My First Journal
How did it all start?
To start a brand new journey, everyone would need influence from something to become a motivation. Well, I would say that my influence comes from a very close friend of mine (Kelly from @Fabric Fanatics), Her journal layouts together combined with her watercolor drawings really make a great impact on me.
It was back in the year 2018 where I started my journaling journey.
By looking at Kelly’s feed, I slowly started to get things that needed for a journal. I did not know the journal was a thing back then. I only knew that a journal only needs a book and a pen, that’s all. So I just went to Mr.DIY and randomly got a book, sized A5.
At first, I didn’t know how to start. Because I don’t know what to write, so I just left my book at the side (waiting for inspirations I guess).
When I started this journaling journey, I was just graduated with a Degree for a year and am working full time as a Graphic Designer. I went to Singapore for a short 3D2n trip and came across a Japanese lifestyle store, Tokyu Hands, in Suntec City. I remember so vividly that I was in the store for almost 2 hours I think. There are so many rubber stamps and gazillions of pens. So in the end I bought some rubber stamps and some pens. Little did I know later that year, the rubber stamps that I bought are Kodomo No Kao! As I said, I had zero knowledge of journaling, for sure I didn’t know what brands are out there in this journal world.
My friend also brought me to a stationery shop that has cats! It is quite far from the city center, but the shop is so unique by itself! Not just stationeries, they also sells lifestyle items like home deco items, books etc. The shop is called Cat Socrates (IG @at_socrates). Both I and my friend loves cat so so much! It is such a small shop yet we can stay inside looking at everything for about 2 hours too! The photo on the right are the things I bought! It was my first time trying Sarasa gel pens as well, love the colors so much (Still loving it).
Image credit (left & center): @prettydayssingapore, @cat_socrates
To be honest, the motivation to journal my first entry is still not kicking in yet until September that year, which is about 5 months after this Singapore trip. My boyfriend got me a Fujifilm Instax printer, which I’ve been longing to own since I saw it over Instagram, but it’s too expensive for me to buy it which cost about RM600. At the same time, as I learned how to shop from Taobao (a China website that selling tons of things that you don’t get here), I also bought some rubber stamps. The quality for the price is not bad I would say.
Because of the excitement, I printed out photos and my brain juice is overflowing with adrenaline to write my journal! With the stickers I bought from Taobao, AliExpress and washi tapes from MUJI, I just did it! Like finally!
Earlier in 2018, I traveled to Taiwan with a bunch of my best friends from college, and back then I really have no idea journal was a thing in Taiwan as well. If I had known, I’ll hunt down the whole of Taiwan for stationeries. But, I did purchase some washi tapes and stickers, coz they are so cute!
So here it is, my first ever layout of my journal!
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