JournalBooks

It was “National Notebook Day” on May 20 so I thought it was a good time to look at a couple of promotional JournalBook notebooks I was given. These 5.5″ x 8.5″ hardcover books seem to only be available as promotional items sold in bulk. JournalBooks are run by the Polyconcept Group, a promotional products supplier that also operates Leed’s and Bullet Line. A sticker neatly placed inside the back pocket of each book is labeled Leed’s who apparently outsource the manufacturing of them as one is made in India and the other in China. The company must be very exact in their specifications because, aside from the covers, they are exactly the same. Both books have a built-in elastic closure, ribbon bookmark bound into the spine, and an expandable accordion pocket inside the back cover.

They aren’t the first JournalBooks I have used. Interestingly, one I tried before was from Domain.com and these two are from Verisign and GoDaddy so it appears they are a favourite giveaway from technology companies. I guess that tech companies like analog tools, or at least to hand them out as promotional gifts. From my experience with the Domain.com journal, I can confirm the creamy, lightly lined pages are fountain pen friendly and actually really nice to write on.

I decided to experiment with the Verisign journal to make the cover more interesting. I taped off a frame with painter’s tape, then used a palette knife to spread on Golden Fiber Paste to cover the debossed logo and provide a good base to paint on. The result is supposed to look a bit like handmade paper when it is dry. I did two coats because the first coat was really uneven. For the design, I was inspired by artist Terry Runyan’s cats and just used some assorted acrylic paints I had on hand. I think the end result is cheery. I love Terry Runyan’s work and have tried to imitate it before.

If these JournalBooks were people, they would come from all over the globe to work in sales but it is hard to pin down exactly where they are from since they go under assumed names.

Eaton, Crane & Pike Purse Jotter

The purse jotter beside an official Elections Canada pencil

This little notepad is a fun item from my vintage paper hoard collection. I have no idea where I got it from. It’s designed like a giant matchbook and the printing on the back (Eaton, Crane & Pike Purse Jotter 37-037 49¢) refers to it as a purse jotter. The name “jotter” is not a term I’m familiar with for a small notebook, but the word was first recorded in the early 1880s so it’s been around awhile.

I don’t know exactly how old it is but the Harvest Gold colour, swirly design, and price all suggest 1970’s to me. The company name is a bit confusing as the American Eaton, Crane & Pike Company (formed after merging in 1908) shortened its name to Eaton in 1934. The company was sold a number of times before closing completely in 1987. However, there was an Eaton, Crane and Pike Company of Canada registered in the 1940s and the Hilroy Company renewed the name in 1970 (since expired in 1986). I don’t know the relationship between the Canadian and American versions of this company but my guess is that this jotter was made in Canada.

The history of matchbooks gives no clues to the date of the jotter as matchbooks were first patented in the late 19^th century and peaked in popularity during the 1940s and 1950s. They were often used as promotional items and, while I never smoked, I used to collect them as souvenirs. I still have one from the Hunan 5^th Avenue restaurant I picked up on a trip to New York City in 1984. While the restaurant is now closed, it had a brief moment of fame when it was in a Seinfeld episode (1991).

The jotter appears to have been used only a couple of times. While it’s bigger than an actual matchbook measuring 11 by 8.5 cm (4¼ by 3¼ inches), it is still a convenient size to carry in a purse.

The paper is surprisingly good quality with the fine ribs characteristic of laid paper. The term laid refers to the traditional method of making paper where wires in the paper-making molds leave tiny ridges. Most modern paper is made with a method called wove (the mould wires are woven together in a fine mesh), which leaves a smoother surface. My G. Lalo writing paper is an example of laid paper and I think any other paper I have discussed in this blog is wove. The dark yellow paper coordinates with the cover and is perforated to make each sheet easy to pull out. A single large staple holds everything together.

close-up of paper texture

If this purse jotter was a person, they would enjoy dashing around town, shopping at all the best stores. They are happy to chat, just don’t ask them their age.

future artifacts for the Museum of Misshapen Matches

Kartos Stationery

Usually, World Stationery Week falls around the third week in April so in honour of it I wanted to feature some beautiful stationery from Italy, called Kartos. The company was founded in Montecatini Terme, near Florence, and the stationery pack I have is called Kartos Florentia. It’s a set of ten decorated sheets with matching envelopes. The paper is an elegant creamy colour with an opulent design of scrolling leaves and flowers in red, blue, yellow, and green, gilded in gold reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The company website states that they employ traditional printing techniques using copper plates and hand engraving. The inside of the envelopes are printed with a matching design. I have used many kinds of pens on them, including fountain pens and dip pens, and the paper is lovely to write on. However, they are rather small in size, the sheets are 7 x 13.5 cm (6 ¾ x 5 ¼ in) and the envelopes are just 14 x 9 cm (5 ½ x 3 ½ in) so there isn’t much space to ramble on and on or get fancy with addresses. The set comes in a folder that is fairly lightweight but is nicely decorated to match.

I also have a small notepad (12.5 x 8.5 cm) from Kartos made from the same creamy paper. It has a tasteful floral design but only the outside cover has the gold embellishment. I actually purchased it because I thought each sheet folded in half would make a good place card for my wedding reception but later decided the seating would be a free for all. This means I have kept this little notepad for 32 years now. I felt a bit embarrassed with that realization but I decided to consider it part of my paper collection. After all people collect all sorts of things and paper takes up less space than figurines or sports cars.

The paper is quite a bit more yellow than Quo Vadis Habana paper

Although the company is still around, as far as I know neither the stationery set or notepad are currently available in the formats I have.

If Kartos Stationery were a person, they would be sophisticated with a taste for luxury and an appreciation for brevity but still enjoy a good Renaissance faire.   

The Pen Corner Notebook

I started a new journal at the beginning of the month. My previous one was a Poppin notebook that I began mid-March. In my first entry, I complained about how difficult was to cancel a flight. I would never have guessed that seven months later we would still be dealing with the pandemic with no end in sight (*sigh*).

The hand-bound hardcover notebook I am using now is definitely a step up in quality. My sister bought it at The Pen Corner in Dublin, Ireland. Somehow it can be harder to start a really nice journal than a cheap one, but this one is such a delight to write in it was easy to get over that. At 110 mm by 155 mm, it’s a bit smaller than I usually use but I’ve found that one page, written on both sides, is just perfect for me to sum up a day.

As The Pen Corner slogan is “Fountain Pen Specialists Since 1927”, it is not surprising the unlined paper is excellent for fountain pens. It is thick, smooth and a lovely creamy colour. The blue cloth cover has their logo, a funny little man carrying a pen, on the front. Written in the inside cover is, “This notebook has been bound by hand by Duffy Bookbinders, in their bindery on Seville Terrace, Dublin, beside the iconic five lamps.” Duffy Bookbinders is a fourth-generation family-run business continuing on despite the many changes in the book business.

The Pen Corner does not have an online presence so you have to visit the shop to purchase one for yourself, or get a family member to visit for you.  However, another Dublin store, Designist, does sell other Duffy notebooks online that look very similar except they have an image of the five lamps that are near the bindery on the cover instead of the little pen-carrying man. They don’t give the dimensions except to say it’s a A6, which would make it a smaller than mine. The official definition of A6 is 4.1 x 5.8 inches, or 105 x 148 mm but, like women’s clothing, stationery sizes are often not exact.

If this notebook were a person, of course they would be Irish. This individual is sturdy and attractive, respectful of the past but looking ahead to the future.

Poppin Notebook

I recently finished the leather journal I’ve been using for my daily diary so it was time to go through my stash of notebooks to choose another. I decided to try a Poppin notebook that was originally given as a promotional item for a company called Stensul. It certainly is very different from the leather one. I loved the thick pages and loose binding that allowed me to glue and draw in my leather journal but it was bulky and as I have a trip coming up (actually I had two but I had to cancel one, hopefully the crisis will be over by June), I thought a more compact type might be a good choice. Poppin, founded in 2009, is an American office products and furniture company with a focus on design. Their slogan is “work happy” and they seem to favour bright colours.

This notebook is one of twenty-seven items that are part of the Poppin “corporate gifts” line. They have the same 5″ x 8.25″ notebook without the logo available on their website, although I didn’t see a purple version in the current online offerings. It has a soft cover with an elastic closure, an interior pocket in the back cover, and a built-in matching ribbon bookmark. The cover has the same rounded corners as the pages which are glue bound and don’t lay flat when open. The Poppin logo is debossed into the back cover.

The paper is lined with subtle grey lines 6 mm (¼“) apart and a top margin. It is a nice weight and smooth but it is fairly thin so you can faintly see writing on the back of the page but there is no real bleed-through with fountain pens. However, this is not the case with markers.

Overall, this is a decent notebook but nothing exceptional.

If this notebook were a person they would be a cubicle dweller. The only thing they use from the company stationery cupboard is the label maker which they use to carefully put their name on all of their personal supplies which they have lined up just so.

Recycled Notebooks

I’ve written about my creative sister before and her lovely cards but she also makes unique notebooks out of recycled materials with the aid of a Fellowes Quasar wire binding machine.

You can see some of them in my blog on List Journals. I have been the happy recipient of many of these notebooks over the years and wanted to try making some myself.

I enjoy travelling but don’t want to come home with a lot of knick-knacks. Instead, I quite like to browse supermarkets for souvenirs because its something I can actually use and I find it intriguing to see common items with unusual packaging. When I visited Iceland I brought home boxes of salt and cocoa and once emptied, I saved them to make notebooks with my sister’s help.

Using the size of the covers as my guide, I used a paper cutter to cut up some paper (including an old photocopied article about 1920’s fashion). I wasn’t as exact as I should have been when cutting so my notebooks are a bit uneven.

The binding machine does the rest of the work, starting with punching holes in the cover and the papers. Once that is done, you set them in the open wire binding and use the machine to gently squeeze the binding shut.

WordPress doesn’t allow me to use video in blog posts but if you really want to see how this is done, the Fellowes company has a short (less than 2 minutes) video on Youtube you can watch here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-j2DeYbYW4&feature=emb_logo. The excess binding material is trimmed with wire-cutters.

If these notebooks were people, they would have second careers very different from where they began. They like to be useful so don’t mind the discomfort of starting over in a new role.

Found Stationery

Sometimes it feels like the universe is strewing stationery items in front of me and, as I don’t have the same natural aversion many people have about picking up things from the side of the road, some of them end up in my collection like my Staedtler wopex pencil. Here is an assortment of items I found over the summer:

Pocket Pal – This cute little notebook (about 9 x 12.5 cm) is from a set called Pocket Pal Mini Journals – Monster Tales produced by a company called International Arrivals. It is no longer available but it may have been originally purchased at Indigo Books & Music or on Amazon. The front of the bright yellow cover has big eyes and a single tooth smile while the back has a tail with the words “Toot a Loo”. The inside back cover says “Please return if found. Good luck will be yours!” and I would have been happy to do so but although the inside cover has a place for writing your name, nothing was in it so I couldn’t return it to the rightful owner. The paper is not bad for a cheap little book but the dark lines are very close together so if you have large handwriting you might feel a bit cramped.

Turquoise Flair pen – I was happy to find this turquoise Flair pen. Paper Mate’s Flair line is a classic and was one of the first felt-tips in the North American market when it was introduced in 1966. Of course, back then it just came in black but now they have a full range of colours using water-based inks. This pen has a nice bright ink that did not seep through the paper of the Pocket Pal.

Houndstooth Ball Stylus Pen – I’m not generally crazy about ballpoint pens but when I saw this classy houndstooth ball stylus pen lying on the ground I just had to take it home. There are no brand markings on it so I can’t trace its origins. It’s quite thin (135 mm x 9mm) and lightweight. If you hate the sound of clicking pens, you would love the silent twist mechanism on this pen. It writes with a fine uneven line in a dull black ink. I don’t often use a stylus but I do find it handy sometimes when I am working on my tablet.

Sad pencils – Some items are too far gone for me to even consider picking them up. I live near a high school so occasionally I see smashed up pencils on the road. I have assumed these are pencils that have been carelessly dropped by students and then tragically runover by cars. I recently learned about an extreme sport called pencil fighting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil_fighting) that has provided me with an alternative explanation. Maybe what is really going on in our quiet neighbourhood is a secret pencil fight club callously leaving its victims behind. So sad.

If the items I picked up were people, they would be ones who once felt dejected and abandoned but have now found a new family of their own. To paraphrase from the ending of Roald Dahl’s book James and the Giant Peach, these stationery items that were once the saddest and loneliest that you could find, are now surrounded by friends.

Travelling Stationery Supplies

I am off on holidays this week and plan on taking a little break from blogging. Summer is just too short a season to spend too much of it in front of the computer. Instead will be traveling a bit (first destination Haida Gwaii), volunteering for festivals, and just relaxing on the patio.

As usual, I am taking some stationery and art supplies with me on the road. I will be packing my daily journal (currently the Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Days Notebook) held shut with my Papelote elastic closure. I don’t usually travel with fountain pens because I don’t want to bring along ink but the Zebra Zensations are so nicely contained I won’t have to worry about leakage or refilling so I’ll pick a couple to bring. I also like to keep a little notebook in my purse to jot things down that I want to remember when I’m writing in my journal at the end of the day.

Hahnemühle Watercolour Postcards and Nostalgie Sketch Book

I have two more items from my Life Imitates Doodles prize pack, the Hahnemühle Nostalgie Sketch Book and Hahnemühle Watercolour Postcards I want to experiment with over the summer. However, I still have one page left in my Pentalic Aqua Journal so I’ll finish it up before I start my new Hahnemühle sketch book. I really like many of the features of the Pentalic especially the travel brush and holder. The one I have is 5″ x 8″ and also has a ribbon marker and back page pocket that seems like it would be handy but I haven’t used it. I’ve been playing in this book since 2014 so over time the elastic closure has become stretched out. The paper itself is lovely. It takes watercolours, pens and markers all equally well. I bought it for a trip to South America (my first picture in it is of the plane we were travelling on) and I found it was a great icebreaker with the children when we stayed with a Peruvian family. 

Inside the Pentalic Aqua Journal

In the past, I have also used a Moleskine watercolour journal. This journal also has a back pocket and elastic closure. It’s a smaller size (3½” × 5½”) I kept at work to incorporate a little creative time during my lunch hour. The paper is a bit thinner than the Pentalic so occasionally there was a bit of rippling but it is also a good journal.

Inside the Moleskine Watercolour Notebook

Both the Pentalic and Moleskine books I’ve used were designed for watercolours so it may not be fair to compare with the Hahnemühle sketch book whose pages, although smooth, seem sturdy enough to take some watercolour. Once I’ve worked with it a bit, I’ll devote a whole blog post to this sketch book.

Pentalic, Hahnemuhle, and Moleskine books together

I am excited to try Hahnemühle watercolour postcards and plan on taking them on vacation with me. I like sending postcards but often it is hard to find nice ones so I have resorted to making my own out of watercolour paper. Having them ready made with space for the address already marked on will be much nicer. Again, I’ll discuss this product more once I’ve tried it out and actually mailed one. So along with the postcards, I’ll be taking my travel set of watercolours, pencil, eraser, pencil sharpener, Sharpie, scissors, glue stick to decorate them with. I’m looking forward to having some fun with them since if they were people they would be happy wanderers who never complain about a rainy day or delayed ferry. They just know how to get together and create their own amusement.

If you would like to win some Hahnemuhle products to try for yourself, enter this World Watercolor Month contest before July 22, 2019: https://doodlewash.com/giveaways/hahnemuhle-world-watercolor-month-2019-giveaway/?lucky=162039

travelling art supplies

Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Days Notebook

New in package

I have been using a Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 Days Notebook for my daily journal since last August. I decided to wait to discuss it until I had a good sense of how it worked for me. Too often in my excitement in getting something new I haven’t fully tested it before I start blogging. After using this notebook for over eight months now, and taking it on a couple of trips, I know what I like and don’t like about it. 

After eight months of use

This Japanese-made notebook is the A5 size (21 x 14.8 cm or 5.7 x 8.3 inches) and has a minimalist aesthetic. The soft cardstock cover is wipeable and comes in different colours (black, blue, red, in addition to yellow). There are small gold words written on the front left-hand side by the spine, “Stationery – Standard & Technology – WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, IS – Stalogy”. The words are a bit odd, both in orientation and content.

The pages are almost phone book thin with a very subtle 4 mm grid printed in light grey. Because the pages are so thin the grid appears a bit darker than it is as you can slightly see the grid of the next page underneath. This layering effect gives the appearance the grid is darker than it actually is. As the pages are thin, I was surprised there was not more ink bleed-through to the reverse of the page. I tried a variety of pens including V-7 Hi-Tecpoint, Crayola marker, fountain pen, uni-ball gel, Zebra ballpoint, and Sharpie. The Hi-Tecpoint was the only one that showed on the other side of the page and even that was very subtle. Usually I use a fountain pen in this journal as they write beautifully on the smooth paper.

Pen tests

Reverse side of page

For me, this notebook is a journal, not a planner, so I don’t really make use of the grid lines. Regular lined paper works just as well for my style of writing. Another feature I have not used at all are the teeny tiny lines at the top right of each page with the months, dates, and days of the week written on them that I suppose are meant to be circled or highlighted. In the same microscopic type are the hour numbers from 0 to 24 along the left margin. Both are as faint as the grid and in combination with their small size I don’t think anyone could actually see them without eye strain.

The notebook has a well-made thread and glue binding but I actually prefer a looser binding for my journal to allow for gluing ephemera in. Other than ink, the only thing I add to these pages are small stickers beside the day’s journal entry. Overall this is an attractive, light-weight, quality notebook that has held up well to daily use and travel. I expect to happily continue to use it for several more months.

If this Stalogy notebook was a person it would be an efficient editor, skilled at finding fault in the work of others without making the writer feel badly about it. This person is trim and compact, favouring bright colours with a cheery manner all the while being highly organized.

List Journals

I keep a variety of journals, including a daily written journal, a visual journal, and travel journals. One other type of journal I enjoy using is the one where I record all the books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched over the year. I’ve been doing this since 2015 so I’m now in my second list journal. List journals are about the easiest type of journal to keep. For me, all I do is write down the date and title (for books I include the author) but of course you could add a synopsis and/or rating if you so desired. Despite the simplicity of the concept, there is a whole line of books called Listography that provide headings on journal pages if you can’t think of something you would like to make a list of. Given that most people have a blank journal or notebook lying around somewhere, it is easy enough to try for yourself.

I use a journal my talented sister made out of paper rescued from a library recycle box that had only been printed on one side. The cover is from a boxed set of Kung Fu Panda DVDs. She collates her notebooks together using a Fellowes wire binding machine. I have a number of notebooks made by her including ones made from old greeting cards and product packaging. For my list journal, I add little tabs to get me to the right place in the notebook.

I like looking back over the year and seeing how many books I have read and movies I’ve watched and remembering my favourites. I take pleasure in a variety of books, including fiction, nonfiction, graphic, and audiobooks. This past year, the most enjoyable novel I read was Pachinko by Korean-American author Min Jin Lee. It is a fascinating story about a multi-generational Korean family living in Japan. The characters were complex and engaging and I learned about both Korea and Japan and their uneasy relationship. The most creative novel I read was also from Asia, The Impossible Fairy Tale, by Japanese author, Han Yujoo, translated by Janet Hong. Told by an unreliable narrator, this book takes a very dark and strange look at childhood. This book is very weird and disturbing but completely original. In the graphic memoir category, I recommend Parts 1 and 2 of Riad Sattouf’s The Arab of the Future where he tells about his Syrian childhood. It is very interesting but I should warn there are also disturbing scenes in this book. A favourite that crossed two categories, non-fiction and audiobook, is The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. He takes a meandering approach to his topic and reads it well.

Most of the movies I watch are ones I have taken out of the library. Some of the better ones include Loving Vincent, a beautifully made film about Vincent Van Gogh, The Shape of Water, which was also visually lovely, and The Death of Stalin, which was not really historically accurate but did show the absurdity of totalitarianism. An old movie I had not heard of before was a black and white one from 1955, The Night of the Hunter, which I found strangely haunting although generally it has not been well reviewed. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for a number of years so I like watching some Spanish-language films. I find they speak Spanish a little slower in Spain so movies from there are easier for me to follow. A funny one was Mi Gran Noche (My Big Night) about the crazy taping of a New Year’s Eve television program. Some of the better documentaries I saw included The Hand that Feeds, about undocumented workers in New York restaurants, and Obit, about obituary writers for the New York Times. The New York Times does not come off very well in The Witness, a documentary made by a man trying to come to terms with his sister’s murder. The Witness dragged in places but it did a good job dissecting a news story many have heard of.

I highly recommend starting a list journal for 2019. If books and movies aren’t your thing, try keeping a list of restaurants you’ve tried, places you visit, types of beer sampled, or hikes you’ve done. It is an easy and fun way to look back over a year.

If list journals were people, they would be a busy bunch in all shapes and sizes but share a desire to keep track of life without spending a lot of time doing so.