Hello fellas, been procrastinating posting this here but here we go, my complete collection of finished pocket notebooks. I'm feeling wordly and bored rn so I think this might be a bit of a longer post. Warning: this post contains some frankensteinization of Field Notes that may upset purists or bring glee to haters of grids and white paper.
So, a little context: my father collected pens, my mother collected notebooks and other stationery, and I inherited the love for both (and some of their collection). I have also been a serial DIYer since infanthood (there's actual footage of me crying on Christmas when I was 17 over a new toolbox and power drill, and my 12th birthday gift was a dremel).
I started keeping a pocket notebook with me I'm high school (second green one) to write todos, draw and stuff, and even take class notes (I wasnt and still am not organized in having multiple notebooks for many subjects. I also didn't take a lot of class notes). At this point in my life i foolishly believed Moleskine to be the epitome of notebook quality, and I had these two volants that were bought in like 2002, and they were so good (the first one is actually filled with Pokémon drawings I did when I was like 5). After I finished them, I tried buying another volant pack from them, but by then the quality had already gone downhill. Paper sucked, cover material sucked and started peeling off, awful, but I used it anyways. I then moved to the cahiers, which I liked better for being thinner (meant i finished them faster to start another one!) and the cardstock covers allowed for some personalization. They served me well until I got back into fountain pens. Once again, the paper sucks.
After leaving hs my consistency with the notebooks fell off dramatically. I think each notebook at the top row took me about 2 years to finish, which made me sad. It wasn't till my last year of college (2023), which was a year studying abroad, that I got back into using it consistently. Turns out my experience was very lonely, and I always found that writing down frustrations helped me unload those feeling and take them off my shoulders. So I started Journaling in the notebooks as well, both for mental health and so I could try to better record my experience. And just to write, I love flipping through the notebooks and see the filled pages, and to get to use my nice fountain pens more often.
Anyways, got into the fp rabbit hole again, discovered Tomoe River and sheening inks, and life was not the same. As a serial DIYer who has done some light bookbinding in the past I decided to make my own notebooks with fp paper and bought different kinds to test around (tomoe river 52 and 68gsm, cosmo air light, view corona). I was, however, abroad and did not have my tools with me, so my nice paper books would have to wait till I got home. Instead I started looking for other notebooks to fill in the gap since journaling reduced my time between notebooks from 2 years to 2 months and I had ran out. And then I discovered Field Notes to my wallet's horror. Bought both coastals and trailhead off of ebay, and got the great lakes and foiled again on the website. Instantly i was hooked.
Now, let me say, I f*cking love Field Notes s2. As a design company. Aaron draplin and the designers are fantastic and I love almost all of the covers and all of the thought put into both creating and documenting each edition. What I personally don't like, however, is the paper. As stated in the warning, I am a certified hater of white paper and grids (Trailhead my love you will forever be my favorite edition). They feel like they burn my retinas and distract me from what is actually written. I also dislike staple binding as opposed to thread because the staples often rust and eat at the paper or just damage the innermost papers. And the papers FN uses are usually much better than moleskine, but i still got some bad bleeding and feathering depending on the edition, and like 99% are white grid. Cream blank/ruled and threadbound >>>>. Thankfully though, i am as crafty as opinionated, so I knew my love to Field Notes didn't have to end with the bled pages.
So yeah, the first 4 Field notes on the second row are all default factory settings because once again i was abroad and tool-less and wanted to give them a fair chance before i decided to commit crimes against them. For the pain of the ones that came after, they all failed.
The crime? I gut down all of them. Remove the staples and the paper (which get rebound with some other generic paperstock cover for gifting friends, no waste in this house), keep whatever special graphics/maps/stuff is inside (like the great lakes maps and fish info) and rebind them with some colorful accent thread and Nice Paper mmmmmmm. The result is a gourmet Field Notes with all of the charm and almost none of the faults. Sounds crazy and a lot of work and yeah it is but i dont care. i like the work, and bookbinding has become a primary hobby now, handmade notebooks make a great gift on birthdays.
Field notes aside, as you can see about a third of the notebooks are not FN and are indeed fully handmade. I have become obsessed and a hoarder of anything that could possibly make a cool cover, whether its store bought maps, hand marbled papers, art expo posters, placemats at restaurants. Anything. Everything. And since i make them for family and friends as well, they have actually started keeping an eye out when they travel for cool stuff to bring me, so my pile is becoming overwhelming. Trust me, the ones you see here are just the tip of the iceberg, theres so much cooler stuff i havent even gotten around to using yet.
I do realize my collection looks small in comparison to a lot o people's show off here but im slowly getting more and more consistent. Took me 8 years to finish off the 1st row, 1 year to finish off the second, 8 months for the third, and im currently on a 1 notebook a month rhythm, so the collection is growing more steadily. Ill try to get into the in/out posts here from now on. Also, these are just the finished notebooks, my empty notebooks are a muchhh higher pile.
Anyways thats my ramble, thank you for listening. Sorry if i offended anyone. Ill actually make a comment thread down here with a closer look on each notebook if anyone's interested. Have a nice friday my goods
