A few weeks ago The London Parchment turned a year old. First and foremost thank you so much for sticking with me! I’d like to use this post to pick out a few brief thoughts I have of the year gone by and to revisit some of my favourite photographs. There are links dotted throughout for you to check out if you joined me somewhere throughout the last 12 months.

The London Parchment has definitely narrowed in focus over the year from a fairly wide-ranging catch all of my interests to mostly being dedicated to two in particular: stationery and the built environment.

I’ve tried out workshops in brush lettering and calligraphy over the last year and they’ve certainly stuck. I’ve been exploring the use of brush pens and working on my lettering style which I’m genuinely really proud of and continue to do very regularly. Other than that I’ve really developed an interest in using wooden pencils over the year that I didn’t have before starting this blog. I don’t think I appreciated the versatility of a simple pencil before seeing how many reviews are out there, understanding the cult status of some brands and above all, trying them out for myself. I’ve also decided to save my pennies and splash out on a couple of expensive (for me) fountain pens including the Karas Kustoms Fountain K and a TWSBI 580 AL, and I’ve also had my vintage Parker 45 refurbished. Using fountain pens more regularly and finding great combinations of ink and nib have been delightful for me. I think generally what’s really changed since starting this blog is my enthusiasm for stationery and my appreciation for the creativity that is out there when it comes to using these tools. I’ve learned a lot! Some of my favourite posts include…

• My roundup of stationery shops in Amsterdam. Writing the blog post was as fun as visiting the shops and the city themselves
• I wrote a review on my Diamine Claret ink. When I say “wrote” I actually mean I wrote it by hand, and this post is all photos of my written review
• I gave you all a sneak peek into what you can usually find in my notebooks when I showed you a Moleskine cahier that I’d recently filled up

 

Also, a fair few of my posts have been about travels I’ve been on or particular experiences I’ve had. I really enjoy writing about this subject because I usually get to write a stationery planning post for the trip and I enjoy rounding up my thoughts from travelling or from taking in a bit of culture. Here are some of my year’s travels and visits:

• I visited Annie Leibovitz’z “Women” photography exhibition in a real treasure of a venue, London’s Wapping power station
• The #yellowbluepink room in Euston’s Wellcome Collection was a bit of fun
• My five-part series of stops I made in North America was really fun to reminisce on and you can find them all nicely organised in their own section on the blog now
• The Serpentine Pavilion is an annual exhibition in Hyde Park (which is just up the road from where I work now) which I visited last year. I’ll soon be posting about this year’s Pavilion.

I think I’ve come on leaps and bounds with my photography and I’m still learning. I think a lot about my shots now! Personally I can really tell the difference between early shots on this blog compared to much more recent ones. You can have a look at some of my favourite photography heavy posts – here in my 2015 Autumn roundup post and here from my trip to Kew Gardens.

Lastly I’ve been communicating and working with some really interesting people. It sounds cliche but it’s great to be part of such a friendly community and I’ve really enjoyed starting up a dialogue and learning from fellow-minded people out there. To that end I’ve even been featured on a few other great websites:

• Owl Ink wrote a photo printer review after I reviewed the Polaroid ZIP and I received a very kind reference and mention
• Jenny and The Finer Point and I reviewed the Hightide Pen Roll together
• Tony and Dan at Pocket Notebooks featured me on their “Getting to know…” series. I’ve been getting to know their Pocket Notebooks stock pretty well myself
• CartoGraphite used my stationery in Amsterdam post to add their first Netherlands listings to their stationery map

And last but not least I got engaged! (Not blog related, but still very exciting).

Thanks for sticking by me as The London Parchment unfolds! I’m really enjoying it. I’m always interested in collaborating with other bloggers, websites, brands… if you would like to chat or work together please get in touch with me. Here’s to many more years!