Hobonichi, Traveler's Notebook, FiloFax and Roterfaden Comparison

 At long last, it is time I do a full current planner system comparison with all the ones I have currently. Everything here is my own opinion and I purchased all of these for myself to use for different things.

I do hope to try out other planners in the future so please look forward to it in the future!

Starting with Hobonich Techo which is a planner from Japan, they have daily planners, weekly planners, 5-year planner, day free options, and plain notebooks. I use the weeks (weekly planner), daily planner in A6, day free and plain notebooks. The weeks is a great portable size with the left side of the page with the horizontal view of the week and the right side for notes. The daily planner and day free has quotes on the bottom of every two pages but it doesn't feel like its taking up that much space, unless you want to fill the whole page with writing. The plain notebooks are spilt into four different colors for you to organize your notes. Out of all of these I will continue to use the weeks and Hobonichi plain notebooks in both A6 and A5. The paper is fountain pen friendly which is geat for anyone that loves to write with their fountain pens everyday.

Out of the all the planners I own the Hobonichi does not allow you to easily switch paper or page type unless you switch completely from one notebook to another. However, Hobonichi does release amazing covers each year which add a lot of personality to your journal and planner and comes in a large range of material and designs that look stunning! The covers also have pockets and compartments to hold your stickers and washi tape samples. Hobonichi for me works great especially as a daily journal.

Traveler's Notebook is made by Traveler's Company formerly known as Midori. It is a multiple notebook/insert system that is kept thin and portable by holding the inserts in place with bands that are located in the middle of the leather cover. Traveler's Notebook comes in two sizes, regular and passport, both which I use for completely different things. 

The Traveler's Notebook gives you a lot of room to be creative because you can control the paper you use, the order you place your inserts and even how the cover is decorated with charms and paint! This system is the most portable along with the Hobonichi weeks, however the regular size is taller. The Traveler's Notebook for me works great as a list holder and a traveling journal.

Roterfaden is a German brand that makes high quality organizers. It comes in A5, A5 slim and A6 sizes and is made to hold full notebooks using sturdy metal clips. I only have the olive 2020 A5 which feels velvety and can hold full A5 notebooks by playing the clips in the middle of the books however having large notebooks in here makes it the heaviest system. 

Like the Traveler's Notebook Roterfaden gives you the freedom to make it customized how you like it which your choice of paper, notebook and inserts. Roterfeden however, has pockets in the front unlike the Traveler's Notebook where you would have to get it added by a shop. Roterfaden also is very minimal and there isn't much you can do to the cover itself so for me this is great as a tracker for all my stationery and indoor gardening.

FiloFax is a United Kingdom brand organizer that uses rings and has a large range of sizes such as mini, pocket, personal and A5. I got a personal size however I only use it for sticker sorting. FiloFax does have inserts and yearly diary setups but you can customize it using a hole puncher and whatever paper you want. 

With a hole puncher you can control what kind of paper you can use, make your own dividers and so much more. A hole puncher is useful if you want fountain pen friendly paper since many inserts are not great with fountain pen ink. For me the FiloFax is great for holding and organizing stickers and small items to decorate in the future.

Price wise Traveler's Notebook is least expensive followed by FiloFax, Roterfaden and Hobonichi being the most expensive. This can vary if you don't buy a cover for your Hobonichi or buy a limited run version of any system.

Overall I believe that anybody can make a system work for them with the right notebooks, paper and personalized inserts and add-ons. 

How I Organize my Stationery (NYC Apartment)

Happy 2021! Tsubaki here and with the answer you all been waiting for, how do I organize everything!

I lived in NYC my entire life and throughout the years learned to condense my collection and magically get it to fit within one room. In this post I will breakdown the layout of each section of the room I place my stationery in. I place my stationery in four sections which are: the cart, my desk, the side table, and the archive basket. 

Cart: The cart has three tiers and I bought this from Micheal's when it was on sale a while back. The top tier has all my Hobonichi planners and covers, the sketchbook I am using, my personal FiloFax, and my olive Roterfaden. Two small keychains and my tripod are also in here. Occasionally I stick my pen rolls in here too. All of these are used daily or at least once a week so they are here for very easy access. 

The middle tier has all my Sentimental Circus pencil cases with all my pens, markers, and lead pencils which I covered in a previous post.

The bottom tier has all my ink bottles, a vanity that has all my fountain pen cleaning supplies and ink samples, some fountain pen cases, my watercolor tin, and my Chic Sparrow passport notebook with watercolor paper.

Attached to the cart are washi tape I use to pack stuff I am selling, a stapler, and an organizer with random stuff I need.

Desk: On top of the desk is my Winnie the Pooh pen cup with tools and paintbrushes and my wooden toolbox with washi tape, clips, deco tape, Nichiban tape, and few other things and a small leather card holder which has store and artist business cards. I will review this toolbox hopefully soon!

Inside the main part of the desk is a small plate of washi tape I use often in my planner, ca.crea notebook refills, all my Traveler's Notebook refills, my Fullmetal Alchemist book pouch with laminated inserts and art paper, and all my Sentimental Circus paper and plastic tapes for friend mail. 

Side table: The side table mostly has my printer, my vintage organizer I bought off of Etsy, my letter set collection, sticker collection, stamp tracker notebook, and washi tape tracker notebook. The vintage organizer has all my wooden stamps, Tsukineko VersaMagic Dew Drop ink pads, some other stamps like my Sentimental Circus stamps, MD notebook refills, cute paper for journaling, clip book for orders, Traveler's Notebook inserts I am using for my postal stamp collection and other things I don't want to carry in my leather cover, my old 2019 Hobonichi weeks for ink swatches, and my blog ca.crea notebook. 

These cups have whiteboard markers and colored pencils.

Next to the printer are file holders with my letter set collections, sticker collection, letter sets I use for mail, two Hello Kitty notebooks for my stamp, and washi tape tracking. There is also my Delfonics pink pouch holding refills for my work FiloFax and laminated papers for my personal FiloFax. 

Archive bin: This is a Hello Kitty canvas bin I bought a while back. It is super heavy with folders with important documents, my postcard collection, artists prints I switch out every now and again, two Traveler's Notebook binders, my first ca.crea blog draft book, my 2020 Hobonichi Techo, my junk journal which I used for 2019 and 2020 and the notebook I used to help me understand minimalism all last year. This bin is next to my PSVita limited editions.

Over time I hope to place the old notebooks in a better place so I can use the bin for refills or all the stuff I have next to the printer. I wish I had shelves to place all the refills and old notebooks on but I do not want to drill holes in the wall! Lack of storage place really puts a large strain on you unless you are constantly decluttering which is still a lot of work.

Hope you all enjoyed this! I can't want to give you all more posts this year. Let me know if the comments on how you organized your stationery. Until next time, stay hype!

Roterfaden A5 Setup 2020

 Hello! Welcome back to another post of me going into further detail of how I have been keeping up with my analogue life. This post will officially be going over my A5 Roterfaden setup! 

Just to get started I did purchase this from Baum-Kuchen and I am very happy I did, they are amazing, very kind and very responsive.

In total, I do have three notebooks, all A5 size. Two of them are Life x Kleid 100 sheets with cream paper and one Kleid Stationery 32 sheets notebook. All of these notebooks I bought from Baum-Kuchen as well.

                                 

The first notebook is in olive and it is used for sketching my current plants and how they perform. I like planting and taking care of plants so this will be my tracker for everything I learned so far. I mostly been using Uni-Ball 0.38 pens in this notebook because of the different colors!

The next notebook is my stationery swatch book and it is also in olive. I swatch my collection of favorite pens, markers, highlighters and fountain pen inks! I love the paper in these because it haven't had any problems with any of the fountain pen inks at all. I don't think I will finish this book soon since I am trying to be very sure about what stationery I do keep for the long run.

The last notebook is my thankful/gratitude notebook. I try to write in it everyday on whatever I am thankful for. I started this in Septemeber and it really has been keeping me thankful and humble especially since COVID is still upon us.

There isn't anything much in the pockets or the zipper pocket in the back besides some pictures, art and a ink swatch card. I feel like in the future I will put a list in the back pocket so I can jot down stationery I am thinking about buying.

That is my entire Roterfaden setup! Honestly this analogue system is great if you want anywhere from one to three notebooks or one notebook and many other accessories that you can put in here. I feel like this is my stay at home analogue system since all the notebooks I use in this is stuff I do at home, like draw my plants at home, swatch stationery and write about what I am thankful for. Hope that if you were thinking about getting the Roterfaden that this will give you some ideas. Until next time, stay hype!