Painting your own - brilliant!

Your suits cover is sooo cute ❤❤❤❤❤

I’m getting severe fomo watching this 😂 there’s nothing like ordering directly from Hobonichi. The cover in cover is so adorable!!! The new pens are really nice too. 😞 I guess I still have time to love the video Jas!!

The Suica cover on cover turned out SO GOOD! I love a good DIY moment. I can only imagine the stress of ordering that night. I only wanted one cover (Yumi Kitagishi White Cat Village) and just went through Yoseka for that one. Maybe one day I'll brave the Hobonichi site...I do love this year's Jetstream pen colors. It reminds me of the Charlotte Hornets teal and purple jacket too many of us kids in NYC were rocking in the 90s for some bizarre reason. 😂

That's so smart using a clear cover protector to make your own Suica cover. I've been wanting the A6 one and getting serious FOMO that I'm missing out because it's a physical item exclusive :(

how to join i am in NJ

It was so fun hanging out with everyone!

First: How did you paint the Suica Cover!!!??? I absolutely love that idea and never would have thought of it! I have a ton of acrylic paint pens and would love to paint a “matching plaid” for my A6 Bordeaux/Terracotta (I got the dot plaid cover on cover…and, it’s not a great match or look, and you have inspired me! Did you use acrylic markers? Did you paint the outside of the cover or the inside? Were you able to follow a drawing from underneath, or - really, any suggestions cause I’m painting a plaid cover on cover for that!! I love the color of it, it’s beautiful, but boring…I can’t believe I’ve never seen anyone do this before, what a fantastic idea!!! (You should do a video of it, it will probably go viral in the community! You may have said you were doing that…)

So, I also ordered from the Hobonichi starting shortly after it opened and of course, one of my main items was sold out - plus hamster wheel when trying to check out. But, having seen a few years of these videos, and knowing that the site always crashes at the beginning, stuff always sells out immediately, and then is continuously back in stock, I wasn’t stressed. I was tired and went to bed and ordered the next morning in about 5 minutes, everything was back in stock. It was fun to have the virtual shared experience of ordering on Hobonichi Day! I enjoyed myself, and I love what I got!!

This was my first year ordering from Hobonichi or using Hobonichi as my planning system. I had a Cousin in the past when I first dipped my toes into Japanese planners, bought it in the middle of the year, was intimidated by it, and never really used it (it has since been completely repurposed.) So, because this was the year of Planner Fail and Planner Hoppity Hop and Fail, I just wanted to try things I never had. It took 4 years to realize, but I’m not going to use a full year A5 Cousin style planner for planning. I just use the paper in the back of the SI Common Planner (after 3 weeks of trying in January to use the calendars.) So, I went with the Weeks Mega Japanese (easy to ignore quote I can’t read) for the purse “adulting” planner…saw a great layout that would be perfect for me, I’m excited…got the Mega cause I’m always taking notes and I never think I’ll have enough paper, lol. I got the A6 for a little daily journaling/memory keeping as I’m working on doing daily journaling that is present focused vs journaling for pages and pages about past trauma…I’m trying to associate journaling with more positive in the present moments…the prior style really helped me, but I don’t need that anymore…and if I do, there’s a notebook in a drawer I don’t use to do that, out of sight, no trigger!! I got the A&S (black cover) cause I’m not a fan of the color changes and I like the bigger grids.

I also got two A5 covers, cause I usually use A5 notebooks for different things (I cannot put all the things in one big A5 planner…it’s like using one notebook for every class in school with no dividers. My brain doesn’t work like that.) I only have one A5 cover, and it does its job, but it’s boring. So, I got Frederick! I love him!!! He’s so cute, I love the story, the illustration, the shiny white patent pleather! I need the Frederick pencil boards, so waiting for the October re-stock. Also, I got the A5 (Dark Green) Velluto zip cover over the plaid Tragen…I ordered a Tragen dupe from Amazon to see what they were like, and I hated it. So, I’m going with the zipper…this is coming from Amazon, so if I hate it, I send it back.

So: Sheep Weeks Mega Japanese; A6 Arts & Sciences; A6 Bordeaux/Terracotta cover, Weeks cover on cover that I’m not going to use cause I love the texture of the Sheep…if they get dirty, so be it!. A5 Frederick cover, A5 Velluto cover, Navy Weeks pencil board, plaid A6 cover on cover that needs a different color cover underneath it, the tiny colored sticker dots, the slim index tabs, and…you cannot find these in the US…a Large Drawer Pouch in Bow & Tie ice cream for carrying journal stuff in my purse. It’s nearly big enough that my iPad can fit in it, but has a slim profile. Holds a ton of stuff. I like to do research at the library and this will let me have things I need on the go, and fit in my purse and not be a bulky nightmare, or require me to grab and stuff my backpack. It’s beautiful, I love it. I’ve used the Ane Drawer Pouch as half wallet/half A6 planner holder and the Large Pouch is basically the same only wider and taller (I have a big purse, it’s not a problem, lol.

Love what you got…show us all the pens! Great idea to save one (I also got two.) I love the acorn, but want to find a sturdier thing to hold it on…something. I really enjoyed this and I’m wishing planner success to us all for the next year!!

Also…(maybe I should go back and look at your back catalog…) how do you use the A6 as an ink organizer/notebook, curious about that. I have a good system going…but, another reason to swatch inks is never a bad idea, so I’m curious.