journaling, planners, paper, and the occasional strong opinion about ink

Haul · September 4, 2026 · 9 min read

everything i bought for hobonichi 2027, and why

A no-judgement recap of my Hobonichi 2027 order. Two Weeks books, the whole TSUKI no IRO paper haul, three pocket envelopes, and one panic buy that's becoming a gift.

I bought a Weeks I didn’t want because the one I wanted was gone.

That’s the whole story. Bow & Tie Candy Dream was a panic buy. Starlight was sold out everywhere I looked and I talked myself into Candy Dream in about ninety seconds. Then I found Starlight directly from Hobonichi and bought that too.

So for roughly four hours I owned two Weeks. Candy Dream is going to a friend now, which is a much better ending than the one where I keep both and invent a system for them.

Here’s everything, what it’s for, and where I’m lying to myself. No justifying. It was three tabs and a lot of adrenaline.

the books

Hobonichi Techo A6 English Original, Monday Start — $30.75

This is the book my long distance best friend and I keep together. We swap themes and decorate each other’s pages. A6 is small enough that neither of us feels guilty about a half-finished day. Monday start because the week reads better that way and I won’t be taking questions.

Hobonichi Techo A6 Original Cover, Tragen in Purple — $53.25

Fifty-three dollars. For a cover. Look at my ink collection and then tell me you’re shocked I picked the purple one.

Hobonichi Techo HON A6 English, V&A Series: Vine — direct from Hobonichi

My social media planning book. Content calendar, video ideas, the running list of inks I still owe the swatch book. HON means it’s a standalone hardcover, so it isn’t competing for a cover with anything else I own.

The V&A collab is new this year and Vine is the only one I looked at twice.

Hobonichi Techo Weeks, Bow & Tie: Candy Dream — $33.00

The panic buy. In fairness to panic, it’s gorgeous. Navy with a scattered bow print, the kind of thing you hand somebody and watch their face do something.

It’s going to a friend who’s been circling Hobonichi for a year without committing. She’s getting the book, the clear cover, and a running start.

Hobonichi Techo Weeks, tanakadaisuke: Starlight — direct from Hobonichi

The one I wanted. The reason I wouldn’t settle.

tanakadaisuke is Daisuke Tanaka’s brand. He’s a costume designer and embroidery artist who works in beads, bijoux and lace, all by hand. The cover is a photograph of an actual embroidery piece. A moon, stardust scattered around it, sitting on an ink blue that just keeps going.

Here’s what gets me. The moon has no light source. It looks lit because thousands of individually sewn beads grade the light across it, and that gradation survived being photographed and printed. The stardust is picked out in silver foil stamping, so it’s real sparkle instead of a drawing of sparkle. Tilt it and the whole cover moves.

I’ve been trying to describe this to people for three days and I keep landing in the same place. Somebody handed me a very small piece of the night sky and expects me to carry it around in my bag.

It’s my memory keeping book for 2027, which is new for me. One line a day, ticket stubs, the small stuff I never write down and then can’t remember by March. Feels right that the book holding the year looks like that.

Hobonichi Techo Weeks Cover, Alettone in Gray — $20.25

I bought this to tame the Candy Dream print, back when I was keeping it. Then Candy Dream found a new home and I assumed the cover was going in a drawer, because putting anything over Starlight felt like a crime.

Then I remembered the Alettone has a clear front pocket. It’s a tri-fold soft PVC cover and the front panel is see-through, meant for displaying a card or a sticker. Which means the beaded moon shows straight through it. The art stays visible and I get a snap closure, a pen hook and pockets front and back.

So the panic buy leaves, the cover stays, and Starlight gets protection without losing the thing that made me want it. This is the single luckiest accident in the whole order.

the tsuki no iro haul

TSUKI no IRO is Hobonichi’s stationery line built around the twelve colors they use on the planner bodies. It got bigger for 2027 and I bought most of the paper side of it.

12 Month Index Pockets — $14.25

Adhesive pockets, one per month, in all twelve colors. These go in the memory keeping Weeks for receipts, photos, anything too thick to tape flat.

Translucent Sticky Notes, Tiles — $15.38

The most expensive sticky notes I’ve ever bought and I’d do it again. Translucent means you can stack one over writing without losing what’s underneath. That’s the whole point and it’s worth it.

Bookmark-Style Foil-Pressed Stickers — $11.25

No function. Foil-pressed and beautiful. Next.

Index Stickers — $6.00

These do have a function. Tabbing months in the A6 so I stop thumbing through the whole book looking for November.

the small stuff

Hobonichi Pocket Envelope, A6 — $10.35 Hobonichi Pocket Envelope, A5 — direct from Hobonichi Hobonichi Pocket Envelope, Weeks — direct from Hobonichi

Three pocket envelopes in one haul. A6 for the HON, Weeks for Starlight, and the A5 goes in a book Hobonichi didn’t make.

That last one is worth saying out loud. The A5 pocket envelope is going into my Hemlock and Oak Signature Daily, which I preordered a month ago. Hobonichi accessories are sized to paper, not to brand loyalty, and an A5 pocket fits an A5 book regardless of whose logo is on the cover. If you keep a non-Hobonichi A5, you can raid the accessory shelf too.

Hobonichi Page Keeper, Original / Weeks — $9.45

A magnetic page marker. I’ve destroyed enough ribbon bookmarks that I’m calling this infrastructure.

Hobonichi Clear Cover for Weeks — $7.20

Bought for Candy Dream, leaving with Candy Dream. If you’re gifting somebody their first Weeks, send the clear cover with it. They won’t think to buy one and they will absolutely set it down in something wet.

V&A Jewelry Stickers — a gift from Dawn

Not mine to take credit for. Dawn sent these and I’ve been staring at them ever since.

Part of the Victoria and Albert Museum collab. Illustrated jewelry from the museum’s collection, printed as stickers. Antique, decorative, faintly ridiculous. My whole personality in one sheet, and Dawn clocked that without being told.

Midori MD Notebook Diary A7, 2027 — $12.60

Not Hobonichi, but it rode along in the same cart. A7 is tiny, about the size of a passport photo. I bought it because it’s tiny.

Hightide Plastic Glitter Clip, Pink — $5.40

Five dollars and forty cents for a pink glitter binder clip. It’s going to hold my page open and I’m going to be delighted every single time.

the ink

Lennon Tool Bar Bougainvillea, 30ml — $16.50

The only ink in the whole order, which surprised me too. I swatched four Lennon Tool Bar inks back in August and every one of them did something interesting with shading, so I went back for a fifth. Bougainvillea is a pink and I own a lot of pink. It’s going in the swatch book this week.

what this cost

I got lucky. Atlas Stationers had a 25% off rewards code and I had one, which is the only reason the big order looks the way it does. That order was $267.50 at list and came out at $200.63. Sixty-six dollars and eighty-seven cents off.

Now let me be honest about what a discount actually does to me. It didn’t save me sixty-six dollars. It let me girl math my way into a bigger cart. The index stickers, the foil bookmark stickers, and almost certainly the Midori A7 were all “well, with the code, that’s basically free.” That is not how subtraction works. I knew that at the time. I proceeded.

A second, smaller order at 10% off brought five more items in at $45.00, down from $50.00. Combined retailer total: $245.63.

The direct Hobonichi order is separate and I’m not adding those two numbers together today.

None of this is sponsored. I just had a code and no self-control.

the part where i was weirdly organized

Nothing from the non-Hobonichi side of the setup was in this order, because I’d already dealt with all of them.

The Hemlock and Oak Signature Daily is preordered, done a month ago. The Aura Estelle weekly horizontal magnet planner is already here, in my hands, sitting on my desk right now. Both ordered calmly, in advance, like a person with a functioning prefrontal cortex.

Hemlock and Oak Signature Daily, new for 2027, and my first stab at a journal with real scaffolding. Guided goal-setting, a debrief, habit tracking built right in. My brain runs on OCD and ADHD, so a book that hands me gentle structure without nagging is worth a lot. It lands in October, so consider this a hopeful hello, not a verdict.

Aura Estelle weekly horizontal magnet planner, the actual planner of the bunch. Everything lands here in one weekly spread: work, church, personal, workouts, macros. The horizontal layout gives me room to sprawl, which is how my planning actually happens. Habit and goal tracking tucked in too. I plan enthusiastically. Optimizing is someone else’s hobby.

Nolty A5 Log Type, grid, my commonplace book, and the one thing here that carried over from before 2027. I reach for it when the vibes hit, not on any schedule. When something’s worth keeping and doesn’t belong to a day, it goes here: quotes, research, book reviews, weird stats about scary mountains. No takeaways, no hot takes, just the information. Loose by design, and I like it that way.

And then September 1st happened and I bought a Weeks I didn’t want in under two minutes.

Anyway. The 2027 setup is finished. Six books:

  • Hemlock and Oak Signature Daily for daily journaling
  • tanakadaisuke Starlight Weeks for memory keeping
  • Aura Estelle weekly horizontal magnet planner for actual planning
  • Hobonichi Techo HON A6, V&A Vine, for social media
  • Hobonichi Techo A6 Original in the purple Tragen cover, kept with my best friend
  • Nolty A5 Log Type grid for my commonplace book

Plus one I bought in a panic and am handing to somebody else.

If you also bought a duplicate because the one you wanted sold out, you didn’t make a mistake. You made a gift. A Weeks is going out of this house and a sheet of stickers came in, and that’s the part of Hobonichi Day nobody puts in the haul video.

thanks for reading

written with a fountain pen (probably)