Castelli is an Italian company offering customizable journals, notebooks and diaries. They not only sent me samples, they personalized them with the name of this site! The samples I received are of a variety of sizes and colors and formats, and from the catalogs they also sent, even these are just a fraction of their options.

There’s a large 2014 planner with a removable cover and 2 pen loops, with pens included.

The medium size notebooks show some nice options– I like the dyed edges on the black/orange one, and the red one has a nice leather-textured cover with an interlocking double pen loop that keeps the notebook closed. The black/red notebook has an unusual binding style which makes the spine much more flexible. The slim red pocket size notebook is about the size of a checkbook, and the cover is removable. The pencils Castelli includes with some notebooks are a pleasantly chunky 3-sided design that is comfortable to hold.

My favorite was this little planner in my favorite size, 3.5 x 5.5″.

The week to page format with lined notes pages facing is similar to one of Moleskine’s planners, and I’ve always liked the way it gives you space to log appointments or other daily items while allowing some space for longer notes or journal entries.

Construction is solid, though the back pocket is all paper with no fabric reinforcement. One standout feature is the extensive info at the front of the planner. In addition to the typical yearly planner pages, conversion charts and international dialing codes, you get some extra fun stuff like a wine vintage chart and common phrases from Latin.

There is also a whole signature of unlined notes pages at the back, and a few alphabetized pages for addresses and phone numbers. Unfortunately, the paper in this planner is pretty thin. It is smooth and feels great to write on, but bleed-through and show-through were worse than average. (I did not test all the paper in the other notebooks, but a couple of them seemed to have a somewhat heavier paper in a bright white.)

 

Now for your opportunity to win your own Notebook Stories notebook from Castelli!

I’ll randomly select 5 winners from entries received in these ways:

On Twitter, tweet something containing “@CastelliUK” and “@NotebookStories”, and follow @NotebookStories and @CastelliUK.

On Facebook, “like” the Notebook Stories page and the Castelli page, and post something containing the word “Castelli” on the Notebook Stories wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Castelli” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this post.

The deadline for entry is Friday June 20, 2014 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner. Please allow a couple of weeks for me to check all the entries and determine the winners.
UPDATED 6/17 with the correct web addresses for Castelli UK, not Castelli North America. All entries will still be honored.