this clipboard company should put julie on commission

One of my primary sources for snail mail pals is Penpal of the Week.com. It's run by Julie, the same woman who's behind the Etsy store La Papierre, one of my favorite sources for stationery. The site is about 2/3 ads from people interested in snail mailing--I was interview #70, you may recall--and 1/3 regular blog: posts about Julie's life and work, announcements of new products in her shop, etc.

Last week she did a post about her work space, which was fun. I always like seeing the work spaces of other creative people. And at the end, she had some photos of a storage clipboard that I and 20 other people were immediately like WANT WANT WANT. She bought it at Staples, but for some reason the closest Staples to me is in Alexandria, nearly 80 miles away. But there is an Office Depot in Lafayette, and I figured even if they didn't have the exact same product, they'd have something similar. (As it turns out, they had the exact same product.)

closed clipboard, originally uploaded by pinstripe_bindi.

The top is a clipboard with a nice faux leather surface that isn't too soft to write on. I like the reinforced corners as well.

open clipboard, originally uploaded by pinstripe_bindi.

There's a very decent amount of storage inside. Left side is letters to be answered, stamps, and sticker seals; right side is loose stationery (anything that didn't come in a boxed set or a tear-off sheet book) and a stash of photos to send with letters.

locking clipboard, originally uploaded by pinstripe_bindi.

And it locks! That appeals to the part of me that is eternally a 16-year-old girl. Although actually I never keep it locked, my correspondence isn't private. (I also leave my journal lying out in plain view in the room where basically my entire family uses the computer whenever I'm not in the house. Don't come crying to me if you read something meaniepants about yourself.)

So yeah, this is my new favorite thing. I can write letters from anywhere with it, I can take it with me on trips or just downstairs. I can see it coming in handy during the holidays, when I want to write letters but don't want to hole myself up in my room while family I only see once or twice a year is downstairs.

And if you're wondering where my fountain pens are, I've been keeping them in a Japanese fabric roll case. It holds 9 of my pens, and would probably hold a dozen thinner pens.