5 Ways to Celebrate National Stationery Week 2026
National Stationery Week runs from 11 to 17 May this year — a whole week dedicated to the quiet pleasure of putting pen to paper. Whether you've been a lifelong stationery devotee or you've been meaning to write more and just haven't quite got there yet, this is your moment.
Here are five ways to make the most of it.
1. Crack Open a New Notebook
There is something particular about the first page of a new notebook. The clean cream expanse of it. The weight of it in your hand. The small, private ritual of deciding what this one will be for.
National Stationery Week is the perfect excuse to begin something — a journal, a sketchbook, a place to think without a screen. You don't need a grand plan. You just need a notebook and somewhere quiet to sit with it.
Our lay-flat notebooks are designed for exactly this kind of writing — the kind where your hand moves freely across the page without the spine fighting back. Available in blank and ruled, in sizes made for a desk or a bag.
2. Send Someone a Handwritten Card
Think of someone you've been meaning to reach out to. A friend you haven't seen in too long. A parent who would love to hear from you. A colleague who had a difficult few months and deserves to know you noticed.
Now write to them. Not a text. A card.
A handwritten card takes five minutes to write and lasts considerably longer — held onto in drawers, pinned to boards, kept long after its occasion has passed. There's a reason people save them.
If you're not sure what to write, our guides to birthday card messages and what to write in a sympathy card are there when the pen hovers.
3. Try a New Pen
Most of us write with whatever is to hand — a biro from a drawer, a rollerball that was free somewhere. We don't often choose our pen with any particular care.
National Stationery Week is a good prompt to change that. A pen that feels right in your hand — that moves the way you want it to, that makes writing feel like a pleasure rather than a chore — changes the experience of writing entirely. It sounds small. It isn't.
If you've been curious about fountain pens but haven't known where to start, the Kaweco Sport is the gentlest entry point there is: compact, beautifully made, and deeply satisfying to write with.
4. Start a Small Writing Habit
Not a journal. Not a commitment to writing three pages every morning for the rest of your life. Just a small, manageable practice — five minutes in the morning before your phone, or a few lines at the end of the day.
The research on this is genuinely compelling. Handwriting activates parts of the brain that typing doesn't reach — it aids memory, supports emotional processing, and creates a kind of clarity that screens rarely do. And unlike most wellness habits, you don't need a subscription or a class. Just paper, a pen, and somewhere to begin.
Our journal prompt guide has 30 prompts to get you started — from the simple to the searching.
5. Give the Gift of Beautiful Stationery
If you know someone who loves to write — or someone who you think would love to write, if only they had the right tools — National Stationery Week is a lovely moment to give them something beautiful.
A notebook they'd never quite justify buying for themselves. A set of cards to keep in a drawer for the moments that need them. A pen that makes the act of writing feel like something worth doing.
Beautifully wrapped, plastic-free, and designed in our London studio — everything we make is created to be the kind of gift that means something.
National Stationery Week only comes once a year. Make something of it — even if that something is just a single card to someone who deserves to hear from you.
Happy writing.
Katie x