2020 Holiday Card Exchange is HERE!

 

Tis' finally here my letter loving friends, our 8th annual holiday card exchange!! You know what that means right...? 2020 is almost outta here!!!

As much as this year has been a real bear (and that's a disservice to bears), it's also taught us a lot of lessons. One of them is that we're realllly scrappy. And that we're a tight knit team.

The most fun part of 2020 for us has been re-launching our YouTube channel and dreaming up fun, inspiring and informative videos for all of you. So...let us announce officially the 2020 exchange with this festive video for your viewing pleasure!

We hope you enjoy it! It certainly brought some joy and cheer to us while making it. And those things are MUCH NEEDED this year.

So why don't we exchange some holiday cards? This year, we've chosen to use one of our new cards of the season, our Cactus Seasons Greetings Sticker Card. Our addressing this year is fun, coordinating with the card to look like a present! As always it will be hand addressed by our in house expert, Bailey Amon Rivera.

Here's the scoop: You add us to your mailing list and send us a hand addressed (practice that calligraphy and handlettering folks!) holiday card and we'll have our resident calligrapher, Bailey Amon Rivera mail ours back from US! Sound like a plan?

 

The details: Mail your card to Bailey at:

 

Antiquaria

℅ Bailey Amon Rivera

5654 S. Prince Street, STE A

Littleton, Colorado 80120 

 

Be sure to include your preferred return address (in addition to the one on the envelope-you know how the mail can be) so that we can mail ours in return! 

We are SO looking forward to hearing from you. Now it will actually be FUN to check the mail:) Yay! Let's make 2020 the BEST exchange yet!

Peace, Love and Letters,

Emma & Bailey

Find us on Instagram @antiquariadesign @antiquariabailey and @antiquariaemma and tag your pics #longlivesnailmail and #antiquariaholidayexchange2020

 

NEW! Sticker Greeting Cards and Sticker Sheets

Howdy! We are thrilled to introduce our NEW collection of sticker greeting cards and sticker sheets. Chock full of colorful designs to stick here, there and anywhere, we just can't get enough! 

It's a card, it's a sticker sheet....it's a sticker sheet greeting card! Fun, right? Cards are wonderful, but cards that also include a gift are even better, so we've decided to blend two product genres that we love and use all the time ourselves. Stickers are designed into BOTH the front and back of the card, so you have even more variety!

1) Grapefruit Birthday, 2) Bandanas for You, 3) Howdy Cactus, 4) Stick Together Cactus, 5) Fruity Happy Birthday, 6) All the Love, 7) Geranium Birthday, 8) Peach Cactus Birthday

One of our favorite ways to use stickers is for embellishing envelopes. They look so cute with calligraphy! They are also great for decorating notebooks and journals. (Hey Antiquaria Journal Club!)

Sticker Sheet | Cactus Correspondence

Sticker Greeting Card | Stick Together Cactus

1) Fruity Birthday, 2) Plant Lady, 3) Special Delivery, 4)Watercolor Cactus Landscapes, 5) Night Cactus

One of the most rewarding things about being creative business owners is seeing an idea come to fruition, and having it ultimately turn out even better than you'd hoped for. Seriously, that's the best! 

xoxo

The Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week Seven

Hey there dear Journal Club friends! We hope you’re still basking in a warm and pleasant holiday afterglow. Did you enjoy partaking in your favorite holiday traditions? Which one did you enjoy the most this year? Maybe you started a new one? We can’t wait to see how you’ve incorporated them into your journal pages!

We are just a few days away now from a whole new year! The stretch between Christmas and The New Year is always a unique threshold of time; the buzz of the holidays is waning, but the anticipation of a new year builds with each sunrise. There’s a sense of looking forward with excitement and reflecting in retrospect, simultaneously. Each passing year seems to approach and fade with a quickened pace. Can you relate to that feeling?? This year has gone by at light speed..seriously, weren’t the leaves just reappearing on the trees? The days are long, but the months fly by! What is a year but a collection of these days, each one holding unique events and memories.

2019 has been a huge year for us. On the cusp of a new decade, we experienced so many firsts. A flagship and new location for our business, Bailey welcomed her first child, our little team grew, we incorporated brand new product lines, and really started feeling our roots settle into our Downtown Littleton Community. This is a special New Year celebration, because it not only marks the beginning of a new year, but really, a new era! A whole new decade. SO much has happened over the past 10 years and we are feeling extremely blessed for everything in our lives up to this point. We can’t wait to see what the next year holds. We’ve got a feeling it’s going to the one of the best yet!

This week we encourage you to look back upon your year with a twinkle in your eye as you recall YOUR very favorite 2019 memories! From the smallest moment to the biggest life event, and anything in between. Whichever things stand out the most to you and bring a smile to your face - journal all about ‘em!!


Wishing you the best New Year ever, filled with all the good vibes and warm memories.

Be sure to join us on Tuesday, January 7th at 11am for our first Journal Club Meetup of 2020!!

5654 S Prince St STE A, Littleton, CO 80120

Happy New Year, Happy Reminiscing and Happy Journaling!!


xoxo,
The Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week Six

It’s HERE - not only another prompt to kickstart your journaling this week, but Christmas is mere days away!! This is a special week of the year, surrounding by anticipation, preparing, and excitement. It’s filled with the joys of giving, receiving and reflecting.

All around the world, the holidays stand out as a time to make memories and share warmth and joy. One of our absolute favorite parts of the holidays is the opportunity to engage in traditions we have, not only within our cultures, but within our own lives and families. Traditions give us a chance to reconnect with ourselves and those we care for. As the years go by, we engage in traditions and as families grow and life changes, form some new ones along the way! How fun is that?

So - what are your very favorite holiday traditions?? Maybe it’s baking cookies and treats to share, or perhaps putting up a tree and rediscovering your special ornament collection as you go. It could be ice-skating or going to see all the twinkling lights. Some people travel to warm weather locations to celebrate, or return to their childhood home. Do you look forward to a gift exchange or writing your holiday cards? Maybe you go to a favorite restaurant every Christmas Eve, or have a specific movie you love to watch. 

Christmas and the holidays can be stressful, but this week we invite you to take some time for yourself, reflect on the heart of it all, and the traditions you cherish. You could make a list of traditions you currently keep and some you’d like to incorporate in the future!

Regardless of how you spend the holidays, we are wishing you THE best one yet, and hope you enjoy every moment of it!!

Happy Journaling, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!!

xo
The Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week Five

A warm winter welcome to you all as we enter our FIFTH week of Antiquaria Journal Club! We've spent the past week dreaming about all of the things that inspire us. This world we live in is a wellspring for inspiration! Did you have a theme come through in your inspiration spread? What was your number one inspiration for the week? 

One thing we tried to keep in mind when reflecting on this topic was the fact that something doesn't have to be monumental or transcendent to evoke a sense of wonder and inspiration. Embracing mindfulness and tuning into more subtle channels of being inspired; It's amazing what you'll find through doing that! 

Something that has inspired endless paintings, poems, photographs, stories and adventures - is something we all experience every day. Maybe some days you revel in its glory and perfection, and other times sigh about its current state. Mother Nature's mood of the day (or hour, especially here in Colorado) - the weather!!

Exchanging words on the weather can be seen as a default topic for a friendly exchange, but there's a reason for that. It's something we all experience and are subject to, and we relate to one another through our experiences of it. We're all for making connections and finding ways to relate, even if in a small way!

Winter is fast approaching and with the shorter days, it's SO easy to default to indoor mode 24/7 - (hellooo there, cozy hobbies from last year!) but the soul needs fresh air! This week we invite you to bundle up and just take some time to experience the view of the sky and the feeling of the air, if only for a few moments - and then share about that experience in your journal, in your own way! It's a quick and easy way to reconnect and recenter. 

Just a few more days until it's officially winter!

Happy Solstice and Happy Journaling! 

xoxo,

Bailey, Emma and the Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week Four

Happy Monday to all of our Journal Club friends! Mondays don't have the best reputation (come back, weekend!) but we're starting to warm up to them, because new Monday = NEW prompt & NEW journal spread!

Can you believe we are already in WEEK FOUR of journal club?? That's a whole month of journaling goodness! It's been such a fun and interesting experience so far, with each week holding its own challenges and discoveries. We hope you are really finding your personal groove with journaling and enjoying the process. After all, that's what's at the heart of this club's intentions! Last week we used alll the verbs, nouns and adjectives to summarize our days, in three words. This week, we'll focus on another word - Inspiration! 

We seek to tune into what most inspires us and sparks that fire within. You could view this as defining what serves as your creative inspiration, what motivates you to succeed, other people that inspire you, a song or a phrase, books, inspiring emotions, thoughts, experiences and beyond. We're excited about this prompt because there is inspiration to be found in SO many places, on so many levels. 

Speaking of inspiration, you all constantly inspire us with your amazing journals! We can't wait to see your latest spreads and share more from our own team throughout the coming days, weeks and months. On that note, we have another awesome thing in the works - Antiquaria Journal Club Meet Up Group! We're establishing a weekly meetup, all about journaling and community. 

Antiquaria Journal Club Weekly Meetup

Tuesdays, starting 12/10
11am-1pm

Antiquaria Mercantile

5654 S Prince St STE A, Littleton, CO 80120

This is a great opportunity to get together, work on our journals and simply enjoy the process in a relaxed social setting. So stop on by and get your journal on with us!

Happy Journaling!

xoxo

Bailey, Emma and the Antiquaria Team

It's here! The 2019 Holiday Card Exchange!

Where has the year gone! Seriously.  2019 has been a crazy year for us - with a ton of change! Bailey had her first child in February and we opened our Flagship store in June! We have also been hard at work designing new products for our next release for January! There's always something going on over here. WHEW!

One of our favorite aspects of the holidays each year is our annual Holiday Card Exchange! Can you believe this is it's 7th year? Have you participated in the past? We absolutely love it!

See 2013's Holiday Card Exchange here, 2014's here, 2015's here, 2016's here, 2017's here and 2018's here.  It is so fun to see your families each year, hear your thoughts and see what holiday cards you picked! And it's fun to look back at all of the cards we've chosen and calligraphy styles & ink colors we've picked! We're always SUPER EXCITED by how many of you write to us! This year, we hope to feature the cards & envelopes that get sent our way in our Instagram stories!

We think getting snail mail is the bee's knees and we have a feeling that you do too! We know it brightens our day. Like, a lot ;)

So why don't we exchange some holiday cards? This year, we've chosen to use one of our new cards of the season, our Lights Merry Everything Card. Our addressing this year is fun, with added holiday light flourished. As always it will be hand addressed by our in house expert, Bailey Amon Rivera.

Here's the scoop: You add us to your mailing list and send us a hand addressed (practice that calligraphy and handlettering folks!) holiday card and we'll have our resident calligrapher, Bailey Amon Rivera mail ours back from US! Sound like a plan?

The details: Mail your card to Bailey at:

Antiquaria

℅ Bailey Amon Rivera

S. Prince Street, STE A

Littleton, Colorado 80120 

Be sure to include your preferred return address (in addition to the one on the envelope-you know how the mail can be) so that we can mail ours in return! 

We are SO looking forward to hearing from you. Now it will actually be FUN to check the mail:) Yay!

Peace, Love and Letters,

Emma & Bailey

Find us on Instagram @antiquariadesign @antiquariabailey and @antiquariaemma and tag your pics #longlivesnailmail and #antiquariaholidayexchange2019

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week Two

It’s officially WEEK TWO of Journal Club! Yay!

We hope you had a stellar experience getting into the swing of things with last week’s prompt!! Seeing everyone's page spreads has been so exciting and inspiring! Taking the time to reflect upon the highlights of our daily lives over the past week has really reinforced all of the wonderful things about even the most average of days - and the fact that there are SO many things to be grateful for. Seriously, when we think about it, the list goes on and on!

As we enter this week of bountiful Thanksgiving celebrations here in the US, we’d like to take some time to further reflect upon those things large and small that we’re most thankful for! From gorgeous sunsets (there have been so many here lately!) to having a loving, supportive family, and everything in-between.

Perhaps some of your highlights from the past week can act as inspiration and serve as a reminder of what’s most important in your life. Holidays can be super hectic and busy, so we invite you to (in between servings of pumpkin pie!) allow yourself some moments to reflect and simply soak it all in.

We are so looking forward to continuing the journey with all of you! This has been such a great experience so far, and we are GRATEFUL for the community of journaling enthusiasts and everyone that supports us along the way in this life - there’s another thing for the list! Wishing everyone a wonderful week of rest, time with family, friends, feasting and journaling!

Happy Journaling, and Happy Thanksgiving!!

xo

Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week One Team Update

Week One is well underway and we hope that you're enjoying the process so far. I know that we sure are! It's been fun to see what everyone in our studio is working on...as well as what Y'ALL are working on!

Before we get to our team member's plans, we wanted to share a couple more helpful tips that have come up this week in the process of diving into our journals...

➺What do you do with the first page??

Usually....SKIP IT! Why? Because journaling is a process and you never know exactly what the journal will end up being. Will it encompass one week or one year? Will it include plans or just thoughts?

If you don't know, then there isn't harm in moving to another page to begin. It can also be fun to skip around - there is NO rule that it has to go in page order!

The first page could end up being a table of contents, a manifesto a summary...or anything else you want! So just skip it right now and we'll circle back!!

➺I want to improve my layout (something is just not quite right) but have trouble seeing where I need to fill in.

The easiest way to "see" your work for design evaluation is to take a photo of it. Luckily, these days taking and viewing a photo is a 2 second process on our phones! Maybe this little trick will be JUST the ticket to helping you finish your page off so you can move onto next week's with confidence.

BTW, this trick works for calligraphy or design as well ;)

Bailey's Plan:

Journal - Midori Traveler's Notebook (watercolor insert)
Journaling Type - Art Journal
Toolkit - Watercolor palette, Calligraphy Pen & Ink, Micron (.01), Stickers, Washi tapes, Rubber Stamps
How it's going - "So far so good! Once I got past making a mark on my page, everything started coming together. I am really liking the way that it's turning out so far! It's kinda addictive and I'm so excited to finish this spread and make more!"

Emma's Plan:

Journal - Strathmore Watercolor Journal
Journaling Type - Art Journaling
Toolkit - Paint and Pencil
How it's going - "I'm still staring down the blank page..."

Sarah's Plan:

Journal - Midori Travel Notebook (watercolor paper and dot grid inserts)

Journaling Type - Art Journal - Primary, Bullet Tracker - Secondary
Toolkit - Collage (printed and painted media), Stickers, Washi tape, LePens, Acrylic Paint, Pencil
How it’s going - "I’ve really enjoyed infusing different elements together to start creating a personality for my first spreads. I’m learning what works best as I go and am find that journaling is a wonderful opportunity to take a few minutes to channel some creative energy. It’s so fun to see the page coming together." 

Grace's Plan:

Journal - Visual Journal by Strathmore

Journaling Type - Art Journal

Toolkit - Charcoal (vine, compressed, pencil), Dot paper, Washi, Le pens, Stickers

How it’s going - "It’s going better than expected! I’ve always struggled with the blank page, but I feel like having prompts and something to help get me started is making it easier. It has been awesome getting back into using charcoal and I’m excited to start using other mediums I’m not familiar with. There is no pressure which I think is the best part!"

Katie's Plan:

Journal - Paper Source Brand blank journal

Journaling Type - Art/reflective journaling style

Toolkit - Le pen, fountain pen, pencil, acrylic paint, washi tape

How it's going - "It's exciting to start, hard to know if it will stay looking this way or transition into something totally new! I've been craving more of an artistic outlet lately so I'm excited to use this as motivational and reflective time to help bring that into my every day life even if it's just a few moments a day."

We are so excited to continue on with our journaling and we hope this week has gone well for all of you! Please tag us if you share your creations, @antiquariadesign #antiquariajournalclub 

See you Monday with next week's prompt!

Happy Journaling,

Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team

Getting Started | How to Conquer the Blank Page

Making the first mark on a page is ALWAYS a super daunting aspect of starting a new journal. Like, for everyone. There's a sense of permanence and a fear of making a mistake. I mean, I've gathered my notebook and tools, it needs to be PERFECT. What do I do? Will it look good?!

Perhaps you're overwhelmed by all the possibilities. We can TOTALLY relate to those thoughts. After all, the blank page equals endless opportunities. Endless opportunities seem great, but giving yourself certain guidelines within to work can actually help you move forward and start using your journal!

Just keep going back to everything that we discussed last week, the selections that you chose and the helpful tips. It's why we laid those out before even starting!!!

Just like building a house or writing a paper, giving your pages a foundation to build upon eases the sense of being overwhelmed and stuck. Bailey started with one element to define her space, some strokes of watercolor. From there, she added in other elements, like date stamps, stickers and written text. Sometimes just diving in with even one element makes ALL the difference!

It's as simple as that! 

Sarah overcame the blank page syndrome by starting with defining spaces for the days of the week. She found a typeface she liked, printed, cut and pasted each day onto the pages. She still has plenty room for other elements, but now has a basic page structure to work off of!

If you find yourself still struggling with the blank page, here are some other things to keep in mind or try:

➤Experiment with formatting

Try using a ruler to draw rough guidelines. You can do this directly in your journal or on a scrap piece of paper! Try sketching light lines and designating visual compartments into your page. You don’t have to map everything out before starting, but giving a rough spacial framework helps SO much. It’s amazing how quickly things start to fall together after you have a general layout, or even just a few marks!

➤Work in Pencil First

You can go back afterwards to fill in with ink or paint, if desired. This takes a lot of the pressure off and gives you a chance to see how something would look in your journal before you commit to it!

➤Do some Research

It helps to see what others have done. Take some time to research inspiration for the type of journal you’re interested in keeping. But be careful, because it can also feel super overwhelming, so keep it simple!!! Choose one or two layouts you like, and incorporate some elements from them into your own page.

➤Be Bold

Sometimes we only make progress by just diving in and GOING FOR IT! So be bold, try something new and learn from the process! If you truly don't like what you make, you can always paste another piece of paper over it!

Have you struggled with the blank page? We'd love to know your own tips for moving past it!

Happy Journaling!

xoxo

Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team 

Antiquaria Journal Club | Week One!

Are you READY!? WE SURE ARE!

It's WEEK ONE (yay!) and this week our prompt focuses on recording the BEST part of your day. Days seem to fly by SO fast (ahem, where has 2019 gone?) that we wanted to start by recognizing the good in the every day however large or small.

This could be your first cup of coffee in the morning, the way the sunrise looked or a job promotion. It could be written or drawn or painted. It could be expressed with poetry or jotted down in a planner. It's up to you!

Don't worry if you're short on time this week (or every week for that matter), these prompts really do lend themselves to simple answers by design. But if you have the time or desire, they can easily be expanded upon as well.

It's week one and we know that starting is definitely the hardest part...making that first mark, word or plan can seem overwhelming. We're all here to support one another and enjoy the process!

We're looking forward to creating with you all! We will be back later this week sharing our team's journal plans with you and an update on how it's going for us so far this week. It will be so fun to see everyone's different ideas and interpretations in their journals! 

Happy Journaling!

xo
Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Before We Dive In...

We don't know about you, but we've had a pretty darn fun week planning and dreaming about our new journal! Maybe you're all set for Monday and raring to go - or - maybe you're still getting your ducks in a row. In either case, we're SO EXCITED that you've decided to join us!

Before Monday rolls around and we kick everything off officially, we wanted to pop in with one last little post about the intentions of the club and some advice about beginning this project...

The Antiquaria Journal Club is meant to help facilitate your journaling journey. There is no right or wrong here. It's all about the PROCESS, not the product. It is not a competition.

We hope to help make journaling a part of your everyday in order to reap the many benefits that it provides. And in the process we hope that you find inspiration and friends near and far.

Our plan is to post a short prompt each Monday morning. This prompt will usually be very simple so that if you only have 5 minutes per day/week to meditate on it, you can still achieve the practice (we know how life goes). The prompts can also be expanded upon and each week we will give you some additional points to tackle if you so choose.

The prompts are just a jumping off point. If you feel inspired to write or record any additional information in the process - that's WONDERFUL! Maybe one week's prompt will speak to you so much that you'll decide to incorporate it into your daily journaling in an ongoing way. That would be VERY COOL.

We plan to share our own journals as well as our thoughts, trials and tribulations with you along the way. And we would LOVE it if you'd share yours with us too so that we can all learn from each other. You just never know when your exact dilemma will help another person push through theirs.

That being said, it is not a requirement to share anything and we hope to inspire you however you decide to follow along. 😀

We're also hoping to have Journal Club meet up's locally in our downtown Littleton, CO shop. So if you're local - please keep an eye out for that!

A FEW LAST TIPS/ADVICE

➤There are no mistakes.

We know that this is a REALLY HARD one to overcome. Fear of making a mark we don't like inside something as permanent as a notebook can deter many people from ever starting.

What's the solution? Easy! Collage something over it! Or - if you are truly paralyzed by the blankness, start writing your thoughts on loose paper. This can very easily be pasted into a notebook and arranged just how you like it after the fact! Just add a little Washi or stickers and you've got yourself a journal spread!

➤You don't think your handwriting is up to snuff.

This is a super common thought - but we're here to tell you that IT DOESN'T MATTER!

What's the solution? There are a few things that can help you overcome this.
1. Practice your handwriting (if this is something that you'd really like to improve). Hey - the prompts could easily become your penmanship practice! Win-WIN!
2. Type out your thoughts and paste them into your journal. As above, doing some of your writing on other paper (typed, written on loose paper) can be a great option for those who are unsure or lack confidence in their penmanship.
3. Don't sweat it! This is the easiest...Just don't worry about it. Your handwriting is uniquely YOURS and is your own personal mark. Don't be ashamed of this. Roll with it!

➤Be flexible.

Sometimes we have an idea in our mind of what we want to achieve but the result isn't exactly what we expected.

What's the solution?  Be generous with yourself and find the areas where you'd like to grow or change. Maybe you find that what you've chosen is too much of a commitment for your current season of life. That's OKAY! Realize this, regroup and make a new plan instead of simply giving up.

Maybe you find that the notebook you selected isn't ultimately compatible with your tools. Despite that this feels like a huge bummer right out of the gate, try using papers that DO work and pasting into your notebook. Or - get one that works better and use the other for a different purpose.

➤Focus on the process

A final product can be very motivating but the process is what this journey is about. If we only worry about how things are looking or how many pages are "done" then we're missing the point.

What's the solution? Use this journaling project as a way to connect with yourself and your own unique interests and perspective. What's happening in your day to day life. Journaling has a way of grounding us and helping us to process our experience. Lean into THAT. It truly doesn't matter if you get one page done a month or 12. What does matter is that you're enjoying the process and most of all, having fun.

What other journaling hang-ups have stopped you from doing it in the past? We'd love to know!

Well folks...That's it! We're ready to go and STOKED for next week!! Are you?

Til Monday,
xo
Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team

Antiquaria Journal Club | Choosing the PERFECT Notebook

Why give so much thought to the tools and style of journal that you'd like to incorporate first? Well...because PAPER IS FICKLE and OPTIONS ARE VAST. 

In our years of being in the paper industry, we know that some papers are great for writing with ball points and some are great for fountain pens but not watercolors. Some are good for watercolor but not for nibs. Some you can see through and some are totally opaque.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg - there are also a ton of sizes to choose from. Tiny ones that fit in a pocket...all the way up to large format journals larger than your head!

Plus, depending on the style of journal you'd like to make, it can definitely matter what type of notebook you select. Picking a graph paper notebook can make bullet journaling SO MUCH easier. And picking a watercolor paper notebook can really help make using mixed media WAY LESS of a headache.

Does this mean that you can't use that notebook you have laying around. HECK NO! Use what you've got and make it work (more tips on this tomorrow) but if you're able or have the desire to purchase a new one, it's worth considering your tools and journaling style before you decide. Make sure that the tools that you use will work with the paper and that they general way that you want to set it up is supported by what's printed on the paper (ie, blank vs. graph vs. lined).

OUR FAVORITE NOTEBOOKS

➤For Bullet Journaling
Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal

➤For Ballpoint Pens & Collage
Antiquaria Jotter Supreme

➤For Calligraphy (Dip Pen & Ink)
Calligraphy Practice Journal (seriously the BEST paper)

➤For Fountain Pen Lovers
Tomoe River Notebooks

➤For Collage and Mixed Media
Strathmore Visual Art Journals
(It's nice to have a spiral bound book if you plan to do a lot of "pasting in" the notebook. That way, it expands and doesn't warp as much)

➤For Reflective Journaling
Rhodia Webnotebook

➤For Large Format Journaling
(ie you prefer writing or working large and need lots of space on the page)
Life Noblenotes A4

➤For Journal Diversity (incorporating many different paper styles)
Travelers Notebook and Inserts

The notebook (or planner for that matter) that you choose to use is as individual as you are. The ones above are just a FEW suggestions in the endless variety to choose from. We can't wait to see what you choose to use for your upcoming journaling journey!

Well folks, that's it! All of the magic ingredients needed in order to set off on the right foot. We're SUPER excited about starting off next week with our first prompt and getting to share the experience with all of you. Tomorrow we will be back with a few more thoughts before the real fun begins. But until then, we're dying to know...

Exactly what notebook will YOU be using??

xo
Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria team

Antiquaria Journal Club | What's Your Journal Personality?

Journaling is SO personal, it's no wonder it comes in so many "shapes & sizes". It's meant to be personal and meaningful, so it's important to pick the style of journaling that appeals to you. Picking what appeals to you and feels right for your lifestyle is an important step to maintaining the habit!

While the list of options is essentially endless, we've narrowed it down to 3 main categories:

➺Bullet Journaling
➺Art Journaling
➺Writing (Reflective) Journaling

One may TOTALLY speak to you, or your perfect journal may include a little bit of each. Read on to find out what they are so that you can make an informed decision...

BULLET JOURNALING

From the creator of the method and book:

"Bullet Journal® (or BuJo® for short) was created by Ryder Carroll, a digital product designer and author living in Brooklyn, NY. Diagnosed with learning disabilities early in life, he was forced to figure out alternate ways to be focused and productive. Through years of trial and error, he developed a methodology that went far beyond simple organization. Now he focuses on helping others learn what the Bullet Journal method is truly about: the art of intentional living". 

"Bullet Journal® is a methodology. It's best described as a mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system. It's designed to help you organize your what while you remain midnful of your why. The goal of the Bullet Journal is to help its practitioners (Bullet Journalists) live intentional lives, ones that are both productive and meaningful".

Source

This system of productivity has become WILDLY popular and an inspiring community on Instagram. It may be for you if you're looking for more organization, record keeping and goal tracking. There are TONS of amazing resources on getting started and layouts to optimize success. You can find a few of them here, here, and here.

Source

ART JOURNALING

Art journaling is a much looser category, incorporating SO MANY different styles and variations.

Some include a lot (or all) painting and some a lot of writing with illustrations to go along with them. We tend to think of this category as a bit of a catch-all for incorporating your interests on the page.

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This method is very therapeutic and there is no right/wrong way to art journal - which is an AMAZING fact! Because of this, this category can feel a little more overwhelming because of the limitlessness. Don't worry about that if it speaks to you! The tools that you chose yesterday will help to make it more cohesive and less overwhelming to start.

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Interested in learning more? Try starting here, here and here.

REFLECTIVE JOURNALING

This is what most of us think of as "traditional journaling" and for those of us that aren't wordsmiths may seem intimidating. It definitely doesn't have to be! And you know what, you NEVER have to show your journal if you don't want to.

Reflective journaling can really help you work through your thoughts or a situation that arises in your life - so don't rule it out - even if you think it isn't right for you.

This style lends itself wonderfully to on-the-go lifestyles because it can be truly minimal and impulsive. The trick is ALWAYS having your journal handy for when a thought pops into your mind.

Interested in learning more? Check out here, here, here and here.

EXCITED to get started? Us too.

Those three main categories should give your something to "chew" on in order to decide what may feel right to you. More than anything, we're trying to help you find your own journaling voice so that you can truly succeed in the journey.

Like we mentioned in the beginning, a combo of these would be totally AMAZING so definitely don't rule that out if they all or a couple really speak to you. It could be SUPER INTERESTING to have an art journal spread with a reflective piece on the next page that delves deeper into a topic in the art or a bullet journal that incorporates a collage style element to decorate it's pages. OR maybe you paint your pages and then you write your reflective thoughts over top. See? SO MANY cool options.

Again, don't let that overwhelm you. Think about the tools you chose as well as the style that fits your lifestyle and don't overthink it.

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So, which style speaks to you? Just one or a combo?

We will be back tomorrow with the last piece of "set up" for journal club, selecting the perfect journal. Until then, happy researching and discovery!

xo,
Emma, Bailey and the Antiquaria Team