Stationery Shopping in D.C. (and beyond✨)
A quick trip to Jenni Bick Custom Journals and Penny Post
Since I’ve gotten into stationery and journaling, something I always ask myself ahead of trips out of town now is: Will there be any cute stationery-related shops around to check out? 👀 It’s a great way to support a small local business wherever I’m traveling, while feeding my stationery addiction—a win-win.
I did a bit of research ahead of time after my husband suggested I tag along on his business trip to Washington, D.C., and found there were a few stationery-related shops in the greater D.C. area, but only two of them piqued my interest. The first was Jenni Bick Custom Journals, which, despite the shop’s name, from online photos looked like it carried a healthy variety of stationery tools and items beyond journals—plus, it was downtown right off of Dupont Circle, so easy to get to. The other shop was Penny Post in neighboring Old Town Alexandria, VA, one of a select number of stationery shops in the U.S. designated as an official partner shop to Japan’s Traveler’s Company brand. As a Traveler’s Notebook user, I thought I could get some limited items and have my TN marked with their custom official TC partner stamp. But given how limited our time would be in D.C., I decided to plan for a visit to Jenni Bick’s and shelf a trip to Penny Post for next time. But, luckily, I was actually able to visit both!
🌊🌊
Jenni Bick Custom Journals
I headed to Jenni Bick’s while my husband finished up his work conference on our last day in D.C. The shop was just a short Lyft ride from our hotel. When I got there, I was surprised at how big the shop is in person—the online photos don’t do it justice. The inside extends from the street entrance all the way to the back, where they had an office and where they do their customizations (when I was there, a guy wearing headphones was laser-focused working on a stack of new custom journals). I spent a good 40+ minutes browsing around the shop, trying to figure out what to add to my haul.
They had so many cute things, including items and brands I’ve never seen stocked in person at other stationery shops like Mofusand stationery, which is a personal weakness of mine (I knew in that moment the budget I had committed myself to was out the door). They also had whole walls of items from popular notebook brands like Traveler’s Company, Midori MD, and Hobonichi (I flirted with getting a sticky notes sheet by Yumi Kitagishi for a bit), and an attractive pen station that included Kaweco Sport rollerballs and ballpoints that I’d never tried before (I almost walked away with a sky blue Kaweco rollerball).
Jenni Bick also had a small corner display for inks stocked with brands like Sailor, Ferris Wheel Press, Dominant Industry, and a few others—it was a decent selection but pretty limited. They had a swatch book of their ink hues, which was helpful, but I wish more shops would let customers swatch inks in person on their own (Yoseka in Brooklyn does this). On the one hand, I get it—people can be crazy when left to their own devices. But I’d like to think stationery people know better than to leave a mess at a little independent store. Besides that, an ink station certainly keeps people in the shop longer, and makes it more likely that people buy ink after having tested it themselves—it truly is different when you’ve swatched an ink yourself versus just looking at a swatch sample! Anyway, I did end up buying some ink since they had sample packs for purchase. The pack included an ink color I was curious about and another recommended by one of the shop’s staff, the Sailor Shikiori Harahara ink. It was a good deal overall, IMO.
Hardcore journalers will fall in love with the wall of beautiful leather-bound journals in the shop, which stores local brand products and store designs. The shop also carries a ton of postcards and greeting cards for snail mail fans; it was the start of the cherry blossom festival during our visit, so the shop showcased a lot of its cherry blossom-themed items. I originally wanted to get something D.C.-specific but completely forgot during my manic shopping—there were just too many things to look at!! Despite my best efforts, I managed to put a decent dent in my wallet by the time I left.
After my spree at Jenni Bick, I walked to Kramers, a really nice bookstore with a diverse selection of books and a small cafe attached, which I’d been to on a previous trip. As I waited for my husband to pick me up from his conference, I did a quick Google Maps search and saw that it was just a little over a 20-minute ride to Penny Post in Old Town Alexandria, supposedly a beautiful area by the waterfront to shop and eat. We needed to eat, and I wanted to squeeze in a stop. Could we do both there? My darling husband, ever the practical one, reluctantly agreed to make the detour to Alexandria before our drive back to New York City. (Thanks, hun!).
It was a little chilly when we got out of the car in Alexandria, but sunny enough that walking by the water was nice. We had lunch at Ada’s since we both wanted seafood and someplace near the waterfront to make the most of the clear weather. It was a great spot! Busy but not too so, nice mix of clientele with good service, and delicious food. We ordered a giant steaming bowl of mussels and sautéed brussels sprouts to share. I’ve never been fond of brussels sprouts, but w o w—the brussels sprouts we had were so good, I would’ve willingly eaten the entire plate of bulbous greens on my own. We then drove to the Penny Post shop, located on the Old Town’s shopping strip and, luckily, found nearby street parking.
Penny Post ~ Traveler’s Company Official Partner
The Penny Post shop is a decent size and very cute. What struck me immediately was their selection of Traveler’s Company products, which lined the entire shelf top-to-bottom of the shop’s TC section. The shop also carries a limited selection of other Japanese brands like The Superior Labor and Delfonics in-store. To my surprise, they had some glass dip pens on display, too, which is pretty rare for general stationery shops. The glass dip pens were not encased behind a closed display like most fancy writing pens are, which made me a little nervous—I get that the Jacques Herbin glass dip pens are pretty affordable as far as glass pens go, but they are still made out of glass?? What if someone dropped them or they got knocked off the shelf? Anyway, the bright side was that I got to hold the dip pens and get a feel for them in person. I’ve been eyeing Japanese glass dip pens online, but have been considering something from J. Herbin for my first one, so it was great to be able to kind of try that out.
I didn’t spot any limited edition items that I wanted in their Traveler’s Company section (like other shops, they were working on opening online pre-orders for the Love & Trip drop) so I just grabbed a few small things: two rolls of washi tape, a coffee-themed notepad, and a small memo book (husband’s pick). When the store clerk rang us up, I sheepishly asked if I could get a stamp of their official TC partner stamp, and she brought it out for me to use. The clerk was very nice letting me do multiple stamps on my TN to make sure I was satisfied with how it came out (the left photo at the top of this post—as you can probably tell, I was struggling with it). Another surprise before we left: we got a freebie sticker sheet they were handing out to customers to celebrate National Letter Writing Month. The sheet (pictured above) was designed by local artist Veetelier. It was a lovely little touch that made it clear they know their customer base well!
And that’s it for our little D.C. excursion. For those curious, here’s my entire haul from the trip:
What I’m enjoying at the moment 🌊
I love to sketch, even though I’m not the best at it, and I’ve been trying to incorporate more sketching into my journaling practice. It’s always easier to do a photo sketch—which is what I usually do—but I’m also trying to create more moments for live sketching, especially as the weather gets nice and warm. We visited the Queens Zoo for the first time a few weeks ago during a really warm day in New York recently, so I brought along some journals and pens for my husband and me to sketch some of the animals while we were there. It worked out nicely; there were a lot of people there, but it never felt cramped or too busy. The zoo itself is quite small but it’s still a fun place to go for couples and families looking for a chill day outdoors—I even got my TN stamped with some of the zoo’s animal stamps available at one of their educational tables (I stamped a hippo and a big cat). Sketching these wild animals in person was so fun, but I will say some of them were easier to do than others because of their, ahem, wild behaviors.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with this curious llama (or is it an alpaca? I don’t know).
Have you had time to space out moments for creativity while you were on the go? Tell me about it in the comments!