Bookmarks & Brushpens

Hi! And thank you! Well, there were a couple factors to me switching to fountain pens and ink. Fountain pens give me a finer line than most ballpoint pens or even gel pens, I don’t have to press hard to write and tire out my hand, and I love the color options with bottled ink. And also, fountain pens are just so cool! There is just something fun about writing with a fountain pen that you don’t quite get with your average ballpoint. 

@elinorsroses and I did some cafe journaling at Urban Farmhouse today and whatever they put in that cream cheese spread is real good. 

Pen: TWSBI Eco

Ink: Franklin-Christoph Honeycomb

My prompt for today was “your sunshine” and I guess I took it a bit literally. 

Pen: TWSBI Eco

Ink: Franklin-Christoph Honeycomb

Hi! An A5 is smaller than an A4, I believe it’s about half the size. An A5 is typically about the size of your average journal or book. Officially it’s 148 x 210 millimeters, or 5.8 x 8.3 inches. In general with international sizes the higher the number the smaller the size by roughly half of the number before it. I pulled this handy chart off the internet to help illustrate:

Hello! And thank you so much for your kind words, they really made me smile!

Oh wow, thank you so much! I always want to get to know people and make new friends, just send me a message! 

I frequently have journaling block when I don’t know what to write and it feels like my mind has just gone blank. I have a couple techniques for how to deal with that:

Write stream of thought style - literally whatever thought passes through my mind is what goes down on paper, no editing in my head, just write it down. It can be simple thoughts, complex thoughts, stuff that is completely unimportant, it doesn’t even really have to make sense. Generally, I find that one of the thoughts sparks another and before I know it I’m a couple paragraphs in and the spark is back.

Events of the day - this is when I detail what I did during the day, and sometimes that’s literally all I write. It can be as simple as going over the bigger events, or very detailed - like what I bought at the grocery store. If I want to write more I might add how these events affected my mood throughout the day. If I didn’t do much during the day I try to write about why I wasn’t very active or productive, or I simply write that I didn’t do much and leave it at that.

Sensations - sometimes when I don’t have a subject to write about I decide to take stock of where I am right at that moment. I focus on each of my five physical senses one at a time and write about what I’m getting from each of them. I actually adapted this from a technique I was taught to help me stop overthinking things. Turns out it works both ways, it can halt unwanted thoughts in their tracks but it can also spark some inspiration to write. 

Prompts - and last, but certainly not least, there are journaling prompts to get you started. I have a jar of prompts I got from @isakteriyaki (unfortunately not on tumblr anymore as far as I know) and when I’m struggling for something to write I pull one out and see where it takes me. @journalingjunkie is no longer active on tumblr either, but her previous monthly prompts should still be available. A quick google search will bring up sources for journaling prompts, or you can try making your own! I’m also going to try my hand at making some, so look out for those!

First off, thank you so much to everyone who is still here after my prolonged absence, I truly appreciate it. Second, my deepest apologies for said absence, I know it’s been a very long time since I was posting regularly. In the past year, I have been struggling with my mental health and regular blogging was something I just couldn’t keep up. For those of you who don’t know, I have been fighting with depression for many years and more recently I was diagnosed with ADHD so it’s been a bit of a roller coaster in terms of mental health. I’ve also been in school this past semester and that has sucked up a lot of my time. I have turned a corner, however, and am working hard to get myself in a better mindset. 

With that being said, I’m back! And hopefully for good. May is mental health month and I can’t think of a better month to kickstart my comeback. Beginning this month I am planning on getting back to regular posting, both on Tumblr and Instagram. In addition, I have several Youtube videos in the works so be on the lookout for those! I am also planning on answering all the questions in my inbox, no matter how old they are. I know some of them will probably no longer be relevant for the person who asked them, but if there is a chance my answer will still be helpful I want to take that chance. I’m going to try and answer about five a day and hopefully, I’ll get through the backlog fairly quickly. And please send me whatever current questions you may have!

My question to you all is, what would you like to see from me content-wise in the future? Please feel free to send me requests and ideas and I will see what I can come up with! I have been contemplating creating my own monthly journaling prompts, would anyone be interested in something like that?

Thank you for reading and for sticking with me through my difficult times. Here’s to the future!

All my love,