Rhodia Rhodiarama - review

Stuart from PocketNotebooks kindly sent me a Rhodia Rhodiarama A6 Webbie to review. The notebooks have 192 pages of 90g ivory brushed vellum paper. The hard cover is leatherette in a series of bright colours. There is an expanding pocket inside the back cover, an orange ribbon bookmark, and an orange elastic closure. They are available on the Pocketnotebooks site for £7.50.

The one I was sent was turquoise and the contrast between the turquoise and the orange was very appealing. Where is it on the pretty/functional grid? The bright colours are attractive and the contrast with the ribbon/elastic is also good with the turquoise. That said, the orange doesn't go well with a lot of the other colours (the pink/orange combo is especially horrible!).

Front cover

Back cover

There is the Rhodia logo blind embossed in the middle of the cover (picture from Pocketnotebooks.co.uk as I forgot to take one and it's now rubbish lighting in Scotland!)

When you open the cover, there's a zebra!

Inside

The notebooks is 9.5 x 14.5cm, the paper is cream and paper size is 8.8 x 13.9cm with rounded corners. Line spacing is 6mm with a top margin of 6.5mm and 22 lines per page. Ruling stops about 4mm from the outer edge of the paper and 8mm from the inner edge.

The ruling is a bit narrow for me (as you'll see in the pen tests where my letters almost overlap) but then, I'm using stub nibs! One thing that did annoy me though was the shortness of the ribbon. It's only just longer than the page.

Woefully short ribbon!

In the back of the book is a pocket for slipping small items in, with more zebra patterning.

Back pocket

So, what's the paper like? Well, it's Rhodia so it's going to be better than many, but as Stuart has kindly pointed out in the past, I can be really picky!

General writing feel:
The paper is very smooth and fountain pens glide easily over it. Drying time is a little longer than many papers so if you're a left-hander who tends to smudge their writing, be aware of this. It's not too bad but if you write very quickly there's a possibility of smudges.

Feathering:
None. And there's some fabulous shading going on there too!

Show-through:
There is some ghosting to be honest. I wasn't expecting any but there's some.
4*/5

Bleed-through:
Again, I wasn't expecting any but there is some. Not so bad it would stop me using the page, but not none either. It's more noticeable with a light backing to the page than my desk (which is brown).
4*/5 

White background to the page

Dark background to the page

Flattability:
It's a hard back book so naturally won't lie as flat as soft-backed books with many fewer pages. The pages are sewn (I pulled one out to do the pen tests and have managed to pull the stitch undone, though the pages are still holding well). It can be persuaded to lie flat but won't lie flat on its own. It doesn't however need as much effort to hold it flat as the Write Notepad & Co. books I reviewed in the last post. 
3*/5

Overall:
This is a nice, robust little notebook. It isn't one for the back pocket (at least, don't sit on it and end up giving yourself sciatica!). The writing experience is good and there are lots of pages to the book. The ribbon marker could have done with being a bit longer - it feels stingy - and I'm personally not a fan of leatherette but otherwise, it's great.

My thanks to Stuart at Pocketnotebooks for sending it to me to review.

Disclaimer:
I was given this notebook free to review. However, this is an honest review and not influenced by it being a gift.

Write pocket notebooks - Review

Stuart from PocketNotebooks kindly sent me a pack of Write Notepads & Co. Pocket Notebooks (set of three) to review. The company is American and "every pack sold triggers a donation of a notebook to a school back in Write's hometown of Baltimore" according to the website. They come as a set of three notebooks in a pack, currently priced £10. The set comprises one plain, one lined and one graph paper notebook.

The three notebooks come in a blue and silver box which is delightful. The actual notebooks themselves have fairly plain covers.
[click on any picture to enlarge]

Outer box:

Still in wrapper

Back of box (still in wrapper)

Unwrapped (foil is silver, not gold as depicted here!)

Top flap of box opened

Darkstar Collection - Review

Stuart from PocketNotebooks kindly sent me a sample from a pack of Darkstar Collection Handcrafted Traveler's Notebooks to review. The company is UK based and the notebooks are made in the UK. They come as a set of three notebooks in a pack, currently priced £10. I got one from a pack to try.
[click on any picture to enlarge]

Papio Press Postcards - Review

I know - it's been a bit of a buying and reviewing splurge. As I said, I've finished editing the book!

Anyway, today I want to review some more stuff from Papio Press - no affiliation, just a happy customer.

A few days ago, I reviewed their A6 notebooks. Today, it's the turn of their motivational postcards. They do lots of gorgeous postcards (see the full range here) but I especially liked these. I write to a number of people (and by 'write' I mean snail-mail!) as well as participate in Postcrossing, so am always on the look-out for lovely postcards. Well, they arrived yesterday!

Happy Jackson 3 mini notebooks - review

I know - I don't post anything for ages and then there's a massive splurge. It's called "I finally finished editing the bl**dy book!" - check out my author blog at http://www.amandafleet.co.uk/ for what I've been working on.

Anyway, I saw some very sweet looking notebooks on Inkoo in their stationery department - Happy Jackson set of 3 mini-notebooks. They were only £4.99 for the set and so I thought I would give them a whirl.
[click on any picture to enlarge]

As I said in my Papio Press notebook review, notebooks fall into four camps:

• functional but not pretty
• not functional and not pretty either (I consider Field Notes to be in this camp!)
• pretty but not functional
• pretty and functional

Basically, as long as a notebook gets a tick in the functional box, I'll buy them again. If they also get a tick in the pretty box, that's an added bonus. There's no repeat purchase if they're merely pretty.

Where do these mini-notebooks fit?

Papio Press... Quick Update

Yesterday, I posted a review of the Papio Press A6 notebooks (see here for details) and noted that although the packaging indicated that there was one lined and one plain in the pack, actually, I had two plain notebooks. I had no problem at all with that, but mentioned it to Stuart, from Pocketnotebooks (who had sent me the books) and he mentioned it to Harry, from Papio Press.

I was out all day today, helping my Mum get to hospital etc. and jokingly said to my hubby on the way home, "I hope I have good post today!"

Well, I did!

When I got in, I had a parcel I wasn't expecting, with some lovely labels on the front (there's a sticker hiding my name and address...). Apologies for the quality of the pictures - it was late when I took them and the light was almost gone.

Unexpected parcel...

Anyway, when I opened it, I found a fabulous surprise from Harry at Papio Press...

Inside...

A replacement set of notebooks, a handwritten card apologising for the original pack not being quite right and a freebie 2017 calendar as an apology (none of which had been needed at all!).

Front of the card

Note to me on the card

Front of the calendar
(sorry for the flash flare)

Label in the calendar showing the contents
(again, sorry for the flash flare)

It was a really lovely surprise and a super touch. Thank you!!

Papio Press A6 notebooks - Review

Tigers by Papio Press

I'm delighted that Pocketnotebooks.co.uk has given me a couple of notebooks by Papio Press to review. These are a new stock for Pocketnotebooks.co.uk and Papio Press are a UK producer.

Small notebooks tend to fall into four main camps, as far as I can tell - functional but not terribly pretty; not all that functional nor all that pretty; pretty but not all that functional; and pretty and functional. Which camp would these A6 notebooks land in?

Well, you can tell from their covers that they have to be in one of the pretty camps! The team behind them - Harry and Zanna Goldhawk - are illustrators and the covers are just delightful. But, would they be functional as well as so easy on the eye?

New Traveller's Notebook Cover

I know. I possibly don't really need another one, but... I finished my next book and wanted to reward myself. Good enough reason, right? And because the next book is about to go off to publishers, I 'needed' a cover to hold the books I'll use to track how the submissions go. You all understand.

I'd been hankering after another one from Meadowgate Leather - see this post to see which one. Unfortunately, the owner is unwell at the moment and his Etsy shop is closed. I will no doubt order the one I want once he's back to full health and the shop is taking orders again.

In the interim, I saw one in the Etsy shop Inspired Journal. I can't see the exact same one there now, but this one is very close.
These are the pictures from the Etsy listing of the one I bought:

Anyway, it arrived recently and it's beautiful! It has no pockets or anything - just a leather cover with a leather lining (i.e. two pieces of leather stitched together). It's a sand colour - more yellow/orange than the picture above (gorgeous) and has a red and white elastic closure and the same for holding the booklets (the same as is shown above). There are four elastics inside. The elastic for holding the booklets is too thick for the job and I will swap it out for some narrower red or black elastic. The size is almost A5 - it's designed to hold Moleskine cahiers, but they're horrible, so I'll either make my own booklets for it from some paper and card cut down to size, or I'll trim up some A5 booklets. I tried two A5 slim notebooks in it and they weren't too bad, so I may stick with them.

Anyway, here are pictures of mine (click to enlarge):

Exterior:

Gorgeous colour!

Interior:

The 3mm thick elastics are too thick

With booklets in (probably not the final booklets - these are my diary and notebook from my everyday TN):

It really is a beautiful cover. It's on the floppier side, so if you prefer a firm cover it possibly isn't for you, but the workmanship is wonderful. The seller was very helpful and shipping was reasonable and didn't take too long (just under two weeks from Indonesia to Scotland).

Washi

As many of you may already know, I'm not the kind of person to decorate my planner all that much. I like it fairly clear of decorations, stickers, washi etc. So it might seem surprising for me to be doing a post on washi tape.

I actually have huge numbers of rolls of washi tape! Some of it is patterned and could well be used to decorate a planner, but what I want to focus on today are the kinds of tapes that make up the majority of my collection and what I use them for. In the pictures below, there are some of my new purchases and some that I've had for a while.

Spotlight Stationery January Box - Review

I've been a subscriber to Spotlight Stationery's boxes for a year now. I sometimes skip a box, not because they're not excellent, but because, frankly, I already have so much stationery that I could probably set up my own subscription service!

I really like the Spotlight Stationery boxes because they have sensible stationery in them. They're not full of 'cute' things or lots of rolls of washi tape; they contain notebooks, pens, pencils and cards. Not that I don't love washi, but I like to choose that for myself.

The contents of the boxes are kept secret until delivery so it's always a surprise to see what's in the box. Each box has a theme and some of the money goes to support a charity. The current charity is Gloucestershire Young Carers. Each month, there is a selection of four postcards from new illustrators.

The latest box to arrive dropped through my letterbox at the end of January. The theme was textured finishes.

So, what was inside??