Penguins Creative’s Weekly Thought Doodles

September 19, 2016September 19, 20165 Comments

I’m asking for a nice group of people to share this habit and inspire each other. If you would like to receive this weekly page, please subscribe here!

I’ve been thinking that I have neglected my A6 Hobonichi techo too much! Normally I use this as my work and school catch-all, but sometimes I also use it to record inspirational quotes and murmurs of my reflections. Are you interested in seeing those pages?

If yes, I’m currently testing out a weekly newsletter that includes a page of my A6 Hobonichi Techo musings. It includes some random doodle and a few sentences about my life, my observations, and that hopefully resonates with you as well!

2017 Hobonichi Unboxing

September 18, 20163 Comments

It’s here! It’s finally here!

The sun was bright and the sky was clear as I happily skipped my way to the Post Office to pick up my Hobonichi order.

“Shoes?” The lady behind the counter asked as she processed my yellow box

“Um…yeah.”

“Girls and their shoes~” She replied

Girl, you have no idea. Sometimes it’s hard to explain one’s stationery obsession with someone who’s not interested in this hobby 😉 I was grinning from ear to ear as I carry my prize all the way home! Continue reading →

My Hobonichi Adventure in Seattle

September 9, 20161 Comment

In Late August, I embarked on a week long trip to Seattle to visit some friends. Of course I have to bring my Hobonichi along with me to journal and record the things I see and the places I’ve been. Although I’ve already built up a system or a habit of journaling in my Hobonichi, the hard part about doing it while you’re traveling is that your day schedule is so full, you’re usually exhausted at the end of the day. Fortunately, many of my plans in Seattle actually are stationery and planner meet ups with fellow journaling addicts, so we spent a lot of time in cafes writing in our Hobo or Traveler’s Notebook!

My simply set up consisted of a pen case with my favorite pens: Uni Pin fine line waterproof pigment ink pens for drawing, Uni Style fit for journaling, my TWSBI Eco fountain pen, washi samples, some sticker sheets, a small sticker book, and a portable watercolor palette! (For a more comprehensive read about how to keep a travel scrapbook, or you can check out a post about my traveler’s notebook!)

(This was taken at Sea-Tac airport while waiting for my flight back to Boston.)

I’m just going to jump right into it and show you my first fabulous meet up with three amazing girls in Seattle: Phyllis, Leah, and Sandra. They were kind enough to make time for me to meet and we all gawked and geeked over our Hobonichis. Of course we brought multiple journals, and there’s always the inevitable Planner Tower: Continue reading →

Hobonichi July News Teaser

July 22, 2016July 22, 2016Leave a comment

Oh Hobonichi, you drive us crazy.

Hasn’t it only been a few month since the last announcement from Hobonichi, which was the 2016 July-December Avec? How evil of the company to be feeding us tidbits and getting us all excited about next year’s planner when it’s still summer!

(Photo credit from 1101.com)

However, being an avid fan of the Hobonichi Techo, I’ll happily take whatever they hand out to us. In fact, I had just penciled in that burst of excitement on the day of the news onto my Cousin Avec (July 19th, when Hobonichi made me scream in my bedroom and scared the hell out of my roommate).

Here are a few highlights of the news release and how I feel about them:

1. 79 Covers will be announced on August 19th!

Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars! I’m positive Hobonichi will be sneaking a few peeks here and there of the new covers through various social media outlets. Continue reading →

HOBONICHI Flip Through 2016 January

June 12, 2016June 12, 20161 Comment

A bit belated, but I still want to take the chance to show you guys a flip through of my January pages in the Hobonichi Cousin. January marks the second month I started using the larger size Hobonichi planner.

First I’ll do a quick review of the stationery tools I use mostly in my Hobonichi pages for my creative journaling! If you are impatient to get to the flip through portion, scroll down to the end of this post! Continue reading →

Traveler’s Notebook Caravan in Taiwan

April 17, 2016April 17, 20161 Comment

I’m BEYOND envious of everyone in Taiwan right now. Midair’s Traveler’s Notebook is holding a special exhibition in Taiwan along with the celebration of their 10th anniversary. Traveler’s Company Caravan designed a series of items that are inspired by local features of Taiwan! For a stationery addict like me, it definitely evoked a serious sense of nostalgia and excitement. I NEED TO OWN THEM ALL!

In Taiwan, there are a lot of shops that treat TRAVELER’S notebook with care and respect, and there are a lot of good foods and heartwarming people, making it an attractive place to travel.

They collaborated with Eslite Bookstore for this special event. Unfortunately, this collaboration also allowed them to kick up the price of the items a bit. Eslite, why are you taking all of my money.

Continue reading →

Daily Hobonichi: April 06 – 09

April 17, 2016April 17, 20163 Comments

I decided to start sharing some of my Hobonichi pages here along with some anecdotes that goes on in my world filled with stationery. Let’s start this series of post with my adventure to New York over the weekend for a company tour hosted by AMA Emerson.

(Since this is late night impulse post, please excuse the grayish, scanned version of my pages. Guys, daylight is definitely the ONLY time to take pictures)

The Hobonichi challenge for April 6th was peppers, so I decided to draw both variety that dominates my life: chili pepper and bell peppers. Before you ask, this was done in very saturated watercolor to achieve that marker effect!

Scannable Document 2 on 2016年4月16日下午9_52_29

Scannable Document on 2016年4月16日下午9_52_29

Stressin’ out on the day before the company tour at Tumblr, Thinx, and PSFK at New York. You know you’re stressed when you start using “stress” too much in a single sentence. As always, I took a 5 hour ride on the Megabus to New York immediately after work. The journey was slow and excruciating. I feel sorry for the guy sitting next to me though, he is so tall, he literally have to contort his legs in a weird position to get his whole self into the seat. Then he stayed in that weird position for hours…

Continue reading →

NYC Urban Sketchers Portrait Party

February 16, 2016February 23, 20161 Comment

I’m in New York City again! A spontaneous decision brought me to this bustling city for the long weekend (and away from freezing Boston and its -16F temperature…). Since I’ll be missing my weekly meet with fellow urban sketcher (USK) friends in Boston, I immediately check to see if there are any drawing sessions with the NYC group.

Boy, am I in luck! This weekend the USK meet up in New York City is holding a portrait party. To sum it up, everyone take turns being the live model for 10 minutes, and at the end of the session, we will each have created tons of portrait drawings of all the participants.

I’ve always been daunted by drawing portraits and people because I’m not very skilled with proportions. My biggest problem is to even get the ‘creatures’ to look ‘human-like’ LOL. However, this portrait party is just too big of an opportunity to miss, so I signed up for it anyway. Continue reading →

How to Journal Everyday – Build a Hobonichi Habit

February 6, 2016February 6, 201625 Comments

I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve embarked on this journaling adventure with my Hobonichi. Every single page of my A6 English Planner was filled to the brim with doodles and writing. I couldn’t be happier.

How does she do it?

Many of you might wonder how much time I spend each day journaling? How do I go about writing in each page and fitting in illustrations? In this post I’ll be breaking down my journaling process for you, and hopefuly it’ll be a motivation for you to start writing in your Hobonichi today!

The size of the Hobonichi Techo may seem small (A6), but on days when you don’t have the time or motivation to write, that gridded space could be pretty daunting. This realization is more apparent this year since I’ve switched to the A5 Cousin size Hobonichi. Moreover, I’ve challenged myself to make time and journal in those pages EVERY SINGLE DAY, because I know how lazy impulses can turn into two days or even weeks very fast. With the larger space of the Cousin, I would feel more guilty if I have to flip through blank pages. Then again, I don’t want to turn this into an assignment. Journaling is fun! This is definitely a time I look forward each day to play with my ‘toys’ (stationery, art supplies). The most important thing is to enjoy the journaling process and eventually it’ll become a habit.

Journaling is a time of reflection and enjoyment. It’s not a timed task where you’re rushing toward the deadline.

Step 1: Setting up your journaling space

There’s a Chinese proverb that says: A workman must first sharpen his tools if he wishes to do his work well. I guess this speaks dearly to all of us stationery addicts’ heart (turns to look at my hoard of stationery items). You’ve bought all those stickers and pens and decorative washi tapes over the holiday, now put them to use!

Continue reading →

Hobonichi Flip through 2015 December

February 5, 2016February 5, 20167 Comments

今年開始使用的是1101 Hobonichi的A5手帳分冊版，跟去年的A6比起來空間大好多～終於可以很盡情的大玩紙膠帶以及手繪！當然，消耗墨水的機會也在這極大的書寫空間 😀

Here’s a review of my first month in the Hobonichi A5 Cousin!

十二月開始美國各處都充滿了過節氣氛～我忍不住也做了一個小手繪教學影片，主題就是冬季小插圖!

一開始還不太習慣A5的空間感，空空的位置就拿來填寫每天的晚餐食譜囉！

聖誕節就是要畫耶誕紅啦! 這次顏色下手很重，效果很棒～但是顏料抓皺紙張的悲劇也更明顯…

在台灣的朋友送給我一套企鵝的貼紙～好像是在台中一個以企鵝為主題的畫展所購得，整張貼紙的企鵝系列太可愛了，怎麼能不拿來用光光?

我和朋友在耶誕市集買了一些應景的小盆栽，但我才養他不到兩星期，竟然就乾枯死亡QQ (美國太乾了啦!) (絕對不是自己的錯…)

我很喜歡Unmistakable Creative他們所提出的 15 principles for living a creative life. 其中三項真的很貼切: It’s about showing up when you don’t feel like it. It’s about showing up when you’re uninspired. It’s about staying in something so far past where the average person would quit. 很多時候容易覺得這件事很煩躁就放棄他，雖然他們都是達成目標所必經的過程!