New notebooks

New notebooks!! Hurrah!

I know. I need more notebooks like I need another pair of legs or something. But hey. The Paperie were doing 3 for 2 and I just can’t resist. I’ve tried. I really have. But it only lasts about a second and then, somehow, there are three notebooks in my basket and there we go.
(No affiliation, just a happy customer)

Anyway, sorry for the long silences but a) work got busy, b) writing got REALLY busy and c) I went to Malawi again.

But now I’m back and buying more stationery! (Plus ça change!)

What did I get??

Well, the A5 notebook that I am currently writing book #6 in (Ciak, red A5) is suiting me as a size just brilliantly, so I decided I could try out a couple more. I’ve never tried the Leuchtturm 1917 before, so I popped a couple of those in bright colours (berry red and emerald green) in the basket and I had never seen the notebooks by ‘Paper Thinks’ before so I popped in one of them (in blue mist colour).

Paper Thinks first; Leuchtturm another day...

Overview:
The Paper Thinks notebook isn’t a true A5 – it is a little smaller at 13cm x 17cm. The cover is apparently recycled leather (and there is indeed a leather smell to it if you hold it right up to your nose!). The outside is much glossier than leather normally is (though isn’t patent leather). The cover is fairly stiff so you would be able to write in it with the book on your knee etc.
There is very little branding – the front cover is entirely blank; there is Paper Thinks on the spine in a darker blue than the cover and ‘recycled leather’ embossed in the back. The notebook says that it was made in China.

Front cover (still wrapped)

Back cover (still wrapped)

Front cover (unwrapped and now inside as it got really windy!)

Branding on the spine

Inside:
On the inside left cover there is the Paper Thinks logo and web address, and on the RHS there is space for name, phone and ‘in case of emergency’.

Inside

The paper is ivory/cream; the lines do not go edge to edge, but stop 6mm from the outer edge and 8mm from the inner edge. Top margin is 12mm; bottom margin is 8mm; line-spacing is 6mm. There is no elastic closure (either vertical or horizontal) but there is a matching ribbon place-marker. There are 256 pages.
The pages are sewn in and this should make the book lie flat, but it doesn’t (as evidenced by the paper-weights!). With a bit of bending and flexing it’s not bad though.

Back cover:
The back cover has a gusseted envelope/pocket (easiest way to photograph it was to put the paper-weight inside it!) with the gusset made of matching fabric.

Back gusseted envelope/pocket

Fountain pen test:
Hmm. For once, I don’t have many pens inked up! But, I had four and a Sharpie, and here are the results:
The paper is pretty smooth to write on and there was very little feathering.

Fountain pen test

Little feathering

Slightly more feathering with the pink

However, the bleed-through was an EPIC FAIL!
Read it and weep.

EPIC FAIL!

Which is such a shame as otherwise it was a lovely little notebook, but it is now one which will at best be a ‘scribble’ book or a ‘biro only’ one.

Overall:
It’s a nice size. Not quite a true A5 but a reasonable size and aspect ratio combination to be honest. At the 3 for 2 offer, I got all three (the two Leuchtturm and this) for £25.49, making each book £8.50. Expensive enough to be nice; cheap enough (at this price) not to be too precious over it! It’s just a shame that the bleed-through was so awful.

I award it *** overall