Paper Plant Co. Shop Visit

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

I hung out for a couple extra days after the 2025 California Pen Show and one of the things I wanted to do was visit some stationery shops. Let’s be real, that’s what I want to do in pretty much any city, lol. One of the places I wanted to check out was Paper Plant Co in Los Angeles’ Chinatown district. They recently expanded their space and now have a separate space for home/lifestyle goods (and coffee!!) next door to their stationery space. Let’s take a look!

The Paper Plant Co coffee shop/home space on the left and stationery shop on the right.

Can’t wait to go inside! Pro tip: Go do your shopping before you get your coffee/tea so you can take your time, have your hands available to check out the goodies, and not spill!

I love all the red lanterns that were hanging from the ceiling of this entryway.

The shop is pretty compact, but they manage to pack a lot of fun things in the shop.

Look at all of these shelves full of goodies like papers, pens, and more!

Paper, stickers, wax seals, bookmarks…

More stickers, papers, tags, portable scissors, too.

I forgot to get a shot of this table of pens and notebooks so you get a zoomed in picture instead, oops.

Next to the stationery shop is the cozy Home & Lifestyle space, where you can order a coffee or tea and shop for some fun products! Pro tip: If you’re not pressed for time, after stationery shopping, grab a coffee/tea and sit outside to enjoy the Southern California weather.

Inside the Home & Lifestyle space.

Look to the right from the entrance and you’ll find wooden boxes from Classicky, as well as candles, incense, and other fun things for the home.

Look to the left and you’ll see embroidery kits, air fresheners, key chains, pins, etc. There are also cups, brewing equipment, etc. along this wall too.

So many neat things in here, including chocolates packed like sardines!

Since I just came from the CA pen show a couple days before, I kept my haul to a minimum: Multi-sticker sheets by eric small things (you can put them on fabric!), a shop sticker, an exclusive Stalogy x Paper Plant Co notebook, and a Shchi-iro marker that allows you to write on washi tape! I also played with their shop stamps too.

Both of the Paper Plant Co spaces are relatively small, but there’s even more online, so be sure to check out their website too. Paper Plant Co’s stationery space is located at 936 N Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, while the Home & Gifts space is next door at 938 N Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90012. They are open daily from 9AM - 4PM. They can also be reached by email or by phone at 213-269-9784, and they are on Instagram as Paper Plant Co.

Stalogy Editor's Series 365Days A5 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!)

I'm going to throw caution to the wind and admit upfront that this is one of my favorite notebooks on the market right now. That's because it's one of the closest things I've found as a replacement for my true favorite notebook, the beloved and discontinued Nanami Paper Seven Seas Writer. It's far from identical, but it meets my needs in a similar way. It's also a great substitute for a Hobonichi Cousin if you want something similar to that, but with less structure. It's perfect as a commonplace book or daily pages journal, but also works well just as a regular notebook. With lots and lots of pages. Which we know I like.

The Stalogy Editor's Series comes in A5, A6, and B6 sizes (much like the Hobonichi--and these fit nicely into Hobonichi Cousin or Techo cases and covers) in a few colors: black, red, yellow, and this lovely shade of blue. There is also a B6 Landscape edition. The cover is a thin, lightly textured cardstock that is flexible. It wears well with use, looking loved without becoming too shabby. The design is minimal, with only a few metallic brand logos in the upper left corner.

Inside, there are 184 sheets (368 pages) of 52 gsm white paper with faint grey graph lines (lined and dot grid paper versions are available if you prefer). The line spacing is a narrow 4mm. Each page is also numbered with the month, dates, and days of the week printed at the top, so you can circle the date for each page. This is perfect for folks who don't need or want to planner every day, but hate skipping precious notebook pages. Or, if you happen to need multiple pages for a day. The left margin also has hour markers from 0 to 24, if you need to track an hourly schedule. All these markings are very faint, however, so if you just want to use the notebook as a regular notebook, these guides do not get in the way at all. The binding is thread and glue, and the notebook lays open on its own. I have not had any pages come loose even after extended use and hauling around.

The paper is excellent quality. It's indistinguishable from Tomoe River paper, with the same thin crispness and ink handling capabilities. You will see ghosting, as you would with any thin coated paper, but even if that bothers you and you can only use one side of the paper, you still have a lot of pages to work with in this notebook. It handles liquid ink well and is great for fountain pen users.

I've used mine as a standard notebook, ignoring the calendar functions and hourly schedules--though sometimes dating my work is handy, too. The A5 is perfect for fiction writing, and the A6 is perfect for when I need to write while traveling. The thin covers fit beautifully into just about any case I want to use, or it holds up well without a cover at all. I do think it would make a good planner for those who don't need the rigid structure of a standard planner (I need the structure, personally).

The A5 size costs $26 (though the lined limited editions are more). That's a very similar cost to the Hobonichi graph notebooks, though those have 144 sheets (288 pages). These do, however, cost $6 more than the JetPens Kanso Noto Tomoe River notebooks, which have 160 sheets (320 pages). These are also fantastic notebooks. They're all great, and in pretty close range of one another, and we're spoiled for choice. The correct answer, of course, is to go for all three.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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The Pen Addict Podcast: Episode 655 - Wide Rule Is For Babies

What pen is this? (via Cheryl Lindo Jones)

I’m joined this week by Dan Wearsch from Enigma Stationery. We discuss his stationery journey from the start, and how that led into the creation of Enigma. We also dig in to the new LAMY Safari Scarlet, and debate what pen made its way into Severance.

Show Notes & Download Links

This episode of The Pen Addict is sponsored by:

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