Creative Ways To Use Your Stationery Goods | Blog post by Connie

It is almost the end of March, the mornings are starting to get chilly and the days are getting shorter. We are slowly heading towards the winter months here in Melbourne. While the sun is still shining at 7pm, I take my chance to do as many outdoor activities as I can before it gets too dark.

 While sensing the coming winter, I was excited to see the array of colours in the March box. I was lucky enough to receive a red Delfonics pouch (thank you Mits!) , and together with the cheeringly bright colours in this box, I was immediately taken away to happy land. As always, I enjoyed testing out all the items in this box, but I am particularly passionate about a couple of them.

1. Delfonics pouch – it’s brilliant….let me explain…..

As a full time Art teacher and a part time paint maker, I carry a lot of art supplies and stationery with me where ever I go. The Delfonics pouch has many pockets and slots inside and outside which is perfect for sorting and carrying supplies around.  It is so spacious that I can carry my passport size TN as well as a full palette in it with lots more room to spare. Its outside slots also work great as a brush holder while I am painting! A very handy item indeed!

2. Tibit note pad…..- not any ordinary note-pad!

My second favourite item in this box is the Tibit note pad. I have never seen this notepad in any shop and I wish I had known of its existence earlier!  Each page from this note pad comes with dotted pre cut lines in a grid, allowing you to break off the bits you want to use and save the rest of the paper. I think it is a very clever and sustainable product. Having experience working in the design field, I know how important it is for a designer to think of the life cycle of a product during the design process to ensure minimum wastage and less of a carbon footprint on our planet. This notepad has definitely ticked this box for me.  As a material enthusiast, I could visualise tonnes of ideas the minute I saw this notepad! I have tried a few things to share with you here:

i. Typing notes, quotes or messages

I was preparing a snail mail for one of my pen pals. I decided to go for a botanical theme with this letter as I was lucky enough to find some vintage floral illustrations in the local market ☺ I used my typewriter to type up a few flower/love quotes to add to the pack. I am very pleased with how they turned out, so I made an extra pack for myself! You can easily adopt this idea to type up notes to yourself or messages to friends and family. It is a simple idea yet a nice touch to any letter or journal page!

ii Custom stamps

Apart from typing up quotes for my pack, I also used my Oscolabo stamps to  create my own custom stamp to decorate the envelope. Firstly, I painted the sheet with some watercolours (from my own shop of course ☺ but you can use textas instead!) Just leave it to dry and then just stamp away- that’s it! The pre- cut line of the note pad allowed me to just peel off the stamp I need easily. The Kokuyo dot liner in this box is really handy for sticking this down. You can see I made a few different types of stamps here on my letter! I finished the decoration off with a couple of cute Vegetable stickers from Itadakimasticker .

iii Weaving

The main feature of this notepad is that the sheets can be tear off in many different ways. You can actually pull each page apart completely into tiny little squares! I wanted to make use of this awesome feature and turn it into a craft/journal idea. So I explored the possibility of weaving with the paper and had some success. Yay! I used the finished piece in one of the spreads in my journal. I think it creates a really effective backdrop. See more detail of my journaling process in the video below.

So, that was a snippet of my creative ideas. Thank you for reading! We would love to see what you do with your Stationery Selection items!.  You can show us by tagging #thestationeryselection on IG!

Enjoy the sunshine, see you again in April xx Lots of Love Connie

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Hello! Nice to meet you :)

My name is Connie Stewart. I am an Art & Craft enthusiast who enjoys playing with all kinds of materials and stationery, especially Japanese and vintage stationery. I work as an Art teacher during the day and a watercolour paint maker during the evening.  It is in my instinct to create things in any spare moment in my life. Apart from running my handmade paint store on Etsy, I illustrate daily in either my Hobonichi or Traveler’s Notebook.  I am also a snail mailer! And yes, I spend a lot of time on my happydesk :D ! It is my pleasure to be presented here as part of the TTS Design team!

Connie’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/pepperconarts/

Connie’s Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/peppercon