Pretty things

I was somewhat inspired by this post by a Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life HERE showing the pretty notebook of Queen Charlotte, which she never used.

I use a LOT of notebooks, mostly school exercise books, which I curse gently as I rifle through to find the right one.   So I decided to cover them with excessive and baroque wallpaper...  and then I also got excessive with old desk diaries.

a mix of die cut shapes and stickers... quick and simple but pretty.... this one I'm using largely for those plots that have a series attached, with a month's worth of pages given to each series. 

this diary needed covering, so I used marbled paper, an urn cut from textured wallpaper, and more stickers, a few gems and a bit of pen work.  I haven't put anything in this one yet. 

detail of above.


and not as fancy,but at least now individualistic exercise books.  This is what we used to do at school; or rather, we were encouraged to cover things with either wallpaper or brown paper.  Many of my friends used up old rolls of wallpaper, and I went out to get a wallpaper book from a hardware store so I could colour code all my subjects.  Anally retentive?  moi? 

The one with the William Morris wallpaper contains my notes for 'Lady Molly' stories, following the eponymous detective of the Baroness Orczy.  Jane and Caleb reside in suitable furnishing patterns, and the rather bright orange one is ideas for sequels to 'Friends and Fortunes' on the grounds that Virgilia is best described as 'extremely'.  Add any adjective you like.

Plot ideas and short stories. The plot ideas are just the initial scrawl of a plot bunny as it takes me, and may end up as a sub-plot, or become something more to transfer to the book of series. 

and my first attempts at a Georgian story, 'Milady's Masquerade', notes and the first chapter or so.

the other books are poetry, The Charity School series notes, and weather.  I've been using the Newspaper archive online to find the weather, and currently it's in a notebook in longhand.  I'll be blogging about that too later...