PSN & Flash Notebook Giveaway at Notebookstories

Notebookstories has a great review and giveaway for the above notebooks going at the moment, why not stop by and try your luck?

PSN & Flash Notebook Giveaway at Notebookstories

Review: Moletape

A little while ago, after asking for reviewers, the folks at Molecover kindly sent me a sample of their Moletape strengthening tape for review. To be fair, I'm not a huge Moleskine user, though I did have a couple of notebooks lying around, neither with any damage to the spines, but I decided to fit one of them with the Moletape anyway.

Molecover also sells Moleskine notebooks and the Molecover, a protective leather cover for your Moleskine notebook. Currently available in black, white or tan leather, their website states they will include a strip of Moletape with every Molecover order.

Here's the Moletape as I received it, next to the pocket Moleskine it'll be going on:

My Moletape sample arrived on a Molecover-branded backing sheet and was already pre-sized for a small Moleskine. There was what turned out to be a little ink transfer from the Molecover branding on the backing sheet to the note it came wrapped in, but no dye transfer from the Moletape itself. So far so good.

Initial impressions were good, the Moletape is a strong, matte-finished adhesive cloth tape in rich black, one improvement I could suggest would be to pre-score the backing sheet along where the tape will attach to the spine of the Moleskine so this part of the backing may be removed separately, making it easier to line the Moletape up straight while applying it to the notebook's spine. I do however, like the pre-cut tabs to fit over the ends of the notebook's spine.

Now for the fitting. Here goes...

Separating the Moletape from its backing sheet proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated, and the amount of force required did deform the shape of my sample a little. Any more force and I was afraid the tape would tear where the spine end cutouts join the main piece of tape.

Applying the Moletape to the spine of my Moleskine was relatively simple, requiring only a little trial and error to line the two up by eye, then take the plunge and apply Moleskine to tape; this seemed the easiest way to do it - applying the spine of the notebook to the tape whilst the tape was lying flat on a firm surface.

Then it was simply a matter of smoothing the Moletape over the front and back of the notebook, and here's where I hit my first snag - whilst applying Moletape to the spine of the notebook was simple enough, ensuring a neat straight line down the cover of my Moleskine proved almost impossible; maybe I'm being a bit picky here, but the end result was, despite quite a bit of tweaking, not as sleek as I had hoped.

The extra length of the Moletape was great for folding over the edges of the cover, until that is, I began to tackle to rear cover where the pocket is. I found the only way to fit the Moletape was to trim the fold over flaps so they didn't obsure the pocket opening - trouble was, to do this successfully I had to leave them so short as to only just fold around the rear cover of the Moleskine.

Fitting the tabs down the inside of the Moleskine spine was easy, I opened the Moleskine so the covers were touching which bowed the spine enough to poke the tab down the opening with the help of the blunt end of a pair of tweezers.

So, there was have it, a Moletaped Moleskine.

So, what did I think?

Overall, I think Moletape is a great product, though fitting it is not as simple as I expected it would be, and whilst at least some of the end result is down to operator error, Moletape's adhesive backing makes it very difficult to separate the tape from its backing without deforming the overall shape. Had I possessed the skill to apply it to my notebook and retain a sharp edge to the front cover I would probably have been happier with the end result.

That said, I have no doubt that Moletape provides a wonderfully strong extra layer of protection for the spines of Moleskine notebooks, and I really like the look of the new colours choices in the Moletape range. I would be inclined to give them ago so I could colour-code my notebooks at the same time as protecting their spines.

At a Glance:

Model: Black Moletape (Pocket sized Moleskine size)
Colour: Black. Also available in Russet, Yellow, Pink, Sky Blue, Violet, Olive, Red, Orange, Grey and Brown.
Available from: Molecover in the USA
Price: $20 for 5 strips (Small or Large size)
Overall: 4 out of 5

Review: Moletape

Still With My Hat On...

The recent trip to Berwick has given up a second slew of goodies which had been lurking at the bottom of a rather large suitcase. Now I can get at them, I thought I'd share...

First there's this small selection of items from the German company Nici, which I picked up in a bargain bin at some rather good prices. There's a pencil case decorated with Nici sheep in various colours - some of them are even wearing coats! The sheep also appear on the cover of the pocket sized notebook, whilst the address book features 'Taking it Easy' sheep and Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. My darling daughter also picked up the plushies of these to hang off her bag. They're very cute!

On the way to Berwick, we stopped off at the village of Seahouses, gateway to the Farne Islands, for lunch (chips from the fantastic chippy in the High Street) and, whilst munching I was drawn to the gift shop opposite where I picked up these two postcard books by Simon Drew. Each book contains 20 individually-designed postcards, all very well-drawn and extremely humorous; it is merely a coincidence that those in the photo above happen to feature cats.

I also picked up this colourful notebook with Puffins on the cover at the same shop, though the wooden bowl came from an outing over the weekend to Paxton House, just across the border into Scotland.

The bowl is interesting inasmuch as it is turned from Bog Oak by a local craftsman and the wood is around 4500 years old! That particular purchase didn't take much thinking about to be honest, as I can count on the fingers of err...a couple of fingers, how many Bog Oak items (that I could afford!) I've seen for sale. The bowl is a deep, glossy black and, depending on the light, you can just about make out some of the striations of the natural oak.

From what I'm told, Bog Oak most often surfaces when peat bogs are drained, and it tends to emerge as whole tree trunks, though usually only the heartwood of the log is in any fit state to be worked. Sometimes the whole log is unuseable, so it's always a bit of a gamble buying a Bog Oak log, though when there is good wood still to be had, gems such as this bowl are the result.

Still With My Hat On...

You Can Keep Your Hat On...

...and your coat, scarf, gloves and thermal socks! Apologies for mangling the lyrics of that well known Tom Jones song, but a weekend in a caravan in Berwick upon Tweed in October can be a mite on the chilly side; it's the first time this pen-thusiast has slept fully clothed for fun!

Who says we don't suffer for our art?!

It's not all bad news however, as Berwick is home to a couple of little gems as far as stationery shopping is concerned.

The first of these is Geo. C. Grieve Ltd. Stationers & Bookseller on the corner of Marygate and Church Street. Not just your average provincial stationers, oh no! Geo. C Grieve's is a veritable cornucopia of stationery-related goodness - postcards, notebooks, paper, pens, ink, art supplies, calenders, maps, local books, the list is (almost) endless. Grieve's is always this pen-thusiast's first port of call on a trip to Berwick.

Grieve's is a wonderfully friendly shop (of which there are precious few around these days) and this pen-thusiast has never failed to find something interesting or unusual to buy - it's worth a trip to Berwick just to visit this shop! It's also nice to be recognised and greeted warmly, even when your last visit was six months ago. A word of caution though, Grieve's website lists but a fraction of the stock available, so should you not find what you're after, please do email them, they'll be happy to try and source stuff for you.

The haul this time included a 0.5mm Pentel Graphgear 1000 drafting pencil (which came supplied in a great black pen sleeve), a Pentel Ain Clic eraser in red, a Stabilo Marathon ballpoint in black and a six-pack of Artline Multi Pens by Shachihata; no idea what I'm going to do with this last item, but they looked cool and are bound to be useful!

Add to that a few interesting postcards of the local area and a couple of magnetic-backed FootNotes notepads, and it was a happy pen-thusiast who set off, his wallet suitably lightened, to the next regular stop on the itinerary.

The second port of call on our whistle-stop stationery tour of Berwick is Doolally in Marygate, just round the corner from Grieve's in fact. Located on the ground floor of the historic Town Hall (which dates from 1761), Doolally is a combination bookseller and gift shop with a cafe, so you can enjoy a rather lovely cup of coffee while examining your purchases.

Doolally is located through the arch in the end of the building pictured above centre.

Visiting this time brought me my first contact with Momiji - incredibly cute dolls from Japan (I believe). Now these are not really my thing, but my darling daughter picked up the Kittie Doll, which even I have to admit is rather cute! We both grabbed one of the Momiji notebooks and a couple of the matching pens too.

I really quite like the notebooks - they're about A5 size, with wipe-clean plastic covers and have different designs on the pages, making them ideal as inexpensive journals (possibly more suited to our younger viewers!). The pens are needlepoint rollerballs and come with black, blue, red and green ink, each colour having a different barrel design.

Should you be heading up to Berwick, you can contact Doolally on 01289 306 796.

Not a bad haul for a weekend's work, eh?

You Can Keep Your Hat On...

The First Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

For all the latest news and reviews, don't forget to check out The First Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper which is on now over at Notebook Stories.

The First Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

Review: Asda Executive Notebook

You know how the old story goes - if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's a duck, right? In this case, it looks like a Moleskine, feels like a Moleskine, but it's not a Moleskine, it's better!

There I was, avoiding the grocery shopping and hiding in the stationery aisle at Asda (well, it's more fun than waiting in the car!) when I stumbled across part of their new stationery range. Initially I thought Asda had started selling Moleskines but no, this is an own-brand offering, and I think I'm in love...with a notebook!

Asda Exec Notebook seen here on top of standard large Moleskine.

Billed as an 'Executive Notebook,' this new addition is available with the familiar black cover, plain or squared paper, and in both Large-Moleskine and A4 sizes. I've had a fair amount of experience of Asda's paper over the years and IMHO quality has been lacking of late, so I wasn't expecting too much from my new purchase, considering it retails for £3 for the smaller size and £4 for the A4 version.

How wrong can this pen-thusiast be?!

It's excellent, truly excellent! Let's start with the paper - there is no indication on the packaging to suggest the weight but it's thick, comparing it to other similar notebooks in my collection I would estimate it to be 90gsm; it's certainly not 80gsm.

Open notebook showing the lovely cream paper and black ribbon bookmark.

Close up of perforated pages.

The paper itself is a lovely pale shade of cream and, on the squared notebook at any rate, the 5mm squares are printed in a contrasting pale grey. The markings go right to the edges of the page, which isn't an issue for me, though some may not like how this makes the book look when closed. A wonderfully smooth writing surface is provided by this paper obviously having had size applied - it passes this pen-thusiast's standard 'Mk1 Finger Quality Test*' with flying colours.

* I usually make an initial test of unknown papers by gently rubbing the pad of my index finger over a page to get an impression of the smoothness (highly scientific, eh?!). I have found the smoother the paper, the nicer it will be to write on and more recently, the more likely it is to be fountain pen friendly. I've been doing this for years so I'm usually pretty accurate, of course YMMV.

Whilst smooth and a pleasure to write on, the ink of my test fountain pen dries quickly, so smudging hasn't been an issue; thankfully. I tested the paper with a variety of fountain pens, a couple of gel pens and a Sharpie Twin-Tip marker (whatever I had to hand basically) - there was no evidence of feathering at all and only the thick tip of the Sharpie showed any bleeding, and that was minimal.

Ink test with a variety of fountain pens, gel pens and a Sharpie marker.

Reverse of ink test sheet showing lack of bleeding.

Close up of Sharpie bleed-through.

Each of the 80 pages, which are stitched rather than glued into the book, features perforations approximately 3mm in from the spine allowing pages to be detached neatly should that be required; a great improvement over the Moleskine for mistake-prone me. The perforations, along with the soft spine, also have the advantage of allowing the book to lie flat, a feature I really like.

Detail of the notebook's collapsing spine which allows it to lie flat for writing.

Now for some dimensions of the smaller sized Asda Exec notebook:

Height: 212mm inc. cover (209mm just the paper)
Width: 139mm inc. cover (135mm just the paper)
Thickness: 25mm inc. cover.
Weight: 450g

It's a bit of a 'brick' compared to a standard Moleskine!

The cover is finished in a similar fashion to the standard Moleskine with rounded corners, though the patterning of the faux black leather is finer, making for a slightly smoother overall texture. The cover itself is about twice the thickness of a Moleskine cover, and should lend itself well to embossing and other such arty customisations folks with much more talent than I possess often emark upon.

In keeping with the book its emulating, the Asda Exec has a pocket at the rear though, unlike the competition, this is a concertina affair with 3 separate sections to the Moleskine's one. The only downside is that the manufacture of the pockets could be improved and the dividers need to be made of heavier weight material - indeed on this review sample I managed to tear one of the dividers (bother!) whilst trying to loosen the excess glue sticking the dividers together.

Rear pocket detail - spot the tear (stunt finger courtesy of my darling daughter).

Also in keeping with the competition, the Exec features a black ribbon bookmark and an elastic strap closure. The latter is of what is usually termed here in the UK, 'knicker elastic' and on the Exec seems much stronger than that on my current Moleskine, pressure marking the Exec's cover at the top and bottom. This is no bad thing to my mind as the resulting grooves provide a secure anchorage for the elastic when the book is closed; nor does it come adrift in my bag like my Moleskine's elastic strap sometimes does.

Elastic closure markings to front cover of the notebook.

I am pleased that I have no hesitation in recommending the Asda Executive, not only as a fountain pen friendly notebook, but as a serious contender for the position of Moleskine replacement.

There are niggles of course (this is me after all!), the rear pocket dividers could do with strengthening and the pages occasionally don't seem to line up correctly when folded over to write on them (diagonally out by approximately 1.5mm), but for a mass-produced supermarket own-brand that retails for between £3 and £4, it's nothing short of a masterpiece!

At a Glance:

Model: Asda Executive Notebook
Fountain Pen friendly: Yes
Paper: 90gsm (estimated); perforated; stitched
Pages: 80 sheets
Colour: cover - black; paper - cream
Type: plain or squared; endpapers - plain
Closure: black elastic
Pockets: 3-part rear pocket
Bookmark: 1 ribbon bookmark (black)
Price: Small £3; A4 £4
Available from: Asda (Wal-Mart) in the UK (not available online)
Overall: 5 out of 5

Review: Asda Executive Notebook

Here's One I Made Earlier

This is one from the vaults - I unearthed these notebooks last night while looking for something else (ain't that always the way?) and was so excited to have re-discovered them I've been up half the night writing this post.



Why so excited you may ask - well, these are homemade notebooks, crafted by this pen-thusiast's own fair hands, and I'd completely forgotten I had them. I made them around five years ago, if memory serves, and they've been languishing in a box since I moved house shortly afterwards. The paper seems to have survived well and is still in good order, so no problems on the archival quality front then; the covers seem to have responded favourably to storage as well.

Originally inspired by a notebook I received as a gift, my notebooks are made from the EcoPaper brand's Coffee Paper and cardstock. I seem to remember this being difficult to obtain in the UK at the time, to the point that the paper had to come direct from EcoPaper's then UK distributor (who's name escapes me).

I was only able to get my hands on one ream of the A4 Coffee Paper, so to eke out my supply I settled on making the notebooks to A5 size (approx 8" x 6"). Each notebook contains 100 pages (50 sheets) of Coffee Paper (which feels somewhere between 80 - 90gsm to me), wire-bound with Coffee paper cardstock covers, though I did experiment a little and covered one of them in faux black leather fabric.



The paper itself is fairly weighty and, whilst smooth enough to be laser and inkjet printer compatible, has enough of a tooth to make writing pleasurable with a variety of pens, including the Platinum Preppy 0.3 that I am currently road-testing. It also features a lighter and darker side, presumably due to the manufacturing process - just flip the notebook over to lead with either the lighter or darker pages as your preference dictates.



What really impresses me about the EcoPaper brand is their paper (which also comes in banana, cigar, mango, lemon and hemp varieties) and paper-related products are made using a combination of agricultural by-products and post consumer recycled content to give a quality product that is not only very distinctive, but which is eco-friendly as well. EcoPaper's manufacturing process is also chlorine-free and a percentage of each sale goes towards supporting an orphanage in San Jose, Costa Rica. What could be better?

At a Glance:

Available from: EcoPaper in the US; anybody's guess in the UK!
Overall rating: paper 5 out of 5; homemade notebooks - you tell me?!

Here's One I Made Earlier