The Journal Diaries- Ellina's Commonplace Notebook

The Journal Diaries is a blog segment where we get a sneak peek into the journals, notebooks, organizers, and diaries from people all over the world. My special guest today is Ellina from Russia.

If some of you remember, Ellina was one of my first featured guests here on The Journal Diaries. Since then, she has enjoyed other creative ways of journaling, including this new notebook of hers, in which she has been so kind to share more details on.

- Well, hello Ellina! Such a pleasure to have you here on The Journal Diaries again. Now, it's been a little over a year since we last had a look at your favorite notebooks at that time. Since then I noticed on Instagram that you've been using a new journal over these past few months. Care to share what this new notebook of yours is?
The notebook I have is Seven Seas Standard from Nanami Paper that I got from the website. This notebook is stitch bound and perfectly chunky which I love. But the best part of it is paper, of course. Tomoe River is amazing for using with fountain pens and it brings out sheen and shading of the ink wonderfully. It's also quite good with watercolors which is all I need for my small paintings.

- What caught your eye about this particular notebook?
I've heard high praise of Tomoe River paper and I wanted to try it for a long time. Super thin fountain pen friendly paper sounded like an oxymoron at the time. Also, it's been a dream of mine for some time to have an "everything" notebook that I would use for writing, drawing, planning, journaling, sketching, scribbling, anything that comes to mind. So I got myself a notebook with 480 pages of Tomoe River paper exactly for that purpose. I call it my commonplace book but it's so much more.

- That cover that you have on it, did it come along with it, or is it separate?

I have several covers that I use with my notebook. It doesn't come with any cover so I like to put my own cover on to protect the notebook and to keep some extra items. The one I currently use is a Spalding&Bros leather cover that I got in Italy. The other one that I have is a Filofax Flex A5 cover which has lots of pockets.

- What do you write about within the Seven Seas notebook? Daily events, personal thoughts, poems? A little bit of everything?
As I said, my intention was to use it as an "everything" notebook, so that's what I'm trying to do. I mostly write about interesting things that I learn or discover and things that happen in my life. My notebook is somewhere between a commonplace book and an illustrated journal these days. A big part of it is taken by quotes from people, books, articles, videos, etc. I tend to record things that I might want to reference later and things that remind me of good and bad moments of my life.

- What types of pen do you enjoy using with it?
I use fountain pens on a daily basis but I also like some felt tip and gel pens. The broader the nib the more show-through you'll have, but I actually enjoy seeing the ink on the other side of the page.

- Has it replaced your Midori Traveler's Notebook?

For now, I'm using my Seven Seas as my primary notebook, but I miss the Midori. My plan is to go back to it once I've finished my current notebook. My perfect setup would be using the same notebook but in my Midori cover.


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Ellina, thank you so much for taking the time to share your commonplace notebook with us! It's simply wonderful.

For all you wonderful readers looking to connect and to continue being inspired by Ellina's journalings, you can find more of her journaling here:
INSTAGRAM: @ellbrt



Click here to see more journal inspiration and past guests on The Journal Diaries.

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