Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had an obsession with stationery. I used to collect folders, ring binders, plastic wallets, staplers and pens. Yes, I was a geeky kid! When I was at sixth form, I had a weekend job at Staples – as you can imagine, I was in heaven!  I used to gaze at the expensive Mont Blanc fountain pens and dream of writing up my history notes with them!

Teaching was the perfect job for me. It was the perfect excuse for using my multicoloured pens and huge collection of funky shaped post it notes. For a long time in between leaving my job and starting blogging seriously at the beginning of last year, I didn’t really have any excuse or reason to use much in the way of stationery. My post it notes stayed in a box, untouched and I could never find a pen on the rare occasion that I needed one. The very few appointments that I needed to remember were saved in my phone so I didn’t need a diary.

Last year, I started taking my blogging and my writing more seriously, which meant getting organised. For Christmas, I asked for a planner to record deadlines and important school dates. My parents bought me a gorgeous one from Paperchase with co-ordinating notebook, and my love of stationery was reignited.

I now have a slight obsession with notebooks, with two or three on the go at any one time. One contains information that I want to keep and one has all of my rough notes and drafts of blog posts and articles that I am writing. I always have a few waiting to be used! I’m not particularly fussed about them being too pretty – some of my notebooks are plain and functional – but there is just someting about opening and using a brand new notebook! I still draft a lot of my posts by hand in a notebook. It’s always in my handbag so if I’m out and about I can jot down ideas or finish off posts. I’ve never quite got to grips with using my phone to record ideas and notes, and find it much easier to get it down onto paper and organise them from there.  Even at Sixth Form and at uni, I would draft essays on paper before typing them up.

I had a new planner and notebook for Christmas (I can see this becoming a ‘thing’ now), both from Paperchase and I love them. I asked for a bigger sized one than last year – A5 rather than personal sized so that I have plenty of room to write down everything. I also went and bought some additional bits and pieces for it – address pages, more note pages and post it notes.

I know lots of planner addicts customise their pages with washi tapes and stickers. I prefer to keep mine really clear and simple so I can see everything at a glance. I use post it notes a lot, and the little sticky tabs are perfect for reminding me when a linky is live. I do love the little stickers that came with the planner to remind me of important deadlines, and I think I will be ordering some more of those! When I look like I’m running low on bits and pieces, I can order a few last minute bits from q connect – handy or what?

I do love pens, and if someone was to buy me a Mont Blanc I would be over the moon (if anyone does want to buy me one, I’d really like this one. It’s only just over £1000!!) but my pen collection is generally made up of cheap biros and free promotional pens – they’re always the best!

I’m hoping that soon, I will have space for a desk so I can organise my stationery. At the moment, it’s all piled up on a unit next to where I sit on the sofa, within reach of little hands. I appear to have a mini-me when it comes to stationery – Harrison is obsessed! He has notebooks everywhere and gets as excited over new pens as he does over toys. He’s recently discovered my post-it notes and I’m finding them everywhere, usually with his friend’s names all over them.

Do you like stationery? Where do you buy all your bits from?