I was trying not to buy anything for a while since I bought a bunch of stuff last month, but putting one thing in my Amazon cart becomes an avalanche of stuff from my wish list into my cart.
Youtube can be a dangerous black hole. Once you view a video on a topic, they bombard you with suggestions to related videos on your homepage. I did a search to research some markers I have that I bought years ago. I wanted to see if they were any good. This lead me to videos on Copic markers and comparison videos. Which then lead to videos about water colors. Which for some reason seems to be synonymous with Hobonichi Techo journals. I watched a bunch of those videos. But that also leads to Filofax videos. Which then leads to Midori and Fauxdori videos, that include DIY videos of how to make them yourself. Round this all off, the journaling videos lead to hand lettering videos.
Wow. Before a couple of weeks ago, I did not know there was a full and vibrant community on youtube all about planning and journals. I am now convinced, that if you name it, there is a community of people on youtube making videos about it.
The water coloring videos lead me to buying the Pentel Arts Aquash Water Brush and Pentel Fude Brush Pen. The water brush is at the top of the photo and the Fude pen on the left of the photo. The water brush is one of those things I always thought should be an invention and when I found out it existed, I had to get it. I have water color crayons that I bought back in college, so I don't need to buy anything else, which is great for experimenting. I haven't done any water coloring in years, so I'm not sure I will like the medium.
The water brush came in three sizes. I've tried out the brush in the middle and I'm so glad I bought them :-D. The bigger brush on the end is probably good for skies, backgrounds, or trying to achieve a flat wash. The smaller brush on the left is probably good for finer details and writing. The water brush and the fude brush pen are constructed in a similar fashion.
With both the water brush and the fude brush pen, the part that you grip to use the tool is a plastic container that holds liquids. You squeeze the container to get more fluid to flow down to the brush tip. For the water brush, you may only need to do that when you want to clean the color off and use another color. For the brush pen, you don't need to seem to squeeze it at all. The first time you use it, you need to squeeze it, but after that, the pen seems to keep a constant level of ink. In fact, you can use the water brush as a brush pen. You can use ink instead of water. The fude brush pen is mostly used for writing in Japanese, but I've learned that some artists use it for outlining their artwork. I plan on using it for practicing my Japanese and Korean writing.
The big ticket item that caused me to order all of this stuff was the Fauxdori (the name people give DIY or Knock-off Midoris). This Fauxdori was made by ZLYC. The set had a pen/pencil holder, a passport size journal, and a standard size journal. Both the standard and passport journals came with 3 book inserts that were already piggybacked (a special way to get two books on one string) and setup. I'm sure I read that in the description, but forgot about it, because I felt like it was a bonus! Especially since I learned that my Moleskin notebooks don't fit perfectly in them.
The standard size even came with a plastic insert for holding cards and other items. The side that is not showing is a pocket that runs top to bottom and can hold longer items.
The passport size can kind of hold the smaller version of Moleskins, but they stick out at the top. You can see this in the photo above. The smaller Moleskins are the same size as the Field Notes journals. The green notebook is from a set of books I bought years ago when I was searching for notebooks. I went to a kiosk at the Shops at Columbus Circle that sold all kinds of notebooks, and writing goods. They didn't have moleskins and I was convinced to buy this brand. I only used one of the books and still have the one above and a bigger version unused. The green book is smaller than the ideal size, but I plan on still using it with this journal.
I removed the books that came with the journals because I want to use up what I have first. That was one of the reasons why I bought the traveling journals. I told myself it will allow me to travel with more than one book but in a neat way. I also plan on using the journals as molds for the versions I plan on making myself.
I also bought sporks and RFID blocking slips for my credit cards and passport. I find sporks to be so useful, that I felt it was time to upgrade to stainless steel versions. Especially since the last plastic one I have has a crack in it and will break any time soon. I have two more items that are still in transit: washi tape and a wallet. I actually don't need the wallet anymore because yesterday, when searching for something, I found where I hid my wallets. I thought I threw them all out when I moved to minimize, but I'm just good at hiding stuff from myself.
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