The Paper Trail Club

A support group for women emotionally attached to stationery & those with 29+ projects on the go.

The Paper Trail Club is a very casual monthly creative catch-up for people who own too many notebooks, keep paper scraps “just in case” and feel spiritually connected to Officeworks (or Morning Glory back in the day).

Think analogue hobbies that involve journals, knitting, sketchbooks, fountain pens, collage scraps, sewing projects, postcards, stickers, watercolours, zines and the notebook you bought during a deeply convincing “this will fix my life” moment. Bring whatever creative thing currently has your attention — or come for the coffee, good company and the rare opportunity to sit at a café table without someone asking where their left shoe is.

There’ll be stationery swaps, postcard exchanges, notebook show-and-tells, thrifted craft treasures, handmade zine ideas, seasonal themes, fountain pen testing and very strong “I started this in 2021 and today might finally be its moment” energy.

No classes. No pressure. No need to be artistic, productive or aesthetically organised. Just a table full of creative people making things, chatting, sharing supplies and enabling each other’s completely unnecessary stationery purchases like the emotionally supportive little community we are.

Reserve Your Spot

Spaces are limited (mostly because cafés contain a surprisingly finite number of chairs once everyone arrives with tote bags full of notebooks and fun craft supplies). If you’d like to come, please reserve your spot early so I can plan the table sizes, future gatherings, surprise little member gifts and the general level of creative chaos accordingly. Basically: the sooner I know numbers, the sooner I can start plotting next month’s stationery-fuelled nonsense.

Our Gatherings

First Friday of each month, generally at a local venue in Yass Valley, NSW (mostly Murrumbateman café or pub). We will meet between 10 am and 12 pm. Come solo. Bring a friend. Bring your stationery. Mostly just come, so it’s not me sitting alone by the window with a coffee, seventeen glue sticks and a journal full of half-finished thoughts looking like I’m either writing a memoir or avoiding eye contact.

What To Bring

Bring whatever creative thing currently has your attention or your latest creative hyperfixation. No supplies? Come anyway. There’ll be a communal stash of paper scraps, stickers, crafty bits and assorted creative chaos to rummage through like tiny stationery goblins at a craft market.

Membership Tokens & Gifts

After attending three gatherings, members become officially eligible for a handmade ceramic membership token — a tiny little keepsake for your handbag, keys, journal pouch or pencil case. Think of it like an old-school pen pal club, except instead of sending letters across the country, we gather around a café table with coffee, paper scraps and at least one person saying, “wait… let me show you this notebook.” Membership tokens are handmade in small batches, and each one is slightly different, because frankly, perfection is exhausting, and wonky things have more personality anyway.

From time to time, there may also be surprise member gifts tucked into gatherings — books, postcards, recipe cards, sourdough starters, garden and seasonal treasures, paper gems, stationery bits, little handmade objects or other tiny joys that feel like finding unexpected mail in your letterbox.

Club Rules & General Behaviour Expectations

No making people feel weird for liking things.

If someone wants to spend twenty minutes explaining fountain pen ink, showing you their sticker organisation system or talking about why this particular notebook “writes differently,” that is not only allowed, it is deeply encouraged.

This is not a productivity competition.

You do not need to finish anything. Most of us are carrying at least seven unfinished projects and one deeply ambitious idea we started after watching a single YouTube video at 11 pm.

Absolutely no mean girl energy.

We are here to encourage each other’s hobbies, celebrate tiny creative wins and admire people’s weird little collections — not silently judge someone for using children’s scissors and a glue stick held together with tape.

Please ask before touching someone’s supplies.

Some people’s scissors have survived three house moves, two creative identity crises and a brief scrapbook phase in 2008. Respect the attachment.

You are allowed just to exist here.

You do not need to be extroverted, artistic, productive, witty or “good” at crafts to belong at the table. Turning up is enough.

Enabling unnecessary stationery purchases is part of the club culture.

If someone buys another notebook despite already owning enough journals to document several lifetimes, we support them wholeheartedly and ask to see the paper quality immediately.

Café staff are our heroes.

Please buy a drink or snack if you can and be lovely to the people keeping us caffeinated, mentally stable and supplied with tiny little café spoons.

Creative chaos is welcome. Actual chaos is not.

Paper scraps on the table? Beautiful. Glitter permanently fused into the café floor? Less beautiful. Please tidy your crafty chaos before leaving so we can all be invited back next month.

You are not required to “network.”

This is not LinkedIn with scissors. You do not need a business, a side hustle, an Etsy store or a five-year plan for your knitting hobby. Existing as a creative person is enough.

Nobody is allowed to apologise for their project.

Not for the messiness, the unfinished edges, the abandoned sketchbook, the wonky stitches or the fact you haven’t touched it since last winter. We are extremely pro-making things badly, slowly and for no reason other than it makes life nicer.