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When it comes to my stationery shopping or collection gathering, I am no longer going to make any solid promises. I am not going to say (yet again) that this will be the last purchase or anything like that. I just keep proving every time that I can’t stick to any of these ridiculous declarations. I will never stop collecting the things I love. So, now we’ve come to yet another blog post about my stationery/office supply (sort of) hoarding. Instead of making a bunch of little, meaningless posts each time I get something, I am just going to throw everything I’ve gotten so far this year into one medium-sized post… because this is getting a little out of hand, & I am happily spinning out of control.

I might have mentioned a long time ago that I’ve got a quirky collection of nearly 300+ postcards that I’ve been keeping since I was a young teenager. I recently purchased a few more postcards that I’m planning on not keeping for my collection, & will actually be using them to write messages to friends & family. Not all of these postcards are the kind I’d like to keep for myself. Some of them are formal enough for me to be able to turn them into greeting cards for friends.

Jian is not happy about this, but I keep filling my pen case, Leroy, with more writing tools. Yes, I have way too many pens, but I actually use them more often than not. I use all of my writing tools. I don’t collect them for no reason; that would be a terrible, frivolous waste that I would never condone. I use all of my writing tools on a day-to-day basis, making To Do lists, marking appointments on my home calendar, making craft projects, writing everyday sticky note reminders, etc..

Then, when I find a brand of writing tools that I really love, one that writes well & does not ruin your paper, I will truly invest in it…which means I’ll buy the same pen in all of my favorite ink colors. Very rarely will I buy any pens in an ink color that is not useful in an everyday scenario (i.e. white, gray, lime green, powder blue, or anything metallic). I like to choose colors that are vibrant & will be easy to read when writing. The ease of use is also important when selecting a good pen. I like pens that are smooth when writing & don’t skip, bleed, or scratch the paper.

This is why I’ve recently chosen to invest in the Pilot brand’s series of FriXion writing tools. I have a full set of their felt tip colored markers. I keep a pair of their retractable ball knock gel ink pens in my purse, & now I’ve gone on to invest in their series of color pencil-like pens. I haven’t purchased all of the colors in this pen series, & I don’t think I plan to do so either. (I really do not need 4 different shades of orange pens.) However, I did get all of the colors that I think will be useful in my everyday writing.

My photography skills are horrible. This photo does not properly show the pens’ true colors.

I have a Japanese masking tape hoarding problem. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve gone on to start a second storage box to contain all of my washi tape rolls. I keep on telling myself that I don’t need any more decorative masking tapes, but it’s so hard to stick to my own words when Japanese office product companies continue to make the most cute/adorable/eye-catching products that draw customers in every time.

Of course, I don’t just collect these tape rolls for the hell of it. I do actually use these tapes in my everyday life. I put decorative masking tape on all of my travel luggage, so I can easily identify my suitcases whenever I travel abroad. I also use these tapes to make labels for basic household items like spice jars & miscellaneous kitchen containers. I have also used these masking tapes to decorate my wireless Apple Airpod earphones (so I can identify which is the left ear & the right ear).

I recently got more of these decroative washi tape rolls, but out of the vast selection of tapes they had at my favorite store in my local Japantown, I tried to be very selective in my purchases, choosing styles that I would use often & did not look too kitschy. Of course when I saw the fox themed tape roll, I did a little happy dance in my head. Also, I just could not resist the sexy nurse lingerie themed tape. It’s super duper cheesy, but I have a thing for frilly, lacy, racy lingerie. As for the food themed tapes, well, I really enjoy eating Japanese snack foods & pub/grilled food. Lastly, I am trying to branch out & play more with glittery/metallic craft products. I didn’t like to use them in the past because glitterized crafting supplies tend to be very messy (as in the glitter gets all over everything & is hard to clean up), & metallic items (like masking tapes & stickers) don’t adhere well to one’s crafting projects.

I’m going to continue with this subject, but switching to a sub-topic…masking tape accessories, more specifically, tape cutters. So far, I have been using the old fashioned traditional route & using a pair of generic scissors to cut my decorative tapes. I’ve got a lot of cute washi tape dispensers saved on my Etsy favorites list, but I have never actually pulled the trigger, so to speak, & bought any of them.

I am not much of a fan of traditional tape dispensers. In my opinon, they are bulky, clunky, & they take up too much space if you want to neatly store them away. I don’t like having too much clutter on my work desk, even though my desk is cluttered right now, & I don’t like having too many office tools sitting on top of my desk. So, this is why I have invested in a few rather discreet tape cutters. I bought two types, & they both easily fit in my craft supplies storage box, Trevor. One of them is by the Japanese brand Kanmido, called the Maco tape cutting pen. The other is a Karu-cut tape cutter clip by another Japanese brand called Kokuyo.

The Kokuyo brand tape cutter clip is the most convenient & easiest to use crafting tool I have ever used. It’s very clear & obvious to see that you clip the cutter on to any roll of decorative masking tape (I’m pretty sure you can use this on other forms of adhesive tapes as well). There are two sizes (& various colors) to choose from, & I chose the larger of the two sizes since I have a few odd sized rolls of decorative tape that are not standard sizes. The larger tape cutter allows me to cut any of my rolls of tape without me having to buy different tools for one type of usage.

The Kanmido tape cutting pen, however, is more complicated to use. I will admit that this was a completely impulsive purchase. I saw it & instantly thought it was so cute. I barely skimmed over the information written on the front of the packaging. I took one look at the name of the product on the front of the package & threw it into my shopping basket straight away. It wasn’t until I got home & thoroughly read the packaging & instructions when I found out there’s more to this product than simply cutting masking tape. There’s some work involved in using this tape cutting pen.

I am calling this product a pen because it has a pen-like shape, & it is a compact product meant for office workers & students to be able to throw into their pen pouches in their breifcases or school book bags. How it works, & this is where the more complicated part comes into play, is that this tape cutter is only meant for you to cut small amounts of tape. It’s designed so you don’t have to carry whole rolls of masking tape in your bag, you can carry a small sample of your favorite masking tapes all in this one pen-like device, & you can also carry multiple sample rolls of different tapes. It’s kind of a hassle to have to make your own sample roll of washi tape to put inside this device, but this will be a lot easier to carry in your bag than a whole roll of tape, & you can easily switch your tape rolls if you buy extra roller guides, so you can have a variety of tape designs at your disposal.

Ok, I am now going to blame Jian just a little bit for what I’m about to say next because he encouraged me to do this. Yes, I said it. Jian encouraged me to buy more pins to add to my fast-growing pin collection. I didn’t go hog wild on pin shopping like I did when I went to Las Vegas for the LV Comic Con, but I did get a few cool pins along with one iron-on patch (to decorate my colorful backpack with). I also purchased a minimalist storage box from my new favorite office goods shop in Downtown Los Angeles called Hightide Store (not to be confused with the L.A. bar & café called High Tide), & of course I had to give this new storage box a name, just like I do with all of my other inanimate objects. I named this little white box Franklin. I think ‘Franklin’ is a fun name.

Some of my pins & patches were purchased at my favorite coffee roaster’s shop, Verve Coffe Roasters, when the two of us set out to satisfy our caffeine craving. First of all, Jian & I are coffee addicts. Well, I am a bigger coffee addict than Jian is. He can go without coffee from time-to-time, but if I skip even one day of drinking coffee, I will experience the usual withdrawl symptoms… mild headache, yawning all day long, etc.. We both enjoy a high quality coffee bean roaster, especially if they hail from the Bay Area region of California (our home region), & Verve Coffee is originally from the city of Santa Cruz (not near, yet not far to where we live).

We love visiting one of Verve’s coffee shops whenever we’re down in Los Angeles, since L.A. doesn’t really have any coffee roasting companies of their own. I picked up one of Verve’s Tokyo pins as an homage to both of my familial backgrounds. I have roots both in California & in Japan, & I love the fact that one of my all-time favorite coffee roasting companies has branched out to my dad’s home country.

You didn’t expect me to post a stationery haul without my sticker purchase, did you? Well I kind of cheated a little & had bought these stickers over the Christmas holiday time, around the time when I bought my new calendars for 2019 (which I’ve chosen not to include in to this post). If you can zoom-in to the inserted photo below, you can see that I’ve already started using these stickers. I couldn’t resist.

Most of these stickers I bought for the specific purpose of making & decorating birthday cards. I have got a lot of extended family members & friends who have birthdays pretty early on in the year, so I’ve already been making greeting cards & sending them out.

I don’t really have much to say about these stickers. They are pretty generic everyday stickers like candies, hearts, & “Happy Birthday” banners. When I was shopping at my all-time favorite online Japanese retailer, I had a hard time whittling my shopping cart list down to just a few select sticker themes that I knew I would be able to use in a multi-purpose format. I wanted to grab all of the stickers, but after a long, internal debate, ended up choosing the ones you see in this photo below.

We have finally reached the end of my haul post & my final purchase, which I believe is a very practical office product. I got myself a folding metal book rest. I’ve been looking for one like the one I just purchased on the internet recently. I have recently been doing more paperwork at my job which requires me to copy a lot of documents & templates onto the computer, & having a book rest to prop up my papers is very handy. I also like the fact that my mom can borrow my book rest (any time she wants) so she can use it to hold her super thicc, large piano book. She’s been looking for a book stand for a very long time that can sit atop her baby grand piano, & also prop up her heavy piano book without the bottom lip of the stand to cover the bottom half of the sheet music. The book rest I got has skinny arms that can easily hold the pages in place without covering up a lot of the book’s pages. It’s also sturdy enough to hold the weight of my mom’s heavy piano book. Ilike this book rest as well because I can also use it to prop up my tablet when I am following a cooking recipe, or if I’m watching a movie while taking a bath. This book rest was a little more expensive than some of the other cute ones I found on Etsy (& definitely better looking aesthetically than the ones you’ll find at the big box office supply chains like Office Mad & Staples), but it is worth every penny. I am definitely going to be getting a lot of good use out of this product from now on.

Well, this is officially the end of my blog post. I am running out of things to say. Oh, wait. I have one more thing to say, but I am not going into detail about it until my next blog post, which will be posted very soon. I’ll just give you a teaser of this new annoucement. I got an eary birthday present from Jian over this past weekend. My birthday isn’t until the end of next month, but since we’ll both be extremely busy within the next couple of weeks, Jian decided to gift me my birthday present early. In fact, I am using it right now as I am typing this blog post to you. I will end by saying I am completely in love with this new item, & I am so incredibly grateful to Jian for such a generous gift. It’s very over-the-top, but since I’m already using it, I guess it’s also quite practical. So, until the next post, cheers!

Today’s song of the day: