❧ Filled Notes: 2025 ❧
My 2025 has proven interesting and my use of Field Notes has accelerated.
Why do these images look strange and low-res? That's on purpose. They've been dithered so that they load more quickly and have a smaller carbon footprint. Plus it looks cool. Thank you to Dither Me This for the dithering!
Underland (Center Panel)
Start to End: December 26th, 2024-January 26th, 2025
Use: Journal
Notes: I really like to end and begin the new year with portal-themed books, apparently. (See the first and last notebooks of 2024 for example.) This was one that I had in my "treasure box," so glad I got to use it.
Kraft, Left-Handed, Modded with Draplin stamps, signed by Aaron Draplin
Start to End: January 26th–March 3rd, 2025
Use: Journal
Notes: This one is of course special to me. It's my first left-handed Field Notes, which is an experience I can take or leave. I'm so used to using stuff made for right-handed people that stuff made for left-handed people feels weird to me much of the time. I ordered the Thick Lines set of Cinderella stamps off Aaron Draplin's site when I purchase Turquoise Tribute in December 2024. These two earthier ones seemed like good candidates for a kraft book. When Aaron visited Ann Arbor in February, I got to spend much of the day with him and it was a total delight. The last two things he signed for me that night were two of my notebooks. He didn't say anything, no doubt because he was totally exhausted, but I like to think that I noticed him pause for a second before signing it, taking in my tasteful stamp placement. :P
Deadest Print, "Pretty Much Everything" cut, heavy foil
Start to End: March 3rd–March 29th, 2025
Use: Journal
Notes: Pretty straightforward journal usage.
Vignette, Green, featuring Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Start to End: March 30th-April 19th, 2025
Use: Journal
Notes: I chose this Vignette because it was like the bright green of very early spring that emerged on the trees right as I finished this book up. I didn't have an idea of what I wanted to feature on the cover and so looked through my stack of old postcards. This portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a postcard that I think I picked up at the National Portrait Gallery in London almost a decade ago. It really was just the image that looked the best inside the hole, but I was pleased to be carrying STC around for a few weeks. The image on the back is a picture of the 10 of Swords I took with my phone and printed out with my Polaroid Hi-Print photo printer. The card looks dire, but to me the 10 of Swords always means: "Stop overthinking things." A reflection of some emotional struggles and breakthroughs I had while filling up this book.