Lover of ALL Things "Office"

I can trace my love of office supplies -- notebooks, pens, pencils, colored paper, markers, and the like -- back to the earliest days of my childhood.  The man who lived across the street from us offered Grandma boxes and boxes of computer printer paper.  This was the kind with the holes down both sides of the paper and the pages that were all connected together.  The paper had wide green and white lines on it.  Grandma did not care about that, though;  free was free and she gladly accepted the paper.  The paper was legal sized, so she cut the pages in half, tore off the side with the perforated holes, and used the other side of holes (which were not perforated and not as easy to remove) to sew together a book with yarn.  She made TONS of books like this for me and for my two cousins who spent lots of time at our house during the summer.   The oldest of the two cousins, Kellie, was a die hard Osmond fan like I was.  We spent many hours, writing stories about the Osmonds in our books, then reading them aloud to each other and to anyone else who would listen.  We laughed and laughed at our own jokes.   We tried our hands at illustrating.  In short, we had a blast. 

Of course, our notebooks we also used for other drawings, writing notes and letters.  We used markers, crayons, different colors of ball point pens, colored pencils, and anything else we had on hand, to create some beautiful work in those pages.   I read the book Harriet, The Spy and was further inspired to put my every thought down on paper.  I never felt like my writing was as good or as exciting as Harriet's though.   Those boxes of computer paper lasted a long time -- several years, if I am not mistaken -- and I remember those books with fondness.

After the computer paper notebooks were gone, I moved on to spiral-bound notebooks, like the kind I got for school.  I used these as journals.  Now, rather than write stories about the Osmonds, I wrote about myself.  The drama of life when you are 15, 16, or 17-years old is perfect for filling many tomes.  There was gossip about people at school, boys I liked, girls I didn't like, math I didn't understand, cats that died, dresses I wore to different activities......Sadly, all of these childhood and high school journals were destroyed when my brother took a bride, moved into my old bedroom, and deposited my belongings in a shed in the backyard that had no floor (it sat directly on the dirt) and was not at all waterproof.  I still feel pain when I think of it!

As a college student and, later, an adult, I have continued to write in journals.  At this point, it is more like an addiction.  Sometimes, I do not even really know what to say, only that I have a need to write.  I also use my journals as sort-of scrapbooks.  I have TONS of real scrapbooks, but my journals hold the smaller pieces of my life: ticket stubs from movies, fortunes from Chinese dinners, clippings from magazines I liked, post cards and letters sent from loved ones, and, most importantly, a LOT of glitter, sparkle, and bling.  (I never met a shiny thing I didn't like! lol!) 

About ten years ago, I started making my own journals out of composition notebooks.  It was fun to decorate them any way I wanted, in any color I wanted -- usually pink.  I could put as many embellishments in as I wanted and glue pages together to create pockets.  I still love using those journals and love making them as well.  One year, I made 40 of them to give as Christmas presents to ladies at my church.  But despite loving those journals, I still have purchased notebooks that I used for other purposes.  I have notebooks to take notes in at church, a notebook with thick, wonderful watercolor paper pages that I use strictly as an art journal, a series of notebooks I use at my job as a school teacher, all neatly labelled: "Staff Meetings", "Grade-Level Meetings", "Anecdotal Notes on Students", "Meetings with Superintendent", "Notes on Technology", etc. 

Right now, my favorite notebooks to purchase are Rhodia books because the paper is just such a nice thickness and smoothness -- my pens glide over the pages.  I totally think that the ease with which I can write on Rhodia pages makes my handwriting look even prettier.  I also like Leuchturm notebooks, but I get the plain pages rather than the ruled because my writing is rather large and does not fit the lines in their books.   In either case, I buy the 6X81/2 in models because they are easy to write in while sitting on your lap and they fit in my bag easier than larger models. 

Here are three examples of composition notebooks I've made into journals.  As I mentioned before, I love pink and bling.

 

Here are a couple of my journals that I purchased, rather than made.