Sometimes you dream up these great ideas or have all these thoughts swimming around in your head, but lo and behold, you have nowhere to write them down! Where is that cocktail napkin when you need it?

Don’t despair. You can do what some of the cool kids do: Carry a journal around. Lots of people I know do it. (I actually carry two different-sized Moleskine journals around myself.)

But if you want your journal to stand out from the rest, maybe you should check these out:

(I especially like the bingo journal. I have fond memories of playing bingo with similar-looking cards as a kid. Plus, the journal is great for those bingo! moments. [And now I'll stop with the awful puns.])

If you’re loving these journals, you can pick them up at Create a Thought. There are journals of all shapes, sizes and kinds there! The Robot Love journal (the bottom one) is just about as big as a business card, so it’s perfect for your pocket or purse. And each journal is made in small batches, so you can be assured that a million people won’t be walking around with the same kind of journal (and if you lose it, well, you’ll recognize it more easily).

But Create a Thought is more than just journals! It’s a store built around the concept of creating thoughts and manifesting those thoughts into cool stuff. For instance, you can get this art journal kit to feed your artistic side. Or you can get a finger art ring like this one:

There’s plenty of stuff to look at, so do check it out.

Lovin’ these journals from The Writer’s Book:

These journals are made with different kinds of papers for their covers, such as Japanese or Indian papers. All hand-stitched and one of a kind. And they all lay flat when opened so you can sketch or write your heart out with ease!

indie*galore has been on hiatus for a while now, but it’s back for the New Year!

It’s been a reflective period, and a good time to maybe write some thoughts down. What better place to write a few thoughts down than these wonderfully made journals from amanobooks?

All these journals are made from mixed media: photographs, ephemera, paint, wax, stamps and all kinds of found materials. The result is not just a journal, but a work of art.

There is also some mixed media art available at amanobooks, like this lovely piece:

Did you ever go to the library a lot as a kid and thumb all those awesome old books?

I don’t remember this from my childhood, but I think I would have checked it out if I’d seen it:

Hysterical title. Thank goodness the folks over at Attic Journals found this book and turned it into a journal.

At Attic Journals, old books find new life as journals. The covers are taken, then bound together with wire loop and filled with 75 sheets of fresh paper. There’s quite an eclectic collection, from a cover of a book called “Flying Animals” to a Hardy Boys book to this pretty awesome Spanish textbook cover:

You’ll feel like you’re in grade school or middle school all over again!

I used to be a big Iron Chef watcher (and I’m talking the original Japanese version, not the sort of lame Iron Chef America that’s on now). I’ve always thought it would be cool if there was a crafty version. Like, “you’ve got a bunch of random materials and you’ve got to craft something now!”

OK, so maybe we don’t need the pressure of crafting in an hour. But people who take random things and make them into useful, fun and awesome things still amaze the heck out of me. Like erinzam over at Etsy, who made this wicked awesome book:

Dude! It’s a cassette! It’s Foreigner, for crying out loud! It’s, um, rather rad.

Found objects are the name of the game at erinzam. In her profile, she says she loves making journals from found objects. No cassette tapes around? No problem. Try on this journal for size, made from a drapery sample:

You will also find original prints and paintings in the shop, like this:

There’s a great selection of stuff … do check it out!

Feeling a little grinchy? Growly? Super-stressed over the holidays and need to let off steam? Or maybe you’re just have that subversive sense of humor and need to laugh. Or maybe you need some holiday cards and you’re really not quite feeling that holiday cheer.

Have a look-see:

(My personal favorite has to be the low expectations card since that’s pretty much the story of my life.)

You’ll find these cards at Earmark Invitations. There are plenty of funny ones, including one that is a personal hygiene reminder (the drawing is hilarious).

But even if snarky cards aren’t your cup of tea, there are also journals, magnets and more, um, conventional cardsets. Maybe you’ll need some thank you notes for all those lovely presents you get this holiday season. Or maybe you’ll need a snarky card ’cause someone didn’t get you what you want. (The Screw You card, maybe?!)

Books come in all sizes, can be pretty to look at, multi-purpose and are all-round awesome in general. Take this sweet sampling from Providence, Rhode Island’s If’n Books + Marks:

Wood Buttonhold Stitch Photo Album

Rabid Comb Smacker Journal

Accordion Book Necklace

See? All different purposes. And all eye-catching, too.

I especially like the Smacker Journal — whose description says “We like to refer to this series as ‘The Smacker’ for the aesthetic punch it packs in its small size, but also for its ability to double as a harmless smacking tool for discourteous or bothersome cohorts.” It’s a limited edition, with only 100 available! They are exclusively sold at If’n Books’ Etsy shop.

The accordion necklaces are also pretty brilliant. Not only are they pretty cool to look at, but you never know when you will need to jot down a note. Or maybe you want to write an ode to your favorite person and give him/her the necklace as a gift. Or something like that.

There’s nothing like walking into a used bookstore or your local library and perusing all those old cloth-bound books. (Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have a bunch lying around the house). They just don’t make hardbound the same way anymore. Old cloth-bound books rock! Sometimes they’d have weird stains on the covers, but that just added to the charm.

Now, you can get some kickass journals made out of said old books. Something like this:

(The man kind of reminds me of the Monopoly guy. What a cool cover this must have been. I wonder what kind of book it was. But I digress.)

This journal comes from Los Angeles-based Tyler Bender Book Company. Tyler takes old books, painstakingly resizes some of their covers — this particular blue journal happens to be 4 x 6 inches. But there are some full-sized books; there’s a recycled Bible cover adorning one of the journals.

A variety of papers fill the books. Those papers range from the plain lined paper from your school days (college-rule? wide-rule? aaaaaah!) to colored paper to old accounting ledgers (aaaaaaah again!). And each sheet of paper is hand-cut. (Considering most of these journals have 200 pages or so, that’s a heck of a lot of cutting.)

Each book is a surprise, and they’re almost too pretty to write or draw in!

And even if you don’t, isn’t that half the fun of traveling?

Sometimes it’s nice to look back on your trips. Maybe you like to keep little knickknacks from trips, like interesting candy wrappers (I have a Skittles wrapper written in French from a trip to Vancouver, for instance) or train tickets. Or maybe you sat in the park one day and saw something that caught your eye and you wanted to sketch it. Or you found some money on the side of the street and wanted write that memory down so you could preserve it.

With a travel journal from Destination:Unknown, you could do all of the above.

These travel journals feature plenty of writing room (100 pages of lined paper), and blank paper and grid paper. It’s also got a small pocket for those little trinkets. The journals are also lightweight so they’re easy to carry around.

They also come in pretty sweet covers, like this hanami flower cover:

Or, there are map covers, which feature a different part of the United States!

Do check them out!