(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 her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)
Can you ever have too many pocket notebooks? No, of course you can't. That was a trick question. I will always be excited by a pocket notebook, and this one is extra adorable.
The Papier Platz collaboration with Eric Small Things brings us this wee treasure. The highlight is the vinyl cover, which is a cheery shade of orange and decorated with images of pleasant things. There are other colors available: a bright blue, a navy blue, and a grey--each with unique illustrations on the cover. The cover itself is a standard sleeve-style book jacket, where the cardstock covers of the notebook insert slide into a folder pocket on each side. The vinyl adds that pop of decoration while protecting the notebook insert from the danger of everyday carry.
The notebook inside the cover, which comes with it, is a very decent pocket notebook. It's thicker than most, with 192 pages (96 sheets) of 4mm graph paper inside. It also has a built-in ribbon bookmark for keeping your place. It's well constructed, with a sturdy binding that should survive being carried around for the length of time it will take to get through all those pages.
There are some downsides to the notebook, though. First, you can't buy replacement inserts for the vinyl cover, so while the cover is removable, it isn't refillable. It's also not quite a standard size, so you can't substitute a refill from another brand. And that also leads to the second piece of bad news, which is that the paper isn't very fountain pen friendly. It does say that it is, but my experience with it involved some bleed-through.
I still think this is a good notebook--it's great for work, where I'm often not using fountain pens anyway, or for making quick notes when I'm out and about. The notebook costs $10.25 on JetPens, which is fair for the sturdy cover and generous serving of pages.
Papier Platz also have a wide variety of accessories like washi tapes, sticky notes, and stickers that go well with this notebook, if it needs friends. A lot of it is very cute, and much of it celebrates the joy of stationery, which we can all relate to.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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