Happy September and welcome to the "ber" months! I'm 10000% biased since I am an October baby but I do feel like these last 3 months of the year are the best! I've been journaling on and off for most of my life but this is truly the first time I have been doing it daily even though it is quite possibly the busiest season of my life! 

How to take the pressure off journaling

Something that takes a lot of pressure off is to have no rules and also to replicate frameworks/spreads monthly so I have less decision fatigue or paralysis. 

Another thing that helps me is picking the right size of journal or notebook to use. For me it's something that is A5 or maybe even a little smaller! 

Easy monthly journal spread idea

I use this spread over and over again just in slightly different ways but it always has the same-ish information. I start by designating space to review and be grateful for the previous month as well as a space for hopes, dreams and goals for the new month. 

It's a wonderful reason to use any new washi tapes or dig through your stash to find something that fits your mood or season. I then will go through my writing utensils, pens and markers to create a simple color palette so everything feels visually happy. 

Here's just an up close look at my September work-related goals plus a little brain dump. I'm also currently obsessed with my Pilot Kakuno pen and it's been my everyday fountain pen. 

I love adding in cute sticky notes and of course lots of lil stickers to decorate. And as a stationery shop owner and life long stationery aficionado I have no shortage of stickers, tapes and so much more. *A big goal of mine this year was to start using my supplies and I've found so much joy in not only using them but sharing them with Penny and the girls at the shop! 

While I know junk journaling is all the rage right now, idk why I personally don't like referring to my journals as a junk journal. I prefer calling it archive journaling because I see it as me archiving my life! And I like the idea that an archive is literally a collection of anything that serves to document the past.

I hope you found this interesting and maybe even inspiring! Happy journaling!

Why does the Hobonichi Techo have a cult following?

The Hobonichi Techo brand debuted in 2001 and now has users in over 100 countries and regions and all-time sales surpassing 10 million copies. They consider themselves a Life book that is meant to cater to your life and style by providing users with the freedom to use their pages as they wish! 

From their original version to the Cousin, HON, Weeks and Weeks Mega, they've developed different sizes and styles to adapt to their user's needs. 

As someone who has lived and loved an analog lifestyle for their whole life, I can confidently say I have tried and tested dozens and dozens of different planners before discovering the Hobonichi Weeks that I now call my planner soulmate. 

The Secret Is In the Paper, Tomoe River Paper

The pages of all the Hobonichis feature Tomoe River Paper (pronounced as "toe-moh-eh") that is a thin and durable paper specially designed for planners. It's known for its ability to hold ink well and provide a smooth writing experience. By far one of the selling points of this planner was how much I enjoy writing on the pages!

The size of the Hobonichi Weeks feels more portable for every day use for me and of course the huge selection of cover designs add a lot of fun to choosing one annually. This planner is a January start version but provides you with a December monthly and weekly spreads for the month to get started which I find very generous! 

It features a weekly horizontal layout with the weekly pages on the left and grid memo pages on the right. The back of the planner also provides you with  graph memo pages for note-taking at the end of the book. 

For my personal monthly spreads, I chose to use it more for fun as a doodle-a-day and photo-a-day. There is a lot of extra room on the margins and bottom for notes or important dates and events too.

A Look Inside The Hobonichi Techo Weeks and Weekly Spreads Ideas

The weekly spreads have the perfect amount of space for me to customize each week. I use the left side as a place to keep track of anything time sensitive + general daily actionable items. I use the right side as a combo of mini gratitude list, weekly to do dump, habit tracking and end each week with a weekly recap. 

I've been finding so much joy in mapping each week out with a fun color palette or color scheme and I love having an excuse to use my enormous stash of washi tapes, stickers and other stationery supplies! 

*A disclaimer that not every single week looks as fun as these! Some spreads have been more minimal if it's a busy week or if one or more of my little girl gang are feeling under the weather etc. The two weeks we were in Singapore do not have any to dos so I used the left page to jot down a quick summary of each day and will use the right side to fill with small photos of that week! 

There Is No Limit To Your Hobonichi Techo - Ideas For Your Note Pages

The back of the Hobonichi Weeks features even more Tomoe River paper in graph form (my favorite type and style of paper is graph paper!) I've used it as a place to do a personal goal list, shop goal list, birthday tracker and even swatched fountain pen inks which held up really well (the creases in the sheets are just from me tossing this planner around not from the inks!) 

Other ideas include: 

Wish lists

Current writing utensil swatch pages

Annual best of lists

Current daily routine

Notable social current events 

Accessories For Your Hobonichi Techo

While not a necessity, there are 3 additional items I would recommend if you get a Hobonichi Weeks for 2026. A pencil board is a must to give myself a flat surface to write on as well as use the straight edge to draw crisp lines! 

I also added a clear cover which helped preserve the integrity of cutie Paddington. 

Last but not least, to keep my planner close I tied an elastic band around it as a loop and added a few cute charms! 

I hope you found this blog post helpful and a little more in-depth to why I cannot recommend this planner enough. As a small business owner, a mom, creative person who has very limited time, this planner really does it all! 

Okay it’s kind of embarrassing that it’s officially almost a month ago that we were in Chicago for the first ever Chicago Stationery Festival! As someone who obviously loves stationery, I knew I wanted to attend and it was an added bonus we got to also participate as a vendor. If you follow us on Instagram you probably saw a little bit behind the scenes of us trying to prep before the festival. This festival marks the shop’s FIRST out of state pop up and also the first time we exclusively showcased just P+CP products and stationery. 

p.s. scroll on all the way down to peep a stationery giveaway (of extras I got to share with y'all!) 

The most helpful thing we did was did faux set ups in our workshop room to really get a visual of the space we would have at the fest. And then came the tedious and arduous task of trying to predict what products people would want. After that was figuring out how to pack! We did a combo of using check-in luggage as well as shipping a few boxes ahead of time to our hotel. 

I don’t know if you knew this but while this trip was technically work, it was also a bit of a bonus/special trip as a thank you to Meg, Anna and Olwyn for really carrying the shop last year while I was busy growing two humans. I can never thank them enough for their love of the shop and their incredible support. They did such a great job that a lot of people didn’t even realize I was pregnant/not around as much because the shop was running so seamlessly without me in it! 

II'll share our trip itinerary in a separate blog post follow up in case you're curious what local shops we visited and what good foods we ate! But will leave you with some Q&As from Meg, Anna and Olwyn + a ton of photos from the trip :) 
Meg 

What was your favorite part of Chicago Stationery Fest? One of my favorite parts of CSF was just getting to chat with so many people who love stationery! It was fun getting to peek at customers’ notebooks, hauls, and just chat about things like how we use our stickers or washi tape! 

Favorite vendor? There were so many new vendors I discovered but if I had to choose one it would be Sonya Lei. Her use of detail and color is absolutely incredible! I look forward to getting more of her work. 

Favorite customer interaction? One of my favorite moments was getting to chat with a group of ladies who really loved our drink carriers. They probably picked out close to a dozen and were so excited to give them as gifts to friends and family. They were super sweet and loved our products! 

Best food you had on the trip? We ate so much good food, but the dish I think about the most is the pizza pot pie and huge salad from Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co.

Out of your haul, share a few things you are most excited about? I’m really excited about the skateboard cats art print from Pretty Good Co., the thick colorful washi tapes from Calliope Paperie, and the drink water print by Sonya Lei.

Something you learned about each other on the trip? Anna, Olwyn, and I learned that one of our favorite art movements is Impressionism.

Anna

What was your favorite part of Chicago Stationery Fest? I loved getting to meet the designers and small business owners in person that I've been following on social media for so long as well as finding new small businesses too! There were so many great vendors and I loved seeing all of their cute displays too.

Favorite vendor? My favorite vendor was Dana Ate Oatmeal. She was the sweetest and I enjoyed chatting with her about her work. I also love that she has lots of dogs and coffee in her illustrations! 

Favorite customer interaction? Everyone was great but I especially remember a girl who was so excited to buy our pencil plushies! She was buying one as a gift and was going to keep one for herself and she was just so happy to have found them.

Best food you had on the trip? I really enjoyed the pizza pot pie from Chicago Pizza + Oven Grinder. I've never had that before - it looked just like a pot pie -  and it was full of so much cheese, vegetables, tomatoes, and more. The salad there was also huge and so good!

Out of your haul, share a few things you are most excited about? I'm most excited about the library card notepad from Marigold Press - It's my favorite color! I also love the coffee themed merch from Traveler's Company because I love coffee so much. Lastly, I'm excited about all of the stickers I got that I can't wait to journal with - especially the galaxy stickers from Mugobunni.

Something you learned about each other on the trip? When Olwyn and I went to explore, we went to a few bookshops and I learned more about the books she likes to read! And I learned that Meg really loves art museums. We had a great time walking around at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Olwyn

What was your favorite part of Chicago Stationery Fest? I loved meeting the other vendors and seeing their work! It was really cool to meet such talented artists, some of whose products we sell in the shop.

Favorite vendor? Caitlin Yarbro and Mugo Bunni

Favorite customer interaction? I remember one particular customer was so enthusiastic and seemed delighted by everything at our booth, it made me really happy!

Best food you had on the trip? Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co. pizza pot pie and antipasto.

Out of your haul, share a few things you are most excited about? All the washi tape I got including some from Mugo Bunni, Little Red House, Calliope Paperie, and I Loot Paperie! I also love the prints I got from Beetlbunny. 

Something you learned about each other on the trip? I liked learning about everyone’s traveling styles and what everyone likes to do in a new city - bookstores, museums, shopping, restaurants, etc.!

GIVEAWAY!

All contents of each photo will count as one prize for this giveaway. Items were purchased and collected at the 2025 Chicago Stationery Fest!

To enter:

Head over to our Instagram and comment what item you are most excited about in either giveaway photos! 

For a bonus entry (optional):

Join our shop's channel here! 

Rules:

No purchase necessary to win. 2 winners will be chosen and receive one of the contents in the photo at random. Winner will be selected at random and notified at close of giveaway. Giveaway ends at midnight CT on June 15th 2025. 

Good luck! 

Hi paper friend! 

I hope you are having a great holiday season so far. We had our last day open for the year on Sunday, December 17th and while the shop has been closed, we've been working behind the scenes on taking down all our Christmas decor + loads of boring administrative tasks to wrap up the year. 

Every year, even though we have been closing early since we opened in 2015, I still feel a twinge of guilt for closing early. However, I am so grateful that our community supports us in the decision to carve out time to balance out all of our own personal lives too :) 

I know the girls on our team work so hard all the time, but especially the past few weeks I love knowing they get time to decompress before Christmas. And that we don't have to rush to get back to work as soon as the holidays are over. 

One of my goals in 2021 was to send out a physical holiday newsletter/card - and while I wish we could send it to EVERYONE... $$$$ lol So each year we pick 250 people from customers, friends, fellow shop owners and even some of our vendors to mail these out to. 

In case yours may have gotten lost in the mail (or you didn't get one this year sorry!) we've attached it here for you to peruse! 

So much love for each and every one of you <3 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and we will see you in 2024! 

We spent last week in New York City for two trade shows and built in a couple of days to explore the city. I've typically gone by myself over the years but last year (and this year) I was able to take two of our shop employees with me as a little bonus treat! 

This year's trip started off rocky with a cancelled flight and a half day delay into the city which threw off our plans and also ended in a travel disaster sandwich with over half a dozen delays and a cancelled flight. But the in-between was fun, memorable and full of good food! I'll do a proper photo dump + recap of the trade shows to give y'all a lil peek at what's coming soon to our shop next week once I have time to decompress after a truly stressful travel experience!

But I wanted to share some of the local restaurants, coffee shops and small businesses in the city so in case you have short trip coming up or are going to plan a trip, here's a quick itinerary for your convenience! 

Enjoy :)

Day 1:

Breakfast - Bagel (duh! We wanted to try pop up bagel in the city but never made it there and since we aren't bagel snobs, we assume all NYC bagels are better than any bagels back home) 

Lunch - Rubirosa (reservations needed! Order the lasagna and tie dye pizza!)

Shopping - Goods for the Study (there are two side by side, one focusing on writing utensils and next door you'll find more notebooks + desk goods) and Little Mooney (adorable kid/children's shop with clothing, toys and books!) 

Matcha stop - Matchaful

Dinner - Congee Village (We ordered the beef chow fun, scallops and veggies and sweet & sour pork) 

Dessert - Levain Cookies (Good luck just getting one cookie as you inhale all the good smells as you are waiting in line to order!) 

Day 2: 

Breakfast - Supermoon Bake House (Everything is so good! You can't go wrong with anything you choose!)

Shopping - Nico Necco (teeny tiny stationery shop that is possibly my favorite spot in the city!) 

Lunch - Xian Fine Foods (I will dream of their noodles for the foreseeable future! Their regular spice level has a good kick even for me, someone who loves spice!)

Shopping - Chelsea Market (loved visiting Pearl River Market - an Asian department store as well as the flea market inside)

Matcha stop - Cha Cha Matcha 

Dinner - Her Name is Han (modern Korean food! Their garlic chicken as well as Asian inspired cocktails were so good!) 

Dessert - Soft Swerve or Keki Cheesecake