Hoarding notebooks and when to use a new one - Stationery Freaks Podcast
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of Stationery Freaks with myself, Rob Lambert and of course.
Helen:With me, Helen Lesowski.
Rob:So Helen, in the last episode, we talked about stashes of notebooks that we both got, haven't we?
Helen:We did. We we mentioned it in passing and said something like we should do a we should do a cast on that. And actually, here we are. It seemed like a really good topic.
Rob:Yeah. I think we probably mentioned it in almost every cast actually, don't we? That we've got this sort of hoard and this growing catalog of unused or partially used notebooks. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. But, Helen, what's been happening in your stationary world?
Helen:I have become, since our last, episode, I have become low level obsessed with mechanical pencils. So much so that when I misplaced the one that I was waxing lyrical about on the last podcast, I set off in search of one of the several others that I know I have, and I turned my office upside down and I've only located three. And in fact, that's not quite true. I've located two out of three that I know I've got, but I'm sure I've got more. So yeah, I'm feeling that I now need to compare and contrast.
Helen:We had such a conversation about it. I'd not thought of lots of different aspects.
Rob:Yeah, I was, I've been in the office all week. I've been extremely busy. So in fact, actually for the last sort of, you know, since we recorded the last episode, I haven't actually done anything really stationary wise. Normally, I'm sort of buying new things, you know, doing something. And but I'm trying to write a book, another book.
Rob:And then I've I've been in the office quite a lot. And I took the Penak Proty, which is what we mentioned in last cast that we did on mechanical pencils. I took it into the office with me and used it in the office, and so many comments. People everywhere are obsessed with mechanical pencils.
Helen:Oh, really? It's a thing now, isn't it?
Rob:Yeah. Definitely. And, of course, we keep saying this, but we've gotta get some stickers or some pin badges or something because, you know, working with a new team and almost, I'd say, 80% of them were closet stationary freaks, and the other 10% were overt stationary freaks. And then the other 10% were were iPad technical, you know, kind of, you know, note taking, shall we say. So, yeah, the, the the Pen Act went down a tree with people going, well, that's a nice pen.
Rob:Can I use it? And loads of people were having a go with it. And sadly, though, did drop it.
Helen:Oh, no. I just didn't let break.
Rob:It depends fine, but the lead's all broken. So when you're clicking it, you get like, you know, tiny bits of lead just dropping out all over the place. And then I ended up with all over the back of my hand and then I accidentally touched my face and I ended up with like pencil all over myself like a small child.
Helen:That reminds me so much. Do you remember we did that podcast about the stationary fails and I was telling you about my ink test.
Rob:Yeah. So I've tipped all the lead out now and it's got some fresh lead in there and it's, it's doing a treat. It's doing a treat. So Helen, today we're gonna we're gonna talk about notebooks. Now before the cast, we always have a little bit of a preamble where we put the wheels to rights and have a good moan about life in general, but we were also talking about the aspect of notebooks from two perspectives.
Rob:Really, what we're gonna talk about today is what makes us crack open a notebook. You know, what is it? Is it project? Is it a feeling? Is it something else?
Rob:And we'll get into that. But I wanted to sort of just open the conversation that we're gonna have with the idea that I often don't realize I have a need for a notepad until I see one in a shop that looks appealing. Do you suffer from that as well?
Helen:Well, I don't pretend. I just know that I just have a desire for nice notebooks. And I actually have a bit of a, the only notebooks I allow myself to buy now are ones that are utterly beautiful and ridiculously expensive. Or I'm, well, we've talked about this before. If we go into HomeSense in The UK, is part of TK Max or TJ Maxx, I think it is in The States.
Helen:They have often have lots and lots of reduced notebooks. And I am a sucker for those like little exercise book ones with really nice paper though. Because, and this is my reasoning, if I buy the, you know, a little pack of say three of these exercise books with lovely paper in, I get the joy of writing on the lovely paper, but I'm not committing myself to a big notebook usage. I might be able to use it for just making the plans and whatever for a holiday or whatever. So I am kind of like obsessing over these little tiny bite sized notebooks.
Rob:Pretty cool. Pretty cool. I've got I've got several hundred of those in a drawer somewhere. I actually I was in TK Maxx the other week with the family and the you're right. They had the wonderful offer on some moleskin notebooks.
Rob:You know, I'm a big fan of moleskins. And I I picked them up. There was about three or four of them, and they were really beautiful. And I was like, yes. Amazing.
Rob:And something's changed inside, Helen, because I I got all the way to the checkouts, to the tools, and I had this moment where I was like, I don't need these.
Helen:No.
Rob:And I actually managed to turn my body around and go back to the shelf and put them back on there. It was a moment of sort of, I guess, clarity, but also shock and horror that I'd somehow managed to control myself and not buy the notebooks. Was a revelation, I'd
Helen:like to say I'm proud of you, Rob, but really I felt like.
Rob:Call yourself a stationary freak. You can't even buy notebooks on the whim that are on offer anymore. I know, what's going wrong? It's mad. So, okay, Helen.
Rob:So what, you know, what makes you go to your big storage unit? I imagine you've got this beautiful, I'm gonna say sort of art deco kind of cabinet. This is what I think you've got and it's got it's got teapots and and nice teacups and sauces on the top with loads of plants, of course, all over and probably a few hidden mechanical pencils in there. And you you open the doors to this giant art deco wooden cabinet and inside a hundreds and hundreds of notebooks. What makes you take out a new notebook and do something with it?
Rob:What's your catalyst?
Helen:Well, firstly, that's almost an accurate description of it. It's not quite art deco. It's a bit newer than that, but it is, it's old wood and I inherited it, old bookcasey thing. But it does have doors with a little glass leaded lights and things.
Rob:Has it got teacups and a teapot on top?
Helen:No, but it does have a Japanese puzzle box, which I just adore and a bowl of particular beauty, which does not belong in there. But also in there is a stack, stack of brand new, unused, perfectly good notebooks. And it's not my only storage area for notebooks because the notebooks that I'm more likely to use because they're more likely to come into rotation effectively sooner or on a shelf somewhere else. So I even have to I have two spaces for my books.
Rob:Wow, I
Helen:know it's a lot of books.
Rob:Yeah. So actually, just as a side before you answer the question about what you know what, what use you have or what purpose you have for the notebook. We were chatting with one of our listeners on, Instagram, a lady called Hailey. So hi, Hailey, if you're listening to this. And, she was saying that it's not just me or you that's got a giant collection of notebooks that actually she does too.
Rob:And and we sort of back and forth a little bit, and I said how I might just do a video one day of emptying my drawers out of all the notebooks and stacking them up and then, you know, maybe have an account of them and and just have a look. And, yeah, I think I think both of us need to do that and put it up on Instagram at some Like
Helen:a yeah. It's like notebook shaming or whatever it would be.
Rob:So, Helen, what's your what's your purpose for pulling out a notebook?
Helen:So I will go and look for a new notebook when I have a really exciting new thing, project, or topic, or new type of story, or the nicest kind though, the time I enjoy pulling a notebook out the most is when I have actually filled a notebook and I need to go and get another one of that type. Because I don't know about you, have different types of notebooks. So I have notebooks for notes and then I have notebooks for projects, and I have notebooks for writing. So supposing I get to the end of my writing notebook for all the flash fiction or whatever it is that I've been doing, closing that and being able to go to the shelf or to the cupboard and pull out a new one, knowing it's completely legitimate, that is just ace.
Rob:That's kind of a rational, logical start to a notebook, isn't it? Because you finished one that has a purpose and then it's about choosing, I mean, you choose similar notebooks for the same purpose? So yeah, let's use like the Moleskine example. I know you don't buy Moleskine.
Helen:I don't buy moleskins, no. But I do use similar notebooks. Absolutely. So the same kind of notebook for the same kind of thing. Yeah.
Helen:Which gives you me a problem because I deliberately buy a notebook to say, oh, well this is going to be the next one that I need. So you know, you can go out on a shopping trip for that notebook. I mean obviously you come back with three more and three more that don't match anything. So they now need new projects of their own. And that's my problem.
Helen:So I've got beautiful notebooks, beautiful notebooks that I have not used because I can't yet find a topic or find a project or, you know, and we did a podcast about this as well, Rob. The idea that once you've opened it and written in it, it's ruined. Yes. It can only ever be the lesser. That potentiality that it has before you write in it, it can be anything.
Helen:And then you write in it and suddenly all it is is, you know.
Rob:Yeah. It's like my Otagami notebook that was for sketching and I use the pens on it that bled through about eight pages as well. That one's ruined. So I'm still I'm still going with that notebook actually. So you've kinda got a you've got a a purpose for each of your notebooks, and we've covered that in in other casts before about the sort of different notebooks that we use.
Rob:I I mean, I I think the way I've looked at it slightly, I think we've approached it slightly differently to this cast, which is the beauty of us two getting on a call is because we are extremely different in the way that we approach things. Yeah. I've I've gone down the emotional reason for
Helen:and
Rob:and it's somewhat similar to to yours, but I've identified three key emotions that often drive the usage or the utilization of a new notebook. And that's often at the expense of already having a notebook that serves the purpose that underlies that emotion, if you know what I mean. So when I have a moment of extreme clarity over something that I've been pondering, you know, maybe it's a new book or a new way to, you know, promote the business or a new thing that I'm sort of struggling with in my brain, in my brain. When I have that clarifying moment, I need a new notebook. I can't go to an old notebook because that's got other stuff in there that risks affecting what it is that I've got clarity over.
Helen:It will. It'll sully it.
Rob:It will. I'll get distracted by something that I wrote randomly six weeks ago. And so it's a new notebook for me at that point. And, and therefore it turns into almost kind of like a project notebook for that thing that I'm wrangling through.
Helen:I agree. Absolutely.
Rob:Yeah. But that's why I end up with hundreds of notebooks with only three or four pages filled in because I only need three or four pages to work through the clarity before I then do the thing that I'm sort of wrangling with. So that's one of the emotions is that moment of clarity when you're sort of pondering things. The other one is maybe tied to it. It might arguably be the same thing, but it's that excitement that you've mentioned when you've got a new project, a new book, a new podcast, a new video, and that's when I sometimes again just go to the the shelf and, oh, that notebook looks cool.
Rob:That looks like the kind of notebook that fits this exciting new project. Yeah. And that's another use for it. Again, three or four pages, maybe 10 pages, and then I'll move on to a different notebook, which is utterly wasteful and mad, I know.
Helen:So I found in a oh, no. So I have a notebook that I use for interviewing, and I keep interview notes
Rob:of
Helen:people just so that I've got whilst the interview's happening I keep interview notes. But the first, I don't know, 10 pages of that, I have got some very pretty washi tape and just sellotape it together. And because, you know, because I'm curious, I've opened it before now going, what is in there? And it's absolutely nothing that I need to know anything about. So sellotape, why don't we get it?
Helen:Which is, you know, just so Helen. But at the same time, that idea of, of celebrating together, it's never bothered me. And the only time it bothers me is when I'm curious to go, what is in there? But actually, if you, I'll get you some washi tape wrong. Maybe that'll solve your problem.
Helen:Maybe.
Rob:Need to
Helen:read these notebooks.
Rob:Maybe. And as part of this cast, I gathered all my notebooks together that are what I would call active notebooks that are out. They're not in the cupboard. They're not in the shelf. I have them stacked here and I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12.
Helen:Don't make me. I can't even tell you how many I've got. I don't even know. I'd love to go look.
Rob:But you know, I'm a big journaler. We've done an episode on journaling before. Yes. So one of those emotions is, I guess you could say despair or I'm not gonna say depression, but, you know, you you you're not quite where you're supposed to be in life. And that to me is the journaling.
Rob:And I bought a dedicated book for journaling, which is a lovely book, and beautiful notebook, loads and loads of pages, hundreds and hundreds of pages, really thick notebook. But I tend to sometimes go to a new notebook to journal something rather than grab the journal. And I think the reason being is because I have 12 notebooks on the go at any given time and I can never find the one notebook that I need when my brain says, write this down.
Helen:See, I think I was totally expecting you to say, I know that my current emotional state is temporary, I don't want to put that into the journal when it's not. And I wonder if it was that.
Rob:No, I think it's because I can never find the journal.
Helen:That sounds far more legitimate now that you're saying it out loud, Rob. That's really meaningful.
Rob:Long time listeners may know that I have a little garden studio down at the bottom of the garden, obviously. It's a garden studio, it's in the garden. And when I'm going up and down commuting to work, the nine seconds that it takes to commute from the house to the garden, I bought myself a little bag. It's a wonderful little bag. It's actually designed for mechanics and builders.
Rob:It's like one of those canvas bags with loads of pockets on it. It's really good. And I don't wanna be carrying the 12 notebooks up and down because frankly, that's just ridiculous with a laptop and all the other stuff that comes up and down. And so I never quite have the right notebook in the right place at the right time. So what I tend to do is I'll find a notebook and sometimes it's a new one off the shelf, which adds to the pile.
Rob:So that's 13 or 14. We keep going until until enough is enough and I have a moment of rational thought. But usually what happens is the notebook that had a purpose then gets morphed into another purpose and then another one and there's bits of journal, there's bits of thinking, there's to do lists and then it just all falls apart.
Helen:But do you ever use I mean, this is a really fundamental bit, really. Do you use notebooks as a way of thinking through things? So are you ever going to be needing to go back and look at things? Because you're never going to find anything.
Rob:Yeah. I don't find stuff. But actually, there's a very positive part of that which I stumbled across the other day. And it's that serendipity of being in a notebook, flicking through the pages and finding something that you wrote maybe two, three months ago that gives you the clarity or stops the despair or generates the excitement or gives you a breakthrough, that is wonderful. And I I had that the other week.
Rob:I was flicking through a little red notebook, which we covered in the goals cast that we did at the beginning of this year. My, middle son bought this for me for as a Christmas present, and it was gonna be just about goals and dreams and ideas. Then there were three or four pages of journaling for some reason in there. And then there's a couple of lists, and then there's some notes on a video that I watched. And it was those notes that I stumbled across that gave me the breakthrough I needed for an article I've been writing.
Rob:And that was all serendipity. I wouldn't have remembered to your point that it was there if I hadn't flicked through it. So yeah, there's pros and cons.
Helen:That is interesting, isn't it? I hadn't really thought about wanting to find stuff or not looking for stuff, finding things that you weren't looking for.
Rob:Yeah, a serendipity. Now I used to be very meticulous and you know, we've done a podcast on personal knowledge management system. And I used to take a photo of all of my notes at the end of every week and then just upload them to a digital tool so I could find them and then process them. But for some reason over the last year, I've just been writing more notes than I'm able to process or upload or keep up to date in various notebooks as we've just discussed. So I don't know what's going on.
Rob:I don't know whether my brain's suddenly a little bit more creative and fired up or whether I'm just getting more confused as I get older. Who knows?
Helen:Life's too short for me to sort my stuff out. Work is really transient. The thing that is the least transient actually is the writing, the creative writing notebook. So I do go back and look at those. And then I, if I have written something that I don't hate, I will put it onto an electronic format and then I can mess with it and make the language better and the word count more suitable or whatever.
Helen:But that I do go backwards and forwards in quite often. Whereas most of my other notebooks, including my famous Hobonichi, yeah, I don't really go back at all. It's a living moment and I use it for its purpose now. Yeah. And even when I've opened a new one, so a project notebook maybe for a holiday or whatever, as soon as that holiday is all done and all the everything that's needed in there has been worked out.
Helen:Yeah. I stick it to one side.
Rob:Yeah. I just noticed that I I I was just digging through a little sort of letter rack that I've got to the side of my laptop and I noticed a notebook at the back of there. I was like, oh, what's that one? And it was Greece Twenty Twenty Four where I took a little notebook to Greece last year when we went on holiday, and it's got six pages filled in with a little bit of journals, some ideas, whatever was thinking at the time, and then the rest of it's completely empty. There you go.
Rob:It's exactly
Helen:Another question to your forearm.
Rob:But you know what? We've done a cast on this before. I'm sure at least we've talked about this before. And, by the way, listeners, we've just hit our five year running with this podcast as we we were chatting. That's bizarre, isn't it, Helen?
Helen:We were just I I was speechless. I cannot believe that we've been doing this on and off for five years. We're happy you have that much stationary to talk about, Rob.
Rob:I know. It's bizarre, isn't it? We're never short of ideas either, which is the the weird, but But, yeah, anyway, that's why we can never quite remember which cast we've talked about stuff in. So, yeah, just looking past all the all the different casts, there's one thing that we've talked about quite often is the need to be simpler and more minimalist with we we've done a podcast on minimalism, I'm sure, minimalism. I get to the point where I think, well, surely I just need one notebook.
Rob:But when I get to that point, the constraints feel positive in a sense because they're gonna drive a bit of creativity, little bit more focus. I'm not gonna have to look in 18 different notebooks to find what it is that I'm after. But then I look at the big stack of notebooks and think it's gonna be years until I get around to using some of these things. And it's just a circular taunt that goes on.
Helen:Do you not think though it's a bit like the whole work in progress thing? If you had limited your WIP to one book at a time, you would go through the work much faster, all the notebooks in this case.
Rob:Yeah, I think you're right.
Helen:With your one notebook, so what I do on occasion is I have, so I have like a notes for work notebook and I use little tabs. I can't remember who make them, let me see. They're made by Bookeroo and they're like, they're like vellum really, tabs. And it allows me to stick and repeal. So they're a bit like post it notes but they're a bit firmer and allows me to literally section up the notebook.
Helen:So this for this bit of the company, this for this topic, this for this thing, this for, I don't know, HR and this for finance and whatever it would be. And I find that really, really helpful so that you're not got nine notebooks going and you're not just flicking through going what day was it? Organising my life by days, the days at which things happened is not very helpful for me. If I have to know what I was doing last time, want to say, here is I was doing some stuff with finance. So when I go to the finance section, I it's really, really close to what I'm you know, to the new page effectively.
Rob:I I just I don't know. I think you're right. If I was to limit the notebooks to just one notebook, I think I'd get through them all, but then I just this relentless nagging away that you have extra notebooks that you really wanna write in.
Helen:I know. Well, that's just the look, isn't it? It's like a silent song. I mean, use me. I'm the new notebook.
Helen:I'm the sexiest one you've got. And it's like, oh, okay.
Rob:So I discovered a a fellow kind of stationary freak. He's really into pens and pencils, but he really has no time at all for notebooks.
Helen:Oh, really? How could that be?
Rob:I know. It's odd, isn't it? It's one of these people that's just any scrap of paper will do, any type of notebook will do. You know, most workplaces have these, reporter style notebooks. They're fairly cheap.
Rob:You know, I'm not a big fan of that. I think they're okay for sort of, like, shopping lists and all that kind of stuff, but I wouldn't really use them as a sort of day to day notebook. But he's happy to use that. He's happy to use a scrap of a four paper as his notebook. And, you know, he's got no interest at all in notebooks, but he's obsessed with pens and pencils.
Rob:It's yeah. Everyone's different. Everyone's got their own stationary lure.
Helen:Stationery fetish.
Rob:Stationery freakness.
Helen:It is. Well, I can't, I actually struggle to get my head around how you can care about the pen and not about the paper. Because surely it's the two together that give you that nice smooth feeling of writing and you know, I mean, I don't know, maybe that's not true. Maybe everything I always knew is wrong, Rob.
Rob:Don't know. You think there's this sort of flow and the way that it connects with the paper and glides across and all the other good stuff that we talk makes a huge difference depending on what you're writing on. But not to him. No. Not to him.
Helen:Well, I'm glad that, you know, I'm glad we're not all the same, really.
Rob:Yeah. %. Hundred %. So, yeah, as as part of sort of prepping for this podcast, I did open the drawers and have a look inside. I didn't take everything out because I'm actually gonna save that for a video because there's a lot in there, to the point where the drawers are actually at risk of coming off and breaking because of the the immense weight that's in there.
Rob:But yeah, I've got such a varied selection and there's two drawers that are full of notebooks that are partially used, and then there's two drawers that are full of notebooks that haven't yet been used. And that pretty much just sums up everything that I've just, you know, that we've talked about. It's it's a short term purposeful use of a notebook, and then I've either ruined it because my handwriting's terrible or I've destroyed the first page and that's just spoiled the whole experience. Or I've got the clarity, got worked through the problem or launched the project or whatever it is that we're doing and, and that notebook goes back in the drawer, maybe for another run of the same thing in the future. Who knows?
Helen:I have to say, I mean, thinking about it, trying to be dispassionate here, it is inconceivable that I will ever have enough projects before I die. To make use of the stack of new notebooks that I have.
Rob:But yet you still keep buying them.
Helen:Well, I I try not to go anywhere where I buy them, but vintage is my weakness at the moment. But I haven't bought any stationary or vintage for, oh, one, several days.
Rob:Two days? No.
Helen:I I haven't bought any I bought some stickers. I haven't bought any notebooks. Oh, actually, that's not true. Bought a desk pad, but it was only because it came with the stickers and I made a nice bundle. Okay.
Helen:I'm I'm the lost cause. Yeah. And I hear it now. I hear it. I haven't
Rob:thought You're talking yourself into a giant hole here. I thought you weren't allowed to buy stickers anymore.
Helen:I thought.
Rob:Is that why you took the notebook in because you could say, actually, I bought a notebook it came came with these 6,000 stickers.
Helen:I did actually put some things on Vintage and did my first ever selling. For me now, I feel like it's free.
Rob:I
Helen:wonder. I've got rid of a jumper and a t shirt that I don't wear and a skirt I don't wear anymore. In return, I've got stickers. I mean, everyone's happy.
Rob:That's awesome. I wonder whether there's a market for sort of half used notebooks. That could be a that could be quite, you know, an opportunity to, clear the room and and make some space for some new notebooks.
Helen:Well, you don't know. I mean, that could be a genuine thing. I mean, if you were to sell a notebook, who knows what gems somebody else is going to open up and maybe have that moment of serendipity because it's not stuff they've written, it's stuff someone else has written. It's like, that's a genius idea and I can turn that into something, a thing.
Rob:Yeah. Well, you know, I sort of half joked because I'm, you know, I'm a big fan of ledgers. I think we've talked we've talked about this before. I don't know why because we were actually chatting before the the cast started about how numbers is not my thing. I finance, I do not I I cannot comprehend numbers in the way that some people can.
Rob:But words are fine, but numbers not. That's just me. And, yeah, I'm obsessed with ledgers, which are usually used for tracking financial numbers. But I'm obsessed with how people have used them as journals and how people write in them, and I've got a ledger which I am still developing the habit of daily logging, basically. Neutral stuff, just stuff that happens in a ledger, and it's wonderful.
Rob:Great habit, and maybe we'll do a cast on that in the future once I've worked out why I'm doing it. There are also really old ledgers that you can buy from, you know, Victorian period, even going way back before then, that are full, complete, and, you know, somebody's used them for a business back in, like, 1860. There's no space in there. It's just a ledger, and it's full and you can buy them and they're staggeringly expensive. And you can buy old notebooks from people, you know, way back in the past.
Rob:So there is a market for it. But I guess these are really long time ago notebooks, not some random thoughts from a guy in Winchester from last week.
Helen:A trip to Greece in 2024.
Rob:He said he used four pages of a Moleskine notebook and it's full of absolute dross.
Helen:That's right here is why we need to buy our notebooks discounted.
Rob:Yeah, was just actually picked up the grease notebook and looking at the back and that actually is a Moleskine. So there you go.
Helen:Shocker, yeah. You are a bit of an addict, aren't you, the Moleskine ones?
Rob:Yeah. I don't know why. They just they just feel right. I feel like I'm doing something of importance when all I'm doing is drawing pictures of other people.
Helen:Dogs on skateboards in my case.
Rob:Yeah. Dogs on skateboard. I was in a meeting the other day, and I was drawing. Well, I I doodle while people talk. I'm not being rude.
Rob:I'm actually genuinely listening, but I I doodle, and then somebody asked if they could have a look at my notes. And it was just I'd literally drawn caricatures of everybody in the meeting. I was like, I'm not too sure. Feel like I can show you these notes. I've just been sketching.
Rob:Don't worry. Don't worry. That side. So Helen, any other reasons why you might take out a notebook? Or have we covered everything?
Helen:No, I've given, I mean, the only other thing that I haven't mentioned is I do tend to give away my really nice notebooks because I can't bring myself to use them. So there is a slight, you know, if I find somebody else has got a new project or something really new and exciting that they're very excited about, I to give a nice notebook. So that's what I did with Helen Kellerham when you remember we interviewed her. She was just saying about how she was gonna start a new novel over the summer. And she, so I sent her a really lovely notebook, really lovely, beautiful.
Helen:So yes, because people should have nice notebooks, right?
Rob:That's very nice. That's very nice. I know when you did various workshops, probably with Helen, I think you were doing some storytelling workshops.
Helen:Right. Yes.
Rob:Bought stationary to give to all of the attendees, delegates, to students.
Helen:We did. We deliberately, I mean, I didn't go for big thick notebooks because that's quite intimidating, but little thing exercise notebooks that hold, you know, 30 pages more than enough, but it was enough, yeah, and gave little pens away. I think people should enjoy. Yeah, How creative they genuinely could be if they were given some constraints to work with it. It's hard to be creative when you get a blank canvas.
Helen:Yeah. Somebody tells you you're not allowed to do this or you have to include that and suddenly you can do things. Amazing.
Rob:Yeah, where my brain was going with that, and I'm sure you can you can see where this is going to go. I was thinking you could give away some, I could give away some of those half use notebooks for them.
Helen:Yes. We could oh, yeah. You can use anything that you found in those books
Rob:so Exactly. Talk about inspiration and, you know, seeding ideas and, you know, all sort of lateral thinking. It's a good way to get rid of notebooks and also it's, you know, spurs creativity on. So, I'm not going to do that by the way. If you do ever attend one of my workshops, you won't get half used notebook.
Helen:No, no. I think that would have to be a particular kind. Yeah. It wouldn't be wouldn't be good for your average note workshop, Rob.
Rob:No, not at all. All right, Helen, anything else happening in your world that you wanna comment on or?
Helen:The only thing I am really quite excited about is I'm off to London in summer. It was supposed to be, it started off as a theater trip with my daughter and is now turned into four days away. I've had to draw the line at four days because she keeps finding more stuff she wants to do. I've given her complete carte blanche to choose the agenda, where we go, what do, what we do. And one of the things that she's chosen is to go to a shop called Choosing Keeping, I think it's called in London and it's a stationery shop and I think you've been there Rob and I think it was recommended to us by a very lovely lady, Amy, no not Amy, she did the notebook bindings and we talked about these really beautiful, in fact, that was the lady who made the notebook that I gave to Helen Callahan that I've just talked about.
Helen:She was saying how she absolutely loved this shop. And I think you went in and took some pictures of it for me. I think would have been a couple of years ago now.
Rob:I I might have, yes. I'm just trying to find the cast and I think what we'll do is we'll link to that cast.
Helen:Yeah, that's a good idea because I've forgotten all the names and all the places and I can't even get the top name It
Rob:was Maria Levin, wasn't it?
Helen:That's it, yes.
Rob:Yeah, so it was the Levin notebooks. And yeah, I think I did take a little detour from work one day and visit that shop actually. Yeah.
Helen:Well, I don't live anywhere near it and I don't work anywhere near it. So I am doing a special trip up to London. I'm gonna go and I'm very excited. I'll take photos. We can post photos in the newsletter, Rob.
Rob:Yes. Please do that. Yeah.
Helen:I'm all excited about the the stationary shop.
Rob:Well, we also need to we can't do a cast like this without taking photos of all of the notebooks that we do have as well. Absolutely, if you head to stationaryfreaks.com, you will find a link to our newsletter, which is growing in popularity immensely. So thank you so much for everyone who subscribed, I hope you're enjoying that newsletter. It's generally aligned to each of the podcasts. So every time there's a new cast, we do share a lot of the notes and behind the scenes pictures of what it is that we've been talking about.
Rob:So, yes, Helen, if you can send me photos of your art deco mid century wooden cabinet with teapots on top, I will include that in the newsletter as well. Also, Helen, we need to talk about whether we should be at the stationery show, is it? I think it's the London stationery show Yes. That's happening in May. That feels like a positive day trip for us.
Helen:It does. It feels like a really good excuse to take a day off work, Rob.
Rob:I suspect it's at the weekend, isn't it? But yeah, let's see if we can get there.
Helen:Oh, if you'd rather weekend, that would be great.
Rob:Yeah. So if you're a a listener to the show and you're going to be at the London stationery show, I think it's called, we will clarify that in the notes of this podcast, then let us know. We've had a couple of people reach out telling us where their store is because we obviously know a lot of stationary brands. So yeah. But if you're gonna be there, I think what we're gonna try and do if we can get to it, but obviously this is all caveat on whether we can both make it, is I reckon Helen, we should take the audio equipment and we should do a live or not live podcast, but we should record at the event.
Rob:What do you think?
Helen:I don't think we've ever been in the same room when we, oh no, we did. One of our first podcasts. We were in the same room at the same time.
Rob:Yeah, the audio recorder didn't work properly. Remember?
Helen:That's right. It was rubbish. Let's have another go a few years down the path. We must be better at it by now.
Rob:I've got a I've got some better equipment now than we had five years ago. So we should be okay. So yeah, if you're going to be there, let us know. And you know, if you're going to be presenting there, you've got a stand at the show, then again, let us know and we can see if we can a make it to it and b if we can, we will come along and say hello, and maybe interview you for the podcast.
Helen:Yeah. Let's see if we can find how other people are using their stationery free notebooks and pens and mechanical pencils and
Rob:Yeah. %. Sounds exciting. Okay, Helen. With that, I think we should draw this one to a close.
Rob:It's been a usual jaunty banter through, the use of notebooks. And with that, like I say, check out stationaryfreaks.com where you'll find the newsletter, and you'll find links to Instagram. We are stationery freaks UK on Instagram. And with that then, Helen, we shall speak to each other in the next podcast.
Helen:We will do.
Rob:Take care. Bye bye.
Helen:Bye.
