(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!)
Earth day is this week! I feel that makes it an excellent time to feature a sustainable maker of stationery goods, and I'm totally falling for this Dingbats notebook.
The Dingbats company carries some impressive environmental credentials, including the Mark of the Forest Stewardship Council. They are entirely green and vegan and recyclable, and their website has several fancy environmental certificates. This makes my heart happy, as I often feel the weight of my notebook consumption weighing on my shoulders.
A lot of times, when I go for an eco-friendly notebook, I'm sacrificing some other preferred quality. Usually that is the paper. I don't find many fountain pen friendly notebooks that are also green. Well, now I have. In fact, this paper is more than just friendly--it's phenomenal. According to their site, they are the oldest established paper company in Lebanon. This paper is 100gsm silk cream, acid-free, and fsc-certified. I'm not even sure what all of that means, but I can tell you that the performance is excellent. I tried a whole cup full of pens, and it handles everything. There was some show-through with a sharpie, but it wasn't even a full bleed-through. There was no feathering, and it showed shading nicely. This is dreamy paper to have in any notebook.
Each of the 96 sheets is micro-perforated. They're sturdy enough as pages, but can be cleanly removed where needed. This notebook comes with either 7mm lines, 5mm dot grid, 5mm grid, or blank. The over is vegan leather, with a satisfying pebble texture to it. The book is called the Blue Whale, but it has what looks more like a dolphin debossed in the center of the cover. It has an elastic closure.
Inside, there is a name page with a decorated endpaper--this one with tiny adorable fishies. At the back is a generously expanding pocket. There is a single ribbon bookmark (other of their designs have a double). There is also an elastic pen holder. It's narrow, but expands enough to hold a big pen.
It does not have an index page or page numbers, but since the pages are removable, that makes sense. Overall, this is a well-made, and responsibly-made notebook. They have a number of cute designs, with elephants, tigers, deer, hippos, ducks, kangaroos...and an ecosystem series with some beautiful silhouettes. There are quite a few that catch my eye.
They are not inexpensive at $19.95, but I don't think they are at all overpriced. For the quality, build, number of pages, and features, I think that is a very fair price. And their commitment to the environment is priceless.
Happy Earth day!
(Dingbats provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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