Hi! I’m Gillian, and I love stationery. I have done since I was tiny. I remember wanting to work in a Post Office when I grew up as that seemed to me to be the place with the most forms, duplicates, and general papery goodness. Nowadays, I am less enthusiastic about having to fill in official forms, but that’s mostly because they’re usually printed on terrible paper and I can’t use fountain pens.
I channelled my love of stationery into my studies. It was only natural that I’d gravitate towards history since it’s all about the written record. The printing press appeared in the late fifteenth century, but almost all the records I use are hand written. You can find out a bit more about my academic work here.
In my non-academic life, I’ve learned bookbinding (though I need much more practice), and started to try calligraphy (again, I need much more practice!). I love finding out about the historical predecessors of our current stationery habits. For example, how bullet journals have lots of interesting precursors.
Pens, Paper, Plans
Pens, paper, and plans are pretty important to me. I believe that writing stuff down, by hand, is the best way to understand it and learn. (Science backs me up on this!) I also believe that we don’t get anywhere without planning (except, maybe, somewhere we don’t especially want to be!). I wanted to create a blog to share my enthusiasm for analogue planning, and the enjoyment of stationery that goes with it.
This is a new site, so expect more to appear over the course of 2017 and beyond. Thanks for visiting.