Duct Tape, yep, there's an annual festival for that!

It is called the Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival. It is held during the Father's Day weekend, because we all know how much men love duct tape. They often consider it an actual "tool" like a hammer or saw! Other than basic carpentry tasks, there are a lot of other fun things to make with decorative duct tape. Covering old books and journals as seen here is useful, quick, and fun. I am not going to list all the things I have seen made from duct tape...like bows, wallets, dresses, necklaces, hats, and a whole array of wild imaginative items. It is pure duct tape madness out there.

Some samples of our tapes in the store right now are candy cane, denim, paisley, polka dots, chevron, gingham, skulls and the linen pattern in an assortment of colors.

It might be time to duct tape something in your household!

Cover your Moleskine and other clever ideas!

While pretty journals and notebooks may come and go, we're big believers in the classics as well. So are many of our store's visitors, which is why one of the most common questions we're asked is, Where do you keep your Moleskines?
A local leather-working company must also have come to the same conclusion, that sometimes it's best to go with what's always worked, when they decided to handcraft these super-durable, amazingly beautiful, not to mention clever, Moleskine notebook covers. They also must have had the die-hard fans in mind, because this design holds all three of the notebooks in the Moleskine paper cover three-pack at once. Perfect for easy organization.

If you're not a paper cover lover, there's also a design for your soft cover pocket sized Moleskine, with slots for loose notes, business cards, to do lists, whatever. These leather covers are the perfect way to protect as well as jazz up your old faithful notebook. We also brought in the accompanying business card holders, glasses and pencil cases, and coin purses from these leather masters.

Isn't Father's Day coming up sooner than you think?

We now know that writing about our personal experiences, thoughts and feelings is good for our health. It is much like a variation of the talking cure that Freud proposed!

As well, expressive writing helps us to cope with stress and improves our memory and sleep! Those who love writing really appreciate our journals. Leather bound from Italy, Germany, India, or locally made, we have an amazing selection.

Digital girl in an analogue world

The first word processor I'd ever seen was introduced to our grade three class. We were told we had to learn to type faster than we could hand write, and as I searched for the right letters, small hands stretched wide across a great expanse of keys upon keys, I wondered how anyone could possibly type faster than they could write on this clunking thing.

Today I type faster than I hand write. And my handwriting is atrocious.

Right now, I'm preparing for a month-long trip wherein electricity will be guarded and cherished as if it were a pile of precious kittens. Read: the laptop shall be used sparingly. I haven't written steadily with a pen on paper since I kept a diary with a lock on it. My grocery lists look like the cat wrote them. I sometimes question the worth of my opposable thumbs.

Enter graph paper, a friend of anyone who was brought up to type rather than hand write. Those neat little squares beg to be filled with perfectly legible handwriting. Also: yellow paper! I will sing the praises of these Rollbahn notebooks for all eternity. Or until I get back to the city to suck up as much electricity as I possibly can.

Along with the Rollbahns, I've armed myself with a couple Delfonics ballpoints—so sleek, so slidey—and some irresistible nautical clips. I count on being thoroughly inspired and struck by bolts of amazingness, since blank notebooks and full pens bring a certain ring of threat—er, promise, to a writer. Anchors aweigh!

Folks, don't try this at home or you'll risk creating excuses like "my dog ate my homework" :)

Yup, with a regular journal, your pages will fall apart when you roll it up, fold it back, open it wide & push it flat on the table. Sure you can use scotch tape to put everything back together (or risk losing the pages and use oft-cited "my dog ate my homework" excuse). OR, you can simply use the Zequenz 360 Roll-Up Journal with its unique glue binding which allows for a complete 360 degree opening with perfect writing comfort in every movement & occasion. Roll it, fold it, open it wide & press it flat on the table, the pages in Roll-Up Journal will stay intact, guaranteed. Sorry, but you simply can't blame it on your dog any longer.

Inside Paper-Ya, a quick journey video inside Vancouver's best kept secret

Enjoy!

What's in your Moleskine? Christian Borku from Barcelona, Spain shows us his

So what's in your Moleskine? Show us like Christian did & yours can be featured in our blog :)

PS: Thanks, Christian!