"Brain" journal set

I made this a few months ago as a Valentine's Day gift for my husband, who is a writer. At the time it seemed like he had a bunch of kernels for story ideas floating around in his head, but was having trouble sitting down to flesh anything out. I know how creativity and productivity tend to ebb and flow, and sometimes independently of one another, so I just wanted him to have a net to catch all of his thoughts so he could go back to them later when he had the time and inclination.

I decided that instead of giving him a journal, I would make him a set of several mini-journals, for a few reasons: Jotting something down in a small notebook seems less intimidating than sitting down to fill a big blank volume. Carrying one or two of these around in your pocket is much easier than lugging a book, so you're more likely to have one on you when a thought strikes you. And, he could organize his thoughts by having separate books for different stories/ideas/subjects, and still have one place to keep them all.

Incidentally, the previous year, Mike had had some migraines and our doctor took the precaution of having an MRI done. (He's fine – they were stress-related, of course.) So, he is the proud owner of an image of his actual brain! I sneaked some shots of it for the case – it seemed natural for a box that houses his thoughts.

When I gave it to him, he exclaimed, "It's an encyclopedia of my brain!" :-) Of course, I love a good portmanteau, so I now refer to it as his "braincyclopedia."