Hello! I’ve been working steadily moving my pictures over to Flickr. It is a long and boring process but I am so grateful to have found a way to keep my posts while reducing my media usage. Apologies for missing last Sunday. I’m hoping to double up at some point to get back on track.
It’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed a notebook and I must say I’ve been enjoying my Sunday morning taking photos and inking pens. Today’s notebook review is the Anything is Possible softcover notebook from Molly & Rex. The balloon and whale on the cover is slightly raised. I think the cover treatment is called linen embossed.
A good friend gave it to me as a going away present when I left Alberta for the Nova Scotia adventure. The cover reminds me of her as she and I worked together and would often be the first ones in the office. We would often watch the sunrise together from our lofty perch on the fifth floor of our office building. She would educate me on what kinds of clouds we could see. There was even a scary (but exciting!) afternoon when we watched the path of a funnel cloud (that ultimately came nowhere near us). She knew of my passion for notebooks and chose this beauty for me.
The back cover mirrors the front.
The inside covers. I love the whimsy. Wouldn’t this be fantastic as wallpaper in a child’s room?
One of 4 spreads, and I think my least favorite.
This is definitely my favourite!
These journals are produced by Molly & Rex.
These beautiful journals are available on Amazon and Chapters, and from the company directly. And their website! Beautiful stationery. They love animals, penmanship and illustration and their products definitely show that. Michaels also carries some of their items. Love the stickers!
I tried a number of pens and the paper is definitely fountain pen friendly.
The fountain pen ink did not feather. All of the pens were very smooth on the paper. This notebook is not in my current rotation but I look forward to it when it’s time comes.
In other news I was tickled to learn a new word this week: zibaldone. In the Italian vernacular it refers to a commonplace book, and in translation means “a heap of things” or “miscellany”. Of course this is what we do in our journals. I really enjoyed this article, detailing the history of the form, and in particular a young poet named Giacomo Leopardi, who created a 2,000 page “zibaldone di pensieri” with his sketches, lists and frustrations. It’s good to know we are in good company and keeping such a long tradition of authors and scientists. Lots of good stuff to be copied into my journal.
And finally on to reading news. I’ve been getting into e-books from my local library and just finished Alan Bradley’s Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d. His books follow the adventures of the precocious twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce, amateur sleuth and chemist extraordinaire. I’ve read all of the Flavia books and I was thrilled with this one, number eight and not just because the title is from my favourite Shakespeare play. All of the books have been set in a delightful English village, Bishop’s Lacey, with the exception of number seven, which was set in Toronto after Flavia is sent (or in her words, banished) to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy (As Chimney Sweeps Come To Dust). It was not as satisfying as the others, and Thrice is a wonderful return to the tried and true. Number nine in the series has just been published (The Grave’s a Fine and Private Place) and I hope the library gets a copy soon.
Next up is Sue Gee’s Trio, a novel set in 1937 England in which a young man lives in a remote moorland village and mourns the loss of his young wife to illness. He takes up with a small band of musicians and starts to fall under their spell. As war approaches a decision is made that will call all of their lives into question. It was recommended by one of the booktubers I’ve been following. Hopefully I enjoy it as much as they did.
Happy journaling.
inlovewithjournals 