Midori Household Items To Do List Memo Pad Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Household chores are a hundred times easier to complete when your list is cute. I'm pretty sure that's science. And Midori has put that science to use in this Memo Pad To Do List featuring Household Items.

The pad is small, about an A6 size, and features 80 tear-away sheets. There are two designs with 40 sheets each. One has a reddish color with kitchen items (flour and a cooking scale) and one is lime green with cleaning items (a broom and dustpan). The illustrations are cute line drawings that make chores look sweet and romanticized, and not like torture at all.

Each sheet has a pre-printed checklist for ten items. There's a column for the date, a cute house-shaped check box, and the line to write down your task. There’s also a spot for notes at the bottom of the sheet.

The sheets tear away cleanly from the glue binding at the top. There's a cardstock cover that keeps the pages nice between uses. The paper itself is ivory colored. It's very thin paper, and not coated to be fountain pen friendly. Rollerball, marker, and fountain pen (and Sharpie, of course) all had some bleed-through. Pencil, ballpoint, and gel pen worked fine. But of course, this isn't really writing paper, and it's meant to be disposable. While I love writing even my most mundane notes in elegant fountain pens, I can make my laundry list in pencil. I mean, as long as it's a nice pencil.

The memo pad is very inexpensive at $3.50 from Vanness Pens. With 80 sheets of ten tasks each, that's 800 tasks for that price! At the rate I'm going, that should last me a whole afternoon. And it's cheaper than a cup of coffee these days, which I also need to get through all the tasks. This cute list helps, and all help is welcome!

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Nanami Paper Tomoe River Cafe Note B6 Slim Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

I know I've mentioned a few times that my favorite notebook for writerly purposes is the Nanami Paper Seven Seas Writer. The minimal design, abundance of great paper, and durable woven cover make it ideal for years of use. The only issue I run into with it is that it doesn't fit in some purses. I've changed bags just to carry that notebook in the past. This smaller version of the notebook solves that problem.

The Nanami Paper Cafe Note is a B6 slim size, also sometimes referred to as "Bible" size. It's more portable than the A5 version, but still packs 384 pages of 52 gsm Tomoe River Sanzen paper. That's enough to last a minute.

The paper is an ivory color with a light grey ruling on it. The lines are faint enough to be disregarded if you need to, but visible enough to be a good guide for writing. While few people love the Sanzen TR paper as much as we loved the original, it's still top-tier paper, and it holds up well to any kind of ink. The very fine pages will have show-through and ghosting, so you might only use a single side if that bothers you. I personally love the way it looks as the pages fill.

The cover is the same plain black coated fabric as the Seven Seas Writer. It becomes more flexible with use, and while the edges may fade and fray a little, it still looks great after extended use. There is some info and light branding inside the cover sheets, but otherwise it's a plain, unassuming notebook.

The Cafe Note comes in a cardboard slipcase that is perfect for storing it after it's full. It also comes with a sheet of pink blotting paper, which is an essential accessory if you plan to write with fountain pens. The paper's magic powers come from its coating, which slows down the dry time on liquid inks. If you're filling those pages quickly, you'll need the blotting paper to keep going.

The Cafe Note is available at Dromgoole's for $24. Nanami has always had very fair prices for their products, and this is no exception. $24 is a steal for this notebook. I remember paying $25 for the A5 versions almost ten years ago, pre-pandemic and tariffs and shortages and all--so it's surprising to me these haven't doubled in price the way everything else seems to have. I certainly don't think you can find a better notebook at this price. I often joke about stocking up on my favorite notebooks (because so many of my favorites have gone away over the years), but I'm not joking about this one. I just bought three more of these while writing this paragraph because I want to use these notebooks for years to come.

(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at regular price.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Retro 51 X Denik X Bat Conservation International Notebook Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

One of my favorite Retro 51 releases of the past few years is their collaboration with Bat Conservation International. The vintage colors, cute bats, pretty moths, and repeating geometry all charmed me. The design reminds me of Art Nouveau wallpaper, but spooky, and I love it. I was extra excited to see that they had also collaborated with Denik on a notebook, so I could be matchy-matchy. They've done this for a handful of their pen designs, usually a rescue edition, and those notebooks also contribute funds to the rescues.

Apart from the fabulous cover design, this A5 notebook is fairly simple. If you've used a Denik notebook before, you'll be familiar with the format. The cover is thin cardstock with a matte finish. It has decorated interior covers, and then 144 pages of lined paper (it also exists with dotted paper). The binding is sewn and glued in signatures. It's a bit crispy for the first few uses, but as it breaks in, it does get to the point where it lays flat.

The paper inside is decent. Denik's paper can be inconsistent as far as its fountain pen friendliness, but so far I have had good results with this one. The only thing that bled through at all was a sharpie. There was some light feathering with liquid inks, but only visible if I held the notebook three inches from my face. It's not a notebook for paper snobs, but it's very functional and perfectly useful.

Like all Denik notebooks, this one is very affordable. It sells for $16, which is a great price for that page count. There are no bells and whistles on the notebook--no ribbons or elastics, no rounded corners or page numbers. The cover is obviously cut from a large printed sheet, so the design cuts off at the edges. It's not fancy, but it is nice. It's pretty without being precious. That helps keep the price low, and still allows them to give some of the proceeds to the bats. Everybody wins.

This is the perfect notebook for a commonplace book or ideas journal. It would be great for meeting notes. It has enough pages to be devoted to a longer project, and will very likely end up as one of my novel planning notebooks. And it's gotta be for a vampire novel, right?

(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at regular price.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!