My Collection, new products, Notebook Reviews, Pebble Stationery, Places to Buy Notebooks

Pebble Stationery Notebook Review & Giveaway

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It’s so nice to discover new notebook brands, especially ones that are committed to donating part of their proceeds to people in need. Lois Ho founded Pebble Stationery Co. in Perth, Western Australia and was able to fund her first project, a pocket notebook made with Tomoe River paper, in 24 hours. For each pack of notebooks they sell, Pebble Stationery donates a pencil to a child in need, and with the initial Kickstarter campaign, they provided 200 pencils to the Shree Annapurna Panchankanya Primary school in Nepal, which has been severely affected by the Earthquake in 2015.
Let’s take a look at the sample Lois sent me to review:

pebble stationery notebook review

Exterior and Construction

The Pebble Stationery notebook comes in a two-pack. The notebooks are held together with a paper band with branding info on it, and then enclosed in a clear plastic envelope. The design of the packaging is clean and classy. The notebooks are grey with a subtle linen texture, and the Pebble Stationery name almost invisibly stamped on the cover. The endpapers inside are a pleasant surprise in a robin’s egg blue, with space to write contact information and notebook contents. And here’s a neat trick– from the outside, you can’t even see how they are bound! The cover is actually 2-ply, which allows the binding to be concealed.

Inside the notebook, ta-da! Here’s what that 2-ply binding is hiding: lovely blue stitching!

Each notebook has 80 pages of 52 GSM Tomoe River paper. They are amazingly slim compared to other staple or stitch-bound notebooks, such as the Field Notes Ambition and Women Artists in Paris notebooks seen with it below, each of which only has 48 pages.

My only quibble with the exterior of the notebook is that after opening it, the cover seems to curl slightly, so that the notebook doesn’t sit fully closed. I’ve had this happen to a few other notebooks– I think it is due to humidity causing uneven expansion of one layer of the cover, so it may vary with the weather, and daily use will probably curl it up a bit anyway. I don’t really consider this a defect or problem, as it doesn’t affect the function of the notebook, and if you use a notebook cover, it shouldn’t be an issue at all. It’s just a minor aesthetic thing that may bother some perfectionists!

Pen Tests

The paper is, of course, great. Tomoe River paper is always so smooth and lightweight, it is an absolute pleasure to write on. What I also love is the dot grid pattern, which is spaced at 4mm instead of the more typical 5mm. I have small handwriting so this is a very comfortable size for me. The color of the paper is a cool bright white.

Tomoe River paper is known for performing well with fountain pens. All my inks produced a nice sharp line with no feathering, and colors look vibrant. None of my fountain pens bled through except for my vintage Waterman, which is rather scratchy, so the pressure of flexing the nib always seems to rip the paper fibers a bit. A few other wet pens bled slightly, but much less than on most other papers. Because the paper is so thin, there is more show-through than average, so whether you’ll want to write on both sides is a matter of personal preference, but I know a lot of people enjoy the dense look of seeing layers of writing on paper this fine.

pebble stationery notebook review pen tests
pebble stationery notebook review pen tests

Conclusion

Pebble Stationery notebooks sell for US$9.95 for a 2-pack. That works out to a little over 6 cents per page. Field Notes are $9.95 for a basic 3-pack of 48 page notebooks, which works out to just under 7 cents per page, and their paper quality is nowhere near as good. When you consider that Pebble Stationery are also making a donation with each sale, it’s really a good deal. Retailers are fairly limited at this point, but you can order directly from the Pebble Stationery website.

Pebble Stationery has made a lovely pocket notebook that is a sophisticated, attractive and reasonably priced addition to the options in this category. I’m excited to see what products they’ll come out with next!

Giveaway!

Thanks to the generosity of Pebble Stationery, we are giving away a pack of these notebooks! One winner will be randomly selected from entries received in any of these ways:

On Twitter, tweet something containing “Pebble Stationery Notebook @NotebookStories”, and follow @NotebookStories .

On Facebook, “like”  the Notebook Stories page and post something containing the words “Pebble Stationery Notebook” on the Notebook Stories page.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Pebble Stationery Notebook” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this post, also leaving a comment below with the link in case the trackback doesn’t work.

On Instagram, follow @Notebook.Stories and @pebblestationeryco and comment on my Pebble Stationery post, tagging a friend and adding a hashtag of your favorite adjective describing the Pebble Stationery notebook. (Example: “@myfriendsally #fountainpenfriendly”)

The deadline for entry is Friday May 3 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!

My Collection, Organization, Piccadilly, record-keeping

My Cooking Notebook (And Yummy Recipe)

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I realized that in all my “Using Now” updates, I’d forgotten to include one notebook that I use quite regularly. My cooking notebook is a large Piccadilly notebook that I bought at Borders many years ago, not long after I started this blog.

In the first few pages, I wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for, so there are a few random notes and drawings, but at some point, I decided that I would use it as a place to capture recipes. I almost never label or decorate the front of my notebooks, but on this one, I used a label maker to identify it, even though I have no other notebooks this size that it could possibly be confused with!

Some pages have clippings torn out of newspapers or magazines, most of which I’ve never actually made. But most of the pages are handwritten recipes for favorite dishes that I make repeatedly, with notes about any variations in ingredients or cooking methods that were successful or failures.

After so many years of occasional use, the notebook has held up fairly well except that the front cover is splitting from the spine, mainly because the notebook has been crushed closed with lots of extra papers tucked into the cover. Also, the elastic has been totally stretched out and slack for years. But nevertheless, this notebook continues to serve me well, and it’s helped me serve some delicious meals!

In case you are wondering, this one is steamed cod with soy and ginger, which I’ve adapted with some variations on a recipe originally found on Martha Stewart’s website. It’s quick, easy and yummy and quite healthy too.

In case you can’t read my scribbles (and I’ve added a few clarifying details):

Steamed Fish with Soy and Ginger

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Approximately 3/4 to 1 lb of skinless cod fillets. Cod loin is great because it tends to be a more consistent thickness. Sea bass would also work well. Cut the fish into two portions.

3 TBSP rice vinegar

2 TBSP soy sauce (low sodium)

1 TBSP mirin

a dash of sesame oil– about 1/4 TSP

2 TBSP grated or minced fresh ginger

3 scallions, separated into finely sliced white parts, and green parts sliced thin lengthwise and cut into 3-inch pieces. (If not using scallions, substitute 1 clove garlic, minced)

Combine the vinegar, soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, ginger, scallion whites (or garlic) in a skillet with a lid (ideally a glass lid so you can see what is going on)

Season the fish on both sides with pepper and place it on top of the sauce in the skillet

Bring the sauce to a boil, the reduce to a gentle simmer. Cover the skillet and cook until the fish is almost opaque, 6-8 minutes. Then scatter the scallion greens over the fish and cook until they wilt and the fish is totally opaque, about another 2 minutes.

Serve with rice and vegetables (lightly sauteed sugar snap peas or roasted cauliflower go well with it. Bok choi or broccoli would also be good.) and spoon some of the sauce and ginger over the fish and rice when you serve. Depending on how much you like salt and ginger, you may not want to use all the sauce– it is very flavorful, so go easy at first. If you have furikake (a Japanese seasoning mix with sesame seeds and seaweed flakes), sprinkling a little on the rice gives a nice added flavor.

Art, creativity, Links, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook, Writing Notebooks

Robert Rauschenberg’s Notebook

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I found this photo on my computer– I saved it over 3 years ago and never got around to writing about it! A notebook belonging to the artist Robert Rauschenberg:

I managed to track down the source– I had photographed a page in the New York Times Magazine, from this article: Robert Rauschenberg’s Endless Combinations.

Rauschenberg wrote mainly in pencil, often on a yellow legal pad, in block letters that suggest both how arduous writing was for him — he was dyslexic and, it would appear, self-conscious about it — and how graphic, how attentive to appearance, were even his private jottings and notes to himself. You can see his brilliance for arrangement even when he’s writing a postcard. Other papers show him experimenting with puns, homespun adages, epigrams: “A STORY OF SURELOCK HOMES,” “I WANT TO MEET A RICH ROACH,” “SUNSETS AND STRAWBERRYS NEVER APEAR THE SAME.” For Rauschenberg, titles were of extreme importance, not to limit or clarify the work but to add to it another layer of poetry and complexity. He was, apparently, virtually a non-reader, but his instincts about language, concision and metaphor are, in fact, a poet’s instincts.

I’m glad I decided to clean up my computer!

Emilio Braga, Journal, Links, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, Serrote

Notebook Addict of the Week: xanelachic

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What a lovely display of notebooks and pencils, from the Instagram account of xanelachic. I recognize a couple of brands from Portugal, similar to ones in my own collection: Serrote Letterpress (the white one that says “caderno”) and Emilio Braga (the hardcover with contrasting spine and corners at bottom left).

Source: Xanelachic’s original post on Instagram

Art, creativity, Fun & Weird, Links, new products

The Omoshiro Block: Notepad or Sculpture?

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This is not exactly a notebook, but it’s quite an extraordinary paper product! The Omoshiro Block is a notepad with laser cut pages. As you tear off each page, an amazingly detailed 3D sculpture is revealed! Mind blowing…

Omoshiro Block – a Notepad with detachable pages, which as turns into a miniature work of art: paper sculpture in the form of a Buddhist temple, violins, trains, piano or camera. The Japanese company Triad, specializing in the production of architectural models, produces a notebook from tearing each page reveals the details hidden works of art – a miniature copy of the temple kiyomizudera in Kyoto, Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo or the TV tower. In Notepad more than 100 different sheets of paper.

Source: This notebook turned into a work of art. Photo – micetimes.asia

Art, creativity, Diary, Journal, Links, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Charles Ritchie’s Sketchbook Journals

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I learned about the artist Charles Ritchie from James Lancel McElhinney’s talk about the Painted Book. The image below is from Ritchie’s website, which is quite extensive.

Sketchbook page by Charles Ritchie

The website even has a whole category for Journal Keeping, among other aspects of the creative process. And on this page, you can see more about Ritchie’s sketchbooks, which since 1992 his wife hand-binds for him. He has filled 146 sketchbooks so far.

In an interview with Larry Groff at the Painting Perceptions site, Ritchie talks a bit about how he uses his journals:

LG:   How did your journals evolve and what makes them so important to you?
CR:    I left undergraduate school in 1977 and realized that having a small sketchbook in my pocket to record thoughts and images was an immediate grounding in a world of distractions. Working with pen and ink on paper in a palm-sized book had an immediacy and a feel that appealed to me. The content in the books has evolved over the years. Originally, there was a lot of open page with phrases and line drawings, mostly my attempts to track my thinking and seeing in the everyday world. Eventually, I started dating entries and began writing longer, more involved entries and also integrating images in black watercolor and brush. Dreams eventually presented themselves as an interesting way to push deeper toward my subconscious. When my wife and I moved into our home in 1984, I started working out of the same window and began to record the subjects I continue to work with. Eventually, the primary colors and then secondaries entered the mix and the journals became even more packed with images and writing. What I like best about my collection of journals is that I can look back over the chronology of my life and pick up recurring threads within the images and writings. The journals are the spine of my project. It’s very rewarding to look at my shelf of 144 books (and counting) and know that I can stride the years and see a picture of who I was at so many moments. I also appreciate what my dealer John Lee of BravinLee programs says about my books; they are stay-at-home travelogues. I do see myself as trying to see how far I can go in a single place.

Two Studies, One After an Oil Painting by Camille Corot, Book 135, 4 x 6″
pen and ink, graphite, and watercolor on Arches paper in bound volume, open book size: 4 x 12″ 2011
Four Studies of a Guitar and Star Map, Journal Entry, Book 143, 4 x 6″ watercolor, graphite, and pen and ink on Arches paper in bound volume, March 2, 2016

Be sure to check out Charles Ritchie’s Website and the Interview with Larry Groff for lots more images and insights about these beautiful works of art.

creativity, new products, Organization, Places to Buy Notebooks, Planner, productivity, Writing Notebooks

Page One – The Writer’s Notebook

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Here’s a notebook Kickstarter campaign that may be of interest to writers: Page One, a notebook with sections structured for all the different aspects of the writing and publishing process, such as “Characters,” “Plot,” “Research,” and “Submissions.” The campaign ends on May 2, 2019.

See all the details on their Kickstarter page.

creativity, Links, Moleskine, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping, Writing Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Week: Alan Rusbridger

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This week’s addict is Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of The Guardian. I’d read an article about him that mentioned he’d used over 200 Moleskines so far, so these must be just a few of them, featured on his Instagram account:

alan rusbridger moleskine notebooks
alan rusbridger moleskine notebooks

Art, books, creativity, Links, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Gordon Powell’s Composition Book

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I don’t remember how I came across the website of artist Gordon Powell, but I loved this photo of his work space, with a composition book in progress:

Gordon Powell, Visual Artist
drawing table
2013
My studio drawing table with assorted tools and one of my “Composition Books”

Powell has published a facsimile book with Printed Matter:

This work is a facsimile of an artist’s sketchbook, neatly bound within a facsimile of a marble blue composition book, its pages open to a series of small abstract pattern paintings. There is something deeply satisfying about the way the tactile object is reproduced – including, for example, on each left hand side of the page, the faded imprint of another image. Included is a supplementary essay by James Yood.

Source: Gordon Powell : Studio : New Image Gallery

Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…