Review of the C.OVER diary/notebook

C.OVER notebook system

Well, this is a quirky little thing. I've been wanting to have a proper look at one for a while and so when The Journal Shop had a 25% off offer and it was also already reduced, I decided to get one. There was limited stock (understandably) so I ended up with a green one that is a shade too close to snot for my comfort, but there we go. [Still not affiliated to TJS. Still an exceedingly happy customer btw]

So what's so special about this little thing? Well, it has a nifty way of holding bound books in the cover, similar to the Midori Travellers Notebook in technique, but with a better fastener (in my opinion. I realise a Midori aficionado will disagree in all likelihood.)

What came in the package?
The cover (made from a soft plastic) (15.6 cm x 9.3 cm)
A 2013 diary, split into two 6 month-long booklets (14.5 cm x 8.8 cm)
A 32 page address book (14.5 cm x 8.8 cm)
A 32 page blank notebook (14.5 cm x 8.8 cm)
Credit card holders
A teensy pen
3 spare bands for connecting the booklets to the cover
An outer band to hold the whole thing closed

Top: cover plus the two diary sections;
Bottom: address booklet, notebook, credit card holder, pen and band

Card with three spare bands and instructions for fitting

The blurb says it will hold up to three different booklets (so, three types of notebook, or a notebook and the diaries, or the diaries and the address book etc. etc. etc.). However, if you use the credit card holder, this allows you to have four booklets in it.

How do the booklets fix to the cover?
In the same way as the Midori Travellers Notebook has elastic slotting into the centre of the notebooks, the C.OVER has elastic strands that attach the booklets to the cover. How it differs is that the elastic strands have bobbles on the end which slot into notches on the spine of the cover. There are three elastic fasteners and three notches, but... the credit card holders are designed to have the card holder in one side and a slot in the other so you can slot the cover of a notebook into each side and then add the credit card holder to the cover with one of the bands. The teensy pen slots into the top of the credit card holder too. You can hold up to 6 credit cards in the slots.

All booklets removed and one elastic strand unhooked to show you the bobble

Diary re-attached. Elastic goes up the centre of the booklet and
attaches top and bottom with the bobble

Credit card holder with one booklet slotted into the left hand side

Booklets slotted into both sides, plus some business cards in the holder to show them

Credit card holder about to be re-attached to the cover

All re-attached, including the pen

The cover
As I said, the cover is made of a soft plastic. It's soft to the touch in a way I'm a bit ambivalent about to be honest – it's a bit too soft but not quite so soft that it's truly unpleasant! It does smell quite plasticky though. The spine is a silver-coloured plastic with the brand 'Greenwitch'  embossed on it. The inside has (on the reverse of the front cover) 'C.OVER project Aldo Petillo Italy' The reverse of the back cover is plain. Both the front and back cover came with a harder piece of plastic in the full-height pocket to add some stability/stiffness to the cover I assume, but these could easily be removed to put papers/money/receipts in I suppose. I would have to carry a wallet with me as well as this little book though as there is no way of carrying coins in it.

Bit hard to see but this is the back cover with the stiffening plastic pulled out slightly

The diary:
It comes in two separate booklets, which somewhat randomly (and irritatingly for me) run as a week to view from 31 December 2012 to 7th July 2013 in the first booklet with the second one starting on 8th July. I know! Why would you not start on the 1st? It's a Monday after all.
After the cover, there is a page for putting your details. After that is a double spread with the year to view (6 months in open boxes down each page), called 'dates to be remembered'. I wouldn't find it all that useful, partly because the boxes are quite small and mostly because I would never look at it, regardless of size.

Page for personal details

Small month boxes for date to remember

After that comes a year to view whose sole purpose appears to be to tell you what day of the week each date falls on, though I guess you could circle important dates.

Next up is a list of public holidays and country dialling codes for a selection of countries.

Then is the diary itself. It is a horizontal, week per view, with Saturday and Sunday sharing the same space as a weekday gets to itself. The line spacing is minute (3mm) and there are lines for the hours from 8am to 7pm with some spare lines underneath. The month is given along the header in a variety of languages and the footer on the left-hand page has a list of the dates of the month with Sundays in bold.

After July 7th there is a double-spread of 2014 to view and the very last page is a page for notes.

Both diaries follow the same pattern except the second half runs to January 12th 2014 (making it doubly annoying that it started part-way into July. It isn't as if there isn't enough space to have started later and just had more notes pages at the back of the first one.).

The address book:
This has one side per letter and then six pages for notes at the back. The letters are laminated to make them a little stronger.

The notebook:
The one that came in the package was plain. There are apparently other refills but I don't know where you can buy them The Journal Shop doesn't have them (though they do stock the diary refills).

Paper Quality:
I would put the paper thickness at 70 gsm. Here are the results of the pen tests!

With most of the fountain pens it felt like the ink 'sat up' a bit on the paper. That said, there's not much feathering, even with my wettest combo of italic nib and Waterman's violet tendresse.

But ye gods look at the bleed-through! It makes filofax paper look half-decent! The other side is completely unusable. Not so disastrous in the notebook but in the diary this would be a nightmare. Pencil is okay!

The pen:
Throw it away. It's horrid. (the last line of the pen test was the pen that it came with. My pen-test text says 'The scratchy, unpleasant pen it came with')

The elastic closure:
Throw that away too. It's also horrid and doesn't have quite enough ping in it for my liking. Use a horizontal band and slot a decent pen into it (like with a Ciak notebook).

All in all?
Well, it's quirky and quite well designed but perhaps not so well finished. The idea is great – multiple, easily swappable notebooks/diaries/address books etc. but it's more than a little let down by paper quality and odd things like the second half of the year starting a week into July. My picky tendencies are also irritated that the cover has rounded corners but the notebooks and diary etc. all have squared corners. That lack of care for detail bugs me.

The good news is that Field Notes booklets fit in quite well without too much overhang (despite being a teensy bit wider).

Reviews of: Tombow Object Fountain Pen and J Herbin diabolo menthe ink

Well, I've tidied the desk and had a play with the pen and ink combo. Both of these were bought from The Journal Shop in a spectacular 25% off for National Stationery Week offer (which, believe me, I took advantage of!!). No affiliation, just a very happy customer.

Stationery haul from The Journal Shop!

Tombow Object Fountain Pen
I chose the purple pen for no better reason than I liked the colour. The pen came with its own case (which itself was inside a card box). The case is simple but practical – a metal (aluminium I presume) box with a sponge slot to hold the pen.

Case with pen and the J Herbin ink behind

The casing of the pen is made of aluminium which makes the pen very nice and light in the hand. It takes standard size cartridges (so no needing to buy own-brand expensive things). It comes with a medium nib as standard (though you can order it with a fine or broad nib from The Journal Shop if you prefer). The nib is lovely and smooth and the pen is light so doesn't make your hand cramp up after writing for a while, but not so light that you feel it will fall out of your hand. The pen sat nicely in my hand and was very comfortable to write with. It does write quite wetly though, which may be a problem with some inks. Of course, I have only tried it with the J Herbin diabolo menthe ink so maybe it just writes wetly with J Herbin! If you find it writes wetly/less wetly with other inks, drop me a note in the comments?
The pen will hold two cartridges: one inserted into the barrel; one (the other way up) slotting into the rest of the case as a spare.
Overall: 4/5 stars. It may well become my new favourite pen.

The ink is just a bit too pale for my liking

J Herbin diabolo menthe cartridges
Whilst I was pleased with the pen, I was less enthralled by the ink I'm sad to say. The colour is just a bit too delicate for me. It's a very pretty colour, but it is too watery for my taste. This is a shame as I have loved most of the J Herbin inks I have used previously. I'm hoping that the delicacy of this one will grow on me without giving me eye-strain!
Overall: 2/5 stars. It is just too thin an ink for me.

Stationery reviews soon... but first this...

I will be reviewing the Tombow fountain pen and J Herbin diabolo menthe ink soon. But first I have to tackle this:

Very messy desk to sort out!

Back later!

The Journal Shop goodies!

Very quick post...

I'm feeling poorly and since nothing cheers me up and makes me feel better than buying a shed-load of stationery and since it is National Stationery Week and since The Journal Shop is still doing 3 for 2 on selected notebooks and a 25% off offer...

I bought:

• Tombow Object Fountain Pen
• 2x packs of J Herbin ink cartridges in diabolo menthe
• 80ml bottle of diamine steel blue ink
• A C.OVER Gum diary in kiwi
• 3 large Cartesio notebooks (in blue, taupe and red)

The Journal Shop were absolutely fantastic as I was having a bit of trouble with my order so I Tweeted them and they helped me out. At 9pm on a Friday. How good are they!!!

Reviews of all the goodies soon.

Let training commence!

In my last post I announced the arrival of a ‘flat-as-a-camel’ classic pocket filofax. I have started ‘training’ it.

It’s still in the early stages. I can remove the pots of pens and pencils and the binder will stay flat.

Until I close it up again, then re-open it. At which point it lies with about a 45 degree angle (which is better than it was!).

Patience. Patience…

Arrival of a Classic Pocket Filofax

When I did my post on “Back in a pocket” I hinted at the imminent arrival of a classic pocket in red.
Well, it arrived last Friday.
And I almost immediately thought about putting it up for sale.

Why?

Because I didn’t think I would get on with it.

It meets many of my requirements for a binder, but it had an epic fail on an important one… flattablity.

I need my binder to lie flat as a bat. This one lies as flat as a camel.

Don’t get me wrong, the filofax is lovely! It’s a very handsome beast. It’s the colour of blood (Oh. Maybe only I would find that description appealing… it’s “cherry” I think on the filofax site), has 4 card slots and a full-height pocket behind on the inside front cover and a zipped pocket and a full-height pocket behind on the inside back cover. It has 19mm rings.

It really is beautiful and probably could be trained to lie flat, but maybe not by me who hasn’t a huge heap of patience!

Anyway, pictures:

Cover – there is little creasing near the spine which shows as paler, but a dab of red leather cream resolved that. (these pictures were taken before I used the leather cream…)
[Incidentally, for those of you wondering, Collonil Classic Shoe Cream in red is the right shade for a blood cherry coloured binder]

“Open” (I use the word incorrectly):

Inside front cover: 4 card slots and one full-height pocket behind.

Inside back cover: zipped pocket and full-height pocket behind.

The filofax (I think) has never/barely been used. I am currently trying to train it to lie flat. If I fail, I will sell it (though the colour is wonderful and I like it otherwise!)

Anyone got any good training tips for a Classic (or is it doomed to fail?).

Book-planning notebook - which one to choose?

I’m starting to plan a new book. Yes, I know none of the others are published (yet) but there’s one beginning to demand to be let out of my head.

Now, although I will use Scrivener to do the computery bit, I know I will do a huge amount of planning and writing in a notebook too. I always do. There’s something about writing on paper that triggers my thoughts and imagination in a way that typing straight into white space can never accomplish.

But which notebook to choose? I have, after all, rather a large selection to select from!

Discounting anything significantly smaller than A5 (I need space to plan and to write in and smaller books just won’t work), in the notebook emporium currently there are:

[links are to reviews of the notebook by me]

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Top row, L-R: cat book, Age Bag with A5+ on top, Ciak, Habana
Bottom row, L-R: A4 spiral bound, Moleskine, exercise book, Oxford Activebook, Cartesio

How to whittle that down to one book to use?

Okay, well, it has to be fountain-pen friendly paper, so that’s the two Cartesios out.

It has to be lined, so that’s the Moleskine out.

I’m not a fan of spiral-bound books as I find the binding gets in the way, so that’s the cat books and the three A4 books out (despite all being surprisingly fountain-pen friendly!).

I’ve tried the Clairefontaine A5+ book before and although it’s lovely to write on, the very wide margin is too annoying and it won’t lie flat.

The Quo Vadis Habana book won’t lie flat enough (I use another one as a running log and it drives me batty for this!)

The Midori World Meister doesn’t have enough pages (it has just 92 sides) although otherwise is glorious (review coming soon)

The school exercise book also has too few pages (96 sides)

I’ve tried an A5 filofax before and although it worked reasonably well, I eventually reverted to a bound book, so that’s the filofaxes and the Oxford Activebooks out (though the Oxford paper would have been a dream to write on and the paper could be filed in either filofax or Mulberry A5 binders).

So what am I left with after that initial whittling?

• 2x Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks
• 1x Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine school exercise book
• 1x Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook
• A spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover (no idea where that came from. I suspect someone gave me it as a gift as I write and have a cat)
• 1x Midori World Meister Dainel A5 book (which somehow didn’t make it into the photo!)
• 3x Oxford Activebooks
• Several A5 filofaxes
• 1x Quo Vadis Habana notebook (~15 x 23 cm)
• 1x Clairefontaine A5+ notebook (a few pages missing but still mostly intact)
• 1x Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook
• 3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

The Ciak A5 notebook or the Clairefontaine A4 Age Bag notebook.

I’ve gone for the Clairefontaine. It lies flatter than the Ciak (though admittedly, not as flat as a bat, but not far off), the paper is divine – far smoother than the Ciak – and the acres of space invite free-flowing thought (I hope!). I used the same kind of notebook for the last book (just with a green cover) and it has been glorious to work in. Fountain-pen just glides across the paper and with 192 pages, there is more than enough space to write.

Sources:

Bureau Direct:

Clairefontaine A5+ notebook

Clairefontaine Age Bag A4 notebook

The Journal Shop:

Quo Vadis Habana notebook

Cartesio large (13 x 21cm) notebooks

Ciak A5 leather-bound notebook

Midori World MeisterDainel A5 book

Amazon:

Oxford Activebooks

A5 filofaxes

Tesco:

3x spiral-bound A4 notebooks

Gifts:

Moleskine plain notebook (13 x 21cm)

The spiral-bound A5 lined notebook with cats on the cover

Papelote mini notebooks review

I have been fairly remiss in my reviews, but a while ago, I showed you some A6 books in my Midori-style homemade leather notebook holder (see here for the post).

Homemade leather notebook cover

The notebooks I bought were the mini Papelote notebooks from The Journal Shop. Unlike both Field Notes and the Clairefontaine “A6” books I have (which are smaller than A6), these little notebooks really are A6.

I’ve been using these small books (in the leather cover) as general notes/scribbles books – a place to jot something down to process the information later.

So what are the notebooks like?

Cover - matches the insides

They are marketed as simple and indeed they are. The cover matches the insides and is a thick paper/thin card. The paper inside is 80gsm and off-white (slightly greyish). I had anticipated the paper to not be at all fountain-pen friendly and was pleasantly surprised.

The first page is a title page, and there are 64 pages in the notebook in total.

Title page

I did a pen/fountain pen test on the paper and found little or no feathering (depending on the nib/ink combination) and little or no bleed-through. I would tend not to be using a fountain pen in them, but more likely to use a Pilot V5 hi-tecpoint, so I tested this too and found the result absolutely fine.

Little/no bleed-through

Back cover

Narrow ruled notebook to the left; squared to the right

Overall, I was very pleased with them. I was after something simple and cheap to pop into the leather cover I made and these fit the bill perfectly.

The notebooks are also available in A5.

Back in a pocket-size

The title says it all really… Do I need to do a blog post?

Oh, okay then. I’ll do a why I chose the pocket and a walk through of what’s in there!

First up, it’s the Baroque pocket, not Loki, or Miss Aston (or indeed the red classic that’s winging its way to me… ahem, ahem… More on that another day!).
The 19mm rings, the four card slots and the multitude of (admittedly sometimes daft) pockets made it an easy choice. That and the nagging voice in my head saying that I had yearned after it for long enough, I really should use it. The downside is of course that I prefer colour and the Baroque is black.

So why did I go towards the pocket and not the Holborn?

Size really. Red was feeling like a brick and my hubby has been using my his pocket Portland a lot recently and I started to covet the small size. I’ve also downsized what I’m carrying a little as it struck me as unnecessary to be carrying all of my planning around, rather than just the outcomes of the planning. I don’t need, on a minute by minute or even day by day basis to see what my bigger goals are and how these are converted into next actions. I just need the next actions alongside my schedule, right?
Also, the day per page sheets were just not getting used. Half the days I’m at work (and didn’t use them because I don’t have my filofax open as all my work stuff is planned using the green A5 Mulberry); the other half of the week I’m not at work and wasn’t in the habit of using them. I’m also frequently caught between planning my day and ending up feeling too constrained, and not planning my day and feeling like I’m not getting anything done. Sometimes a weekly list split into ‘must do’ and ‘nice to do if time’ gets me out of that (which is what I’ve been using more recently).

Walk-through:
First up, the pocket Baroque (like all of my Baroques) lies as flat as a bat, immediately. Even with all the weight of the insides on one side, it lies flat. Major plus.

Flat as a bat

In the four card slots are my bank and credit cards plus my Waterstones card (read in to that what you will. Every pun intended!). Tucked into the pocket behind are books of stamps. In the (less than ideally placed) zipped pocket behind that are other cards I like to have on me but don’t need easy access to. This zipped pocket is utterly useless for change as any cards in the card slots make it too stiff. In the pocket behind are vouchers. And in the last pocket of the inside cover there’s nothing as it is too difficult to get things in and out of it.

On the rings are other vouchers, then there are 4 sections:

1. Notes:
Blank paper for, um, notes. This is the ‘in-box’/capture/whatever you want to call it.

Notes - not much on my mind!

2. Diary:
In order – list of monthly goals and things to remember for this month (birthdays, car tax etc.), list of weekly goals for this week with a page marker, weekly review check-sheet, weekly goals for the rest of the weeks of April (page per week), monthly review check-sheet, list of monthly goals (and things to remember for that month) for the rest of the months of the year (page per month), forward planner for 2014, forward planner for 2015 (basically a lined page with 2014 or 2015 written on the top – used for remembering when my vaccinations are due!), 2013 week to view diary (in Italian as the Baroque was from the Italian sale).

Not that I've nothing to do... just haven't filled it in yet

LHS - back of the weekly plan sheet; RHS - review check-sheet

Italian LINED week to view (hoorah!). 'Festa' = holiday

In general, I have tried to set up yearly goals (planned elsewhere, not in this filofax), from which stem quarterly, monthly and weekly next-action/goals lists. In the past these have also trickled down to day lists but then I can start feeling over-planned so I am sticking with the weekly list for the moment and trying to split it into ‘must do’ and ‘nice to do’. It’s working okay so far.

3. Lists:
Lists of things I’m waiting on, lists of OS maps we have, lists of books to keep an eye out for… stuff like that.

List of waiting on...

Lists of OS maps I have

4. Info:
A note of the car insurance number, travel insurance number, other random things like that, then addresses.

Right at the back, after these sections, is a card-holder with bank card, donor card, and a couple of store-cards I use reasonably frequently. Then there is a mini-zip-loc bag for loose change. I keep paper money in the pocket in the back cover.

Pooh Post-Its just to hide my cards

Money in the 'notepad' pocket

Total mass: 380g for the Baroque against 530g for Red.

What do people think?

Here we go round the Mulberry bush

Choices, choices.
I have before me four different organisers and I’m not sure which one to use. I have:
Red (A6 Mulberry)
Loki (pocket Mulberry)
Pocket Baroque
Personal wine Holborn

Clockwise from top left: Wine Holborn, Red A6 Mulberry, pocket Baroque, Loki (pocket Mulberry)

Logic says I should be in the Holborn. Or the Baroque.
Heart says I should be in one of the Mulberry ones.

What’s wrong with Red? I mean, I’ve been in that longer than any of the others…

Red is heavy and a very stiff binder. She’s short on card slots and pockets so the ones she has are a bit jammed full and it’s difficult to get things in/out of them. I thought she was lighter than the Holborn but I’ve just weighed them (filled) and she’s not.

So why not just move into the Holborn…?

I may well do that. The Holborn has card slots and pockets galore and is a much softer binder. I suppose what’s been holding me back is the rewriting of diary entries (and the aspect ratio of the page always winds me up after a bit), but I have some time this weekend so I could do that. I also hate the filofax diary, but I could just re-write to the end of May or June on the filofax one and get the 18 month Paperchase diary for after that.

What about pocket Baroque and Loki?
Well, Loki has teensy rings and however much I adore him, he’s a bit small. And suffers from the stiffness, lack of pockets and card slots issues that Red has.

Pocket Baroque has some daft pockets, but does at least have pockets (and 4 card slots). And I am hankering after being in something smaller (but, realistically, I possibly carry too much stuff to make that feasible!). I did work out of a pocket Aston for a long time. I’ve also realised that I don’t need to carry all the notes about my goals around with me – I just need to have lists of next-actions lined up for the day/week. Oh, yeah, and the day-per-page diary is just not getting used, so I could abandon it and then I could possibly work out of the Baroque.

I think it’s time to have a play with them all and see where I land up. Advice??