Ideas for Using Your Midori 10th Anniversary Mini Traveler's Notebooks

These Midori 10th Anniversary Mini Traveler's Notebooks and their tin cases arrived in our shop last week, and you can just guess at how excited I was to receive them! It's been over a week now, and every once in a while a customer will ask in the shop - so, how are you using your mini Traveler's Notebooks?? And ...I haven't had an answer. I guess maybe I've been so excited for so long I hesitated to really use them, or choose any sort of purpose for them because I want them to stay all little and perfect - it's like that first line on the first page of a new notebook. However, over the last few days I've been breaking in my new minis, and I've been having so much fun! These little guys are tiny, and I'm loving putting these together and finding just the right use for each of them. There are three different tins, and in each one comes with a different coloured mini notebook. Each tin comes with enough materials to make several little inserts, though, so you can keep using your mini notebook for a while. Of course even after these pages are used up, which I imagine would take quite a while (as I used just one tin's pages to make all three of my mini notebooks' inserts), you can cut pages from somewhere else to use inside your mini. You get:

• some sturdier cardboard notebook covers (darker brown)
• the first cover page, as in the regular size TN inserts (these are really too cute)
• ruled
• grid
• plain
• kraft

It's nice that you get so many sheets, and you can mix and match within a mini-insert as well. You can staple them together, and I even have a mini-stapler, but I'm holding off, because I think I might try stitching them together with a needle and thread. For now, though, the elastic holds in the pages (loose, but creased together) fairly well. One of my Mini Midoris I'm currently using to record little ink swabs. I use a q-tip to make a little circle and then I write the name underneath, and it's just the perfect size to see those little drops of ink. Maybe I'll try to organize myself into creating a rainbow of my favourite inks, but then I'm always adding new ones in, so that might be a bit tricky. My second one I'm using to record inspiration, quotes or things I want to remember. This above was just me messing around with my typewriter, to see how many words it will fit. I'm carrying this one around on my backpack, so I'll always have it around. Little bits of encouragement. And my last one I'm keeping for Caleb. I'm using my somewhat limited artistic capabilities to create a little notebook for him, and I'm hoping to draw animals and dinosaurs and other things for him to "read" and maybe use to entertain him when we're out. He's a real copycat, he loves doing everything that he sees us doing, so we'll see how he likes having this mini notebook of his own. There are just what I'm using them for now! They're very likely to change as I find new ideas for using them, or in different situations. Some ideas I've heard from customers or from social media include:

• address book, particularly if you're traveling and want to keep a few addresses for postcards/letters home - actually this might just be great if you find yourself with a few extra minutes to spare in a cafe and you want to write a note to someone
• recording milestones on a journey towards a goal (e.g. weight loss, achievements), one on a page,  so you can flip through and see when you've achieved something, maybe using an ink circle swab around each numbered goal
• recording milestones of a baby's or child's achievement (date of first tooth, first walking, etc.)
• gluing in precious artifacts, like vintage stamps, or dried flowers
• collecting souvenirs from places or countries you've traveled to, such as postage stamps, or cut outs of ticket stubs
• a little gratitude journal to carry around with you
• a list of books you'd like to read
• calligraphy letters, one on each page, and maybe multiple mini-inserts for each style of lettering you learn

I also strongly considered cutting up some pictures of Caleb I've taken on the Instax, and gluing them in, to have a little mini storybook of Caleb. However, I treasure those Instax pictures pretty highly, and I'm thinking of getting a new photo printer, one that prints photos out from my phone, so maybe I'll still try it! You might notice above that I'm using Jon's Pilot Custom 74 Fine nib - I'm mostly a medium/broad nib kind of person, but of course with these mini-notebooks, it helps to have a finer nib. I do have a Lamy Safari EF nib kicking around somewhere, but the Custom 74 Fine will really be very fine. I know there's some advantages to keeping these special edition items in mint condition, as collector's items, but I figure I might as well use and it and enjoy it while I'm alive. Now that I've broken each of the mini notebooks out of their cases, the tins have all found a new home on my stationery cabinet, housing little treasures and things. They're surprisingly deep, or at least deeper than I expected based on just the photos I'd seen of them. Later this week I'm hoping to do a blog post on what I'm doing with each of them, as well as a few other ideas.

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In other news, we've gone from practically dancing our way to the park in celebration of the new warm weather to wondering if it's just a bit too hot and do we need sunscreen for the little guy and man would ice cream hit the spot right now. I just spent the last hour looking online at shorts and t-shirts for Caleb - every new season it seems we need to buy more clothes for this growing monkey, and I can't stop being astounded at this little human sprouting up before my eyes. Just this afternoon we went out to pick up some popsicles, and we had a mango disaster on the sidewalk. It involved dropped a chunk of mango popsicle onto the pavement and being devastated as a car drove over it. And also sticky mango hands everywhere on my shirt and skirt and arms with no napkins. And also calling Jon from the shop to come and rescue me (and Caleb) from some very bad decision making. From now on, we're only eating popsicles when Jon is around. Or in the bathtub.