During these bleak times of self-isolation and social distancing, connecting with people is very important. Obviously, going out and seeing your friends and family in person is no longer an option. However, it’s definitely possible to connect with likeminded people through online platforms, such as social media. There are some really good stationery projects or upcoming national weeks that are a great way of connecting with people whilst also practicing self-care. Today, I wanted to share some of the ones that I found and am currently taking part in.
There are a lot more challenges out there, of course. If you find anything you think is worth shouting out about, feel free to drop a comment below and let everyone know. I’ve previously spoken about my own stationery self-care project and plan to share more on that in the coming months.
Starting on Monday we have one of my favourite weeks of the year!
National Stationery Week
On Monday, we will be kicking off the week with National Stationery Week! Yes, a week dedicated to everything related to stationery – for likeminded stationery addicts to come together and chat. Perfect for someone like me!
If you don’t already know, National Stationery Week (or NatStatWeek for short) is a week dedicated to stationery. This initiative focuses on encouraging people to write, draw and just use stationery more. They strongly believed that writing by hand matters – and I agree. I also think stationery is a great tool to help promote good mental health. Using stationery, there’s a huge variety of self-care activities and during these bleak times, a bit of self-care never went amiss.
7 Days Of Stationery
The seven days of stationery are the themed days that they have for the entire week. They have a huge range, allowing you to pick up and use any of your stationery. This year’s themes are:
Monday #MakeANoteMonday
Tuesday #PencilDay
Wednesday #WorldStationeryDay
Thursday #LetsGetCreativeDay
Friday #FountainPenFriday
Saturday #StationeryShopSaturday
Sunday #SendALetterDay
Use the respective hashtag to get involved with the day’s theme and join the conversation. Throughout the week, you can also get involved with the general week’s hashtags: #WritingMatters | #NatStatWeek | #StationeryAddict
Find out more about National Stationery Week here.
Other Stationery Projects
#The100DayProject –
The 100 Day Project has been taking place for many years now. It is a brilliant scheme invented to help encourage people to do something daily, for one hundred days. You can do absolutely anything you want. It is a great chance to get creative and do a hobby or something that you have wanted to do for ages but not had the chance to. You could draw, write, create music. Whatever it is, you decide.
Following the hashtag, you can find many people working on their own projects. It is a good way to connect with the likeminded creatives whilst also practicing your own skills. I do take this project a little less seriously than others do. Personally, I would love to have the dedication to create something and post it up on Instagram daily. However, I know I would struggle with that. So I work on art in my own time and just try and do it daily but will not tear myself down if I cannot manage that. It is not meant to be stressful, after all. It is meant to be fun.
The project officially started on the 7th April. However, you can sign up all year around and take place whenever you want. Just start counting the days from when you start! Find out more here.
The Isolation Journals
This is actually a new project that started on the 1st April, specifically to encourage thirty days of creativity with a prompt. In these trying times, I think the Isolation Journals is a great way to help people get some of their feelings down on paper. Whilst it is a ‘journal’, I don’t think it is limited to writing by any means. You can certainly draw or express yourself through other mediums for some of the prompts.
All of the prompts have been stored on the website so you can go back and start at day 1. Whilst you can do them all daily, which is highly recommended, I actually do it a different way. One of my friends and I call each other and chat before we spend fifteen minutes doing it together. Usually the fifteen minutes go by in mostly silence – with the occasional comment now and then – but it is a good way to stay accountable.
The prompts themselves are rather interesting.
The first one I did actually made me cry a little, writing out to a stranger that I had met once on a train who I never got to thank properly for all that she did. Some are a little harder, such as the third one where I was unsure of what to actually write. However, I did it nonetheless and uncovered some feelings that I did not know that I was suppressing.
The Isolation Journals, whilst is aimed at being a private thing, do provide plenty of opportunities for you to connect with others. There is a facebook group, where people share some of their entries. If you wish, you could always join that to see what others are saying or share your own. You can also do it the way I do and find a friend or a group yourself to journal with and stay accountable with.
If you are interested in finding out more or joining along, check out their website for more information.
Moleskine is a name that most people have heard of – whether or not the individual is a stationery addict. They are a very well known brand in the stationery world. Mostly for their vast range of notebooks but they do have a ton of other products too. In the past, I have tried the odd product of theirs and thought they were decent. However, today, I wanted to share one that I very recently got – and my initial thoughts on it. The Moleskine Bullet Notebook from the Art Collection. This was one of the items from my National Stationery Week package and I am so utterly in love already. Since it’s #LetsGetCreativeDay, I figured I would showcase how I am using mine.
It’s National Stationery Week! Day one’s theme is #MakeANoteMonday so let’s jump right into that! It’s actually interesting to see how everyone is going to interpret this theme. There are plenty of different ways to interpret this. As most of us are restricted to our homes, I thought of some ways for you to get involved from the comfort of your own home! Whilst this theme might just for Monday, I think these ideas are definitely something you can carry on throughout the weeks. They are particularly effective during this period where you might need something to do or a way to cheer up your friends or family.