I am Ivy, and I have been the person quietly rearranging her desk instead of finishing the book on it for about as long as I can remember.
Bookish Muse started because of a shelf. I kept buying stationery in ones and twos, a pen here, a set of stickers there, and none of it ever went together. What I actually wanted was for someone to hand me a box where everything already matched, so I could stop deciding and start using it.
Nobody was making that, so I started making it.
How a box gets built
I pick one palette and work inside it. A notebook, pens that feel right in the hand, bookmarks, stickers, the small pieces that make a corner of a room look like a reading corner. Then I take everything out and put half of it back, because a bundle that tries to include everything ends up feeling like nothing.
The mystery boxes work the same way, except you pick the color and I keep the list to myself. Fifteen things, chosen so they belong together. You find out what they are when the box opens.
Why the boxes are never identical
I work in small runs with what I can get my hands on that month, so colors and patterns shift a little between batches. Your box will not be a photocopy of the photo. I think that is the better version. It means nobody else opens exactly what you opened.
What I care about
Things that get used. I would rather send you twelve pieces you reach for every day than twenty that sit in a drawer looking pretty. If something in your box does not write, does not stick, or arrives broken, tell me and I will make it right.
Thank you for being here. Go read something.
Ivy