To cut a long story short, I recently walked past Paperchase in Manchester when I was feeling rather... emotional. I went inside to take my mind off things and look at some 70p postcards, and then somehow I accidentally spent nearly £40 on things I'm almost certain I didn't actually need. But they did cheer me up!
My first stop was the postcards. I was looking out for some colourful and inspiring postcards to put on the wall in my studio. I wanted ones with uplifting messages so that I could look up and be inspired when I'm working, as well as some travel-themed ones as one of my goals is to travel more over the next few years. I found a lot that I really liked as you can see, and they go really nicely with the other images on my wall (which you'll see in the studio tour).
Postcards (from top left): Why Hello There Rabbit, Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful, Let's Go, London Town, Rainbow Map.
After a successful mission to find beautiful postcards, I thought I'd grab a few other things that I'd wanted for a while (I did really need cheering up, remember?) so I found a beautiful Butterfly List Pad. I've wanted a list pad with a tickbox for a while as they're much neater than my previous system of scrap paper, plus the feeling of ticking something off a list is always rather satisfying. Then I treated myself to a lovely Blurred Floral Pen to write notes with.
By this point, I really should have gone to the till, but I found myself wondering upstairs to the art supplies. That's where I found the lovely Creative Coloring Inspirations by Valentina Harper. I've been thinking of getting a colouring book for grown ups for the longest time, and I thought this one would be perfect because it has positive messages throughout. I'm hoping that colouring in the beautiful illustrations helps me relax and at the same time help me think happy thoughts (something I desperately wanted at the time).
The biggest spulrge happened when I went over to the photography books and found Seaside Polaroids by Jon Nicholson. I hadn't planned on buying a book that day, but this one just spoke to me - I actually have a specific shelf for Polaroid books in my collection, I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to them. This book is pretty much what it says on the tin: some nice Polaroid pictures taken at the seaside, and fills me with a sense of nostalgia and wanderlust at the same time.
Anyway, I think the moral of the story is that I shouldn't be left in a shop unsupervised when I'm in a delicate state of mind.
For some reason I couldn't find the books on the Paperchase website, so I've linked to Amazon instead. Hope that's cool.