Castelli Italy recently provided me with a lovely assortment of their latest products. (Also see my last review of Castelli notebooks from 2014.)

My first impression was “elegant.” The dark colors and black and gold packaging really look snazzy, the stationery equivalent of an formal evening gown. As with an evening gown, some people may find it a bit too dressy or blingy for everyday use, but it’s eye-catching for a special occasion or gift!

I received 3 lined journals in different styles, and I opened and tested this one:

The cover is a soft faux leather material with a smooth feeling (similar to the Rhodia Webnotebook and PSN Notebooks I’ve tested in the past).  The front cover is embossed in an interesting pattern with gold dots. There is an extra Castelli logo on the front in gold, which I think is overkill, as the brand is also on the paper band and stamped on the back. The exterior is also dressed up with gilt edges. An elastic loop holds the included Castelli pencil in matching black and gold.

Inside, you have black endpapers, and another gold stamped Castelli logo. The back has a matching black paper expanding pocket. There is a black ribbon marker. The notebook opens pretty flat, but not 100%.

The pages inside have dotted lines that do not go to the edge of the page. The Castelli logo appears yet again on the bottom of every page. There’s no worry you’ll forget what brand this notebook is!

The paper is very smooth, in creamy off-white. It works great with gel ink pens and pencils but with wet inks and fountain pens, certain fibers in the paper tend to grab the ink and go shooting out– it’s not an overall spreading but a spidery, jagged sort of feathering. Because of this I was surprised that most of my fountain pens did not bleed through to the back of the page, though a few other pens did. Show-through is a little worse than average.

All in all, this notebook scores high for gifty-ness with its black and gold design. The negatives are the overuse of the logo and the unfriendliness of the paper to fountain pens and other wet inks.

Other goodies I received were a set of 3 pencils (the same black and gold ones that come with the notebooks, a calendar desk pad, and a beautifully packaged 2018 planner embossed with “Notebook Stories.”

And I’ll be sharing the goodies with two lucky winners! One prize pack will be a notebook, the 2018 planner, and the set of pencils. The other prize pack will be a notebook and the calendar desk pad.

The winners will be randomly selected from entries received in any or all of these ways:

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

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

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

The deadline for entry is Friday January 26, 2018 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.