isn’t any index and the pages aren’t numbered. There are 192 pages which are waiting to get filled with you thoughts. The paper isn’t a bright white, it is more a cream white and the weight per page is 100gsm. The surface of the paper is extremely smooth which feels amazing. In the back of the notebook is a pocket too. My Elephant Dingbats has a dot grid on the pages which are a little bit visible.
I personally use my Dingbats as a traveler memory keeping journal. So I write with fountain pens, pens, highlighters, pencils and brush pens and there isn’t any bleeding. Watercolouring is the only part which I haven’t used so far.
Great is that there are a pen loop, elastic band and a bookmark. All of which have the same colour black.
All in all I can say in summary is that it is a great notebook, no matter if you are sketching, drawing or just writing with a pen.
Wisdom of the day: If you want a little wildlife in your life, try a Dingbats. 😉
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Journal Journey: Lemome notebook
Hello lovelies 🙂
It is the middle of the week and my workload is huge at the moment. I will not complain about it, because it is a good sign that we are going back to normality. I have been working from home for 13 weeks now and while it was exciting at the beginning – maybe a bit like a little adventure – I would like to be back at my normal office. How about you? Do you still work from home or do you go to work as usual?
Because of that, I am really excited to go on our little notebook/paper journey again with you. This time, we will stop at the Lemome notebook. Have you heard of it or have you used it so far? No? Then have a look because I think you could be interested and like it too 😉
The Lemome notebook has a hardcover and the outside material is brown imitation leather. It is really smooth and it looks very elegant. The seize is A5. I ordered it via Amazon and the costs were 10,99 Euros, which is a good price I think. The notebook’s weight is 426g.
There are 180 pages which aren’t numbered and the paper is 125gsm thick. This is a very good thickness if you are interested in using it for pens, highlighters, pencils and even some watercolour pictures are fine. The paper gets a little bit wobbly with watercolours on it but if it isn’t a drama for you then you can use it. The colour of the pages is not bright white, it is more a creamy white with dots. The dots are well visible.
When you open the Lemome you have a little space to write down your name. The next page starts with the dotted paper. So for people who like a preprinted index, I can say: Sorry my lovelies, you have to do it yourself. 😉
There is one bookmark in the same colour as the book binding, in grey. A really lovely feature is a black pen loop which is at the book binding in black. It looks quite elegant to me. At the inside back is a pocket where you can store stickers or some sheets of paper. The black elastic band helps you to keep everything closed and well fixed.
Wisdom of the day: Take your time to chill/relax/enjoy even in stressful situations.
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Journal journey: Notebook Rhodia
Hello my lovelies, 🙂
I hope you are all safe in this mad world out there. I know that one topic overrolls all news these days. I am really shocked and sad that we still live in a world with racism, hatred, inequality and injustice. I think everybody can give his/her best to make this world a better place. We all can stand and fight against these negative and destroying moments. Black Lives Matter! In the last weeks I read a lot about this movement and I pray for every soul. Such terrible moments should not happen ever again. 🖤
Let us have a look at the outside of the notebook ‚goalbook‘ which is made by the company Rhodia. It is a faux leather soft cover, berry coloured. It feels amazingly smooth. To be honest, I sometimes take it out of the shelf, just to feel the surface. 😉 The seize is an A5 and I ordered it via Amazon for 16,95 Euros. The weight of the notebook is 399 grams which is totally fine to have with me all day. Around it is an orange elastic band as well. For me, it is a really pleasant colour combination.
To find a bridge from such an important theme to an other great notebook is quite hard, nearly impossible. So, I am sorry for the hard cut now.
The thickness of the paper is 90 gsm and due to that it is a little bit thicker than the paper of the Leuchtturm1917. I do not have any problems with the usage of pens, pencils, highlighters and brush pens. Watercolours is one thing I have not tried so far. The paper is smooth and light but it is not a bright white colour. It is more of a creamy white and it has dots on it which are visible but not too intense.
The pages are numbered and there are 224 pages to write on. The corners are rounded which I really like. On the first page is a little space to write your name down and the next page started with an index which is called contents. The following pages are an overview of the months from January up to December. After that there is more space for every month for important dates where you can write a little bit more information.
The goalbook by Rhodia has two book marks in the same orange like the elastic band. At the back of the notebook is a pocket for your stickers. What I like about this notebook is that the inside for the cover is in the same bright orange like the book marks.
Our second stop in our paper road trip ends now and next week we will look at the next notebook. 😁
Wisdom of day: Be kind, be brave and don’t let racism rule the world. #blacklivesmatter
Love to you all,
Chrissi
Evil Journalista 