(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
Midori paper is some of the best out there, and this 70th Anniversary Limited Edition set of the MD Light notebooks is a lovely celebration of that legacy.
The set includes 7 of their A5 notebooks. The cover is light cardstock in a cream color, and the paper is ivory. The notebooks are bound with different colors of threading that can be seen along the spine, and the grid pattern inside the pages matches the thread color, which was an exciting surprise. The grids are well printed, so they are visible in the light colors and not too obtrusive in the dark colors. It's the perfect balance. The colorful grid lines also don't add any distraction when writing, though I admit I'm tempted to coordinate my pen and ink colors to the notebook's color. But that just makes it more fun.
The grid is 5mm with 10mm marks along the edge for extra guidance. It works well as a typical grid, for outlines and lists, but can also be used as lined paper for writing at either the 5mm or 10mm marks. The grid is heavy enough, though, that it can't be easily ignored. It doesn't fade into the background like some do. But it isn't meant to--this is a birthday party notebook!
The colors are dark red, sepia brown, yellow, green, light blue, navy blue, and purple. The notebooks come in a sturdy cardboard sleeve that can also work as a storage box. The set comes with a label and number sticker for each notebook.
The Midori MD paper is one of my favorites to use. It holds up well to almost any writing utensil. Sharpie bleeds through, but all fountain pen ink does very well, with no bleeding or feathering and very little ghosting. It's a pleasure to write on, and the colorful grids in this edition make it even more fun. Each notebook has 32 sheets, and since you can easily use both sides of the page with this paper, that gives you 64 pages per notebook, or 448 pages in the whole box.
The cost of this set is $45.50 at JetPens, which is a great value for the number of quality pages you receive. There's enough here to write a whole book, or a year's worth of class notes, or seven months of daily pages... Endless possibilities. Happy 70th, Midori!
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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