I started a Commonplace Book Im Obsessed

Hi all. hope this week has been kind to you so far. it's finally cold here in Melbourne and I'm enjoying the cozy weather so much. definitely prefer the colder months of the year and I'm really leaning into it. I'm very excited about being able to wear co cozy clothes. so finally took the plunge and started commonplace book. it's always been something I've been scared to begin because feel like there are so many rules around common placing and what defines common place book. decided to stuff those rules so to speak and to make common place that suited me and works for me. in my mind as woman with ADHD, commonplace book is somewhere can explore all the rabbit holes that like to go down. it's essentially for me book of knowledge and collection of all the things enjoy learning about and things that want to know more about. Obviously, once made the decision to do what knew would suit me, it actually became very easy for me to begin common placing. Of course, I'm not saying that you should come and place my way, but am saying there should be no rules, and your common place should be 100% personal to you. whether it's collection of notes, quotes, lists, recipes, you know, movies, TV shows you like to watch, do it your way. Own it. Make it what you want it to be. don't believe there should be any rules when it comes to creativity and what we put in our journal, our planner, our common place, our everything, our brain, so to speak. we can definitely make it our own. There's there's no rules. The rules are there are no rules. think that's my favorite saying. So today thought I'd share with you my first few commonplace pages that I've set up and how use common placing in conjunction with my brain. You've all seen my brain before. It's definitely going strong. because this helps me with this. as always, this is just place for us to learn from each other and to share ideas. So, if you have any thoughts or anything you'd like to share, please comment because as always, you know, I'd love to hear from you and love to chat. I'm very chatty in the comments. Everybody's friend haven't met yet. So, let's begin. All right. Let me just see. feel like these plants are going to do nothing but in the way. I'm trying to give them some light. Do that. Okay. So, decided to keep my common place in porter. It's an old one that I've had for while and just kind of sat around. bought it, never used it, and then felt very guilty about it. So, at the moment, there's not lot in it. Hold on, let me see. Make sure you can see well. But this is what I've done. love I'm using just MD grid. These Madori grid notebooks are 110% my favorite to use. love the paper in them. I've also got Hobonichi somewhere here. Actually, just don't love the paper as much. mean, don't get me wrong, it's definitely nice, but it's not fantastic compared to the MD paper. Maybe it's just me that feels that way. know some people do love the hobo paper, but it's just not for me. love the sticker put on the front. It just says laugh and grow wise, which think is good for common placing and for life in general. It's not pretty book. I've said before can't draw, but it's working really well so far just to have that creativity. I've made myself little index just very simple. Excuse my handwriting. It's not going to get better. and I've just been using these stickers picked up off Amazon to kind of log what I'm doing, just to kind of have an index. know there was Heronichi stickers and Madori stickers and all these great stickers, but the price point for as many as thought would need just wasn't worth it. Whereas, got all these colors for couple of dollars. And don't get me wrong, they're flipping off everywhere, but that's fine. They're still perfectly usable once they're on paper. what else? Let's get in let's get into it. So, one thing I've done is because have ADHD and do forget quite often, what's worked really well for me is writing again lists. As you know, love list. So when decided was going to start common placing, didn't want to just start book and not have anything to put in it. So sat there and decided and thought about the things that I'm really interested in learning at the moment. And so for me, it's mythology, it's Egyptology, love architecture and folklore. Like have lot of rabbit holes want to go down. art history, ancient wonders, history in itself, especially things like Romania, where I'm from, you know, there's just so much that want to learn. And thought, at least if write it down, when I'm stuck for what to put in my commonplace journal, for example, because, you know, my mind is the way it is. can't can't make it any better. There's times where have so much on my brain and there's times where feel like it's completely empty. And believe me, there's times where it's more completely empty than full, you know, but want to calm help myself calm down. just want to write something. can just always go to my brain and have look at what's in there and get writing. and that so far has really worked for me. As I've said in the past, cannot draw. have terrible handwriting. But it does help that found some really great sticker books and of course you can print things. at the moment I'm very into anything Egyptology wise and mythology wise. So there's quite lot of that in here so far. and layout. just want to keep it simple because this is something want to go back on and be able to read. want it to just be book of things for myself that know I'm going to want to look at again. So, it's personal. It doesn't have to be beautiful. mean, do love aesthetic commonplace journals, and I've seen some absolutely stunning ones, but myself, as much as try to make things aesthetically beautiful, haven't got that knack. But I'm not going to let that stop me from doing something that will otherwise enjoy. And as soon as kind of decided to not worry about how it looks so much as or how aesthetic it is and just use it for the book that wanted to be, which is book of knowledge, it just made it so much easier for me to just begin because like said, feel like we put so many rules in place for ourselves and those rules make this daunting. It makes everything daunting. So thought to myself, why even start? can't draw. You know, can't have terrible handwriting, but those shouldn't stop me from enjoying things that want to do. My drawing may improve, my handwriting may improve, who knows? so highly recommend if you haven't started one because of the fear around it, just start. It's for you. It's for your joy. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter if no one can understand what it says. It's not for them. It's just for you. It's your secret book of things that you want to learn. If we were witches, it would be book of shadows, you know. And as soon as realized that, it made my life lot easier and it made beginning and enjoying common placing very very easy for me. So this is what I've done so far. As you've seen, I've flipped through it back and forth. did try different style of handwriting to see if preferred it, but just not fan. prefer my horrible cursive handwriting, even though no one can understand but me. But that's okay. I'm the only one who has to read it. Again, as I've said, can't really draw and that's okay. did try. did little eye of Horus and did the green man there. was very happy with that green man. and I've really loved using the Twisby bought last week. It's been great pen. It's been lot of fun to write with. But because am sucker and can't say no, bought Pilot Custom 823 in amber. And wow, this pen is amazing. This pen is nice to write with, but this pen is dream. And see get it now. didn't get it before. didn't get fountain pens until tried this. But now get the difference between fountain pens. So, this has very quickly become my favorite pen and it only arrived last night and I've already written think 20 or 30 pages with it. Just things in my journal and bits and pieces. one of those pens that want to take it everywhere and use it everywhere, but it's just too precious. So, this will definitely be an at home pen. But anyway, as said, because as was saying, because can't draw, I'm not afraid of going to thrift stores or op shops and buying old books, using the information and cutting out pictures and things. I'm okay with doing that. When book is $2, you take the knowledge and you, you know, you use it and then take the imagery as well. I'm happy to print things on my computer. As you can see, this is my favorite bird, the superb fairy ren. absolutely adorable and only native to northeastern no southeastern Australia. It's very very cute. and also have these wonderful sticker books that I've been using and I'll show them to you which are these. They're called the Antiquarian Antiquarian sticker books and there's Imaginarium Biblopilia and this is just random one. And I'll just show you what's makes them so special. There is just so many wonderful things in here. All the back of the pages look like this. But inside there's basically any subject you may be looking for. These are all letters of the alphabet. know you can't really tell. any kind of sticker you may be looking for, you'll find it. And so it's made it really easy for me to enjoy common placing as well because don't feel that pressure to be able to draw really well or to be very artistic. can just enjoy learning and making it pretty with stickers and that's okay. This book is just imaginarium which do like. It probably hasn't got as much as would as would use, but it's still got some great things in it that can be used with any scrapbook or any junk journal. You know, there's theme, so many themes in it, and really think it was worth the money. think it was about $35 Australian, which feel like isn't bad. There's also I'll pop that one back. this which was the first one got which led to me buying the other two. And again, you can see there's just some wonderful and beautiful stickers and imagery in here that can use and have been using it and just think it's also quite inspirational because I'll see something and think, actually would love to learn more about that or write about that at later date. So, put it in my brain and know I've got something to go along with it. So, this has also been really Look at that cat. Ridiculous. This has also been beautiful book to have. I'm actually surprised my kids haven't pinched some of the stickers yet, but give it time. I'm sure I'll have just show you the back because the back of the book often has lot of letters. they're all really beautifully done. love that. think that's great. And for someone like me who's got terrible handwriting, it always comes in handy to have something like this, not only to use, but also for inspiration to help me practice my drawing. But lastly, there is this great book and it's all it's lot of letters. So, there's letter every couple of pages. And then in between there's some artwork and things like that. And these are all stickers, which is just just love it. And it just feel like it goes hand inhand with my common place so well. It's kind of the theme and the vibe guess I'm going for. Like love this as book plate. I'm not afraid of storms from learning to sail my ship. and it's from Little Women. So, I'm not This is special one. don't know where I'm going to put it yet, but if you've seen these and you've armed and about buying them, truly think that they're worth it and they're something that's easy to use because there's just so many lovely things in these books. And it's definitely made my creative vibe come out little bit more because sometimes, you know, you struggle little bit with creativity. know do. want wish was more creative than am. So again, if you've ever seen these books, highly recommend grabbing them because they are worth every cent. Back to this. So decided to keep common place, my common place in this porter. like it because it's got quite bit of room. It's easy for me to have everything need in one place. just need to decide which pen I'm going to keep in here with it. I'm not quite sure yet. It probably will be the Twisby that will live in here fulltime. think this is just too special and I'd like to get its own leather case for it if have to be completely honest. like that the Porter has pencil case in the back. don't recommend using this for your pens because it will then it does something weird with the shape and it makes it bit difficult to close the to actually zip it up and it becomes uncomfortable and also when you know putting it back all the all the time is bit of pain in the bum. It's easy to just zip your pens in there. this actually doesn't really affect when you're writing. So, even when the book is open, for example, it's still quite nice riding surface. and like that could pack it up with me and take it anywhere want to go. probably will use this porter before in Japan. I'll probably just pop everything out of it and use it while I'm there. But yeah, I'm really happy with it. I've had it for such long time. think this one was from 2022 and just never used it. And now that I'm using it, I'm like, well, why didn't ever use it before? The only thing don't like are these. These annoy me. They're too long and so is this one. But that's okay. So, this is my the very beginning of my common place. If you have wanted to start one and you haven't, just do it. Don't be afraid. Just do it for yourself. You deserve it. It doesn't matter what it looks like or if your handwriting is good like me because always worry about I've got terrible handwriting, you know. It doesn't it doesn't matter if you can draw or if you can't. And it doesn't matter if you've got interests like mythology or history or you just want to write about movies and your favorite songs. It should be something that brings you joy and place with all your favorite things. You know, that's what believe. It should be something you can open up on bad day and look at and be thankful. You've got something to take your mind off whatever's bothering you. You know, place it should be happy book, place that book that brings you joy. think that's what common placing should be. In my mind, those are my rules. It's going to be book that brings me joy. You know, there certainly isn't enough joy in life as it is. So, thank you for sticking around. I'm so glad to have you here as usual. If you have any advice with common placing, would love to know because feel like the more we can learn from each other, the better it is. And love when get comments and people are telling me what they're doing in their journal or in their planner because it gives me such wonderful ideas as well. And I'm always thankful to hear from you and love love to respond. you can subscribe if you want to. As always, there is no pressure. am again thank you, thankful that you're here. hope you have wonderful week ahead. hope your weekend is excellent and cozy. If you're in the southern hemisphere, if you're in the northern hemisphere, hope the weather is wonderful. Have wonderful day, guys. Have an excellent week and I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.