JetPens Tomoe River Kanso Sasshi Booklet Review

(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.)

Sometimes my favorite pocket notebooks don't play nice with fountain pens, and sometimes they don't have enough pages for my project, and sometimes JetPens comes to the rescue and puts 48 sheets (96 pages) of 52 gsm Tomoe River paper into a beautiful pocket-sized notebook.

The Kanso Sasshi boolklets are minimalistic with just enough branding that I don't end up writing in it upside down or backwards. The name Kanso Sasshi translates into "simplicity booklet" and that is indeed what you get--a pack of two simple notebooks. The covers are embossed in silver with the branding on the front and at the bottom of the back. They are staple-bound with a soft cardstock cover. The pages are blank, but each book comes with its own line guide that can be placed behind the page.

The paper, naturally, is a dream to write on. It works well with any writing instrument with no bleeding or feathering. There is substantial show-through with darker inks, but not enough to deter me from using both sides of the page. It would be trickier, though, to see the line guide through the back side of a page that had a lot of dark ink on it. The well-coated paper has a long dry time for liquid inks and some inks may smear on its smooth surface. If you're using your booklet for quick notes, you may want to have a square of blotting paper handy.

This wee book ticks a lot of my wishlist boxes in a pocket notebook. It makes a perfect travel journal for when you want to pack light, or a planning book for a longer project, or notes for a conference. It can be used as a sketchbook or journal. It's packed with practicality. My only concern is that it might not be as durable as some pocket notebooks. As wonderful as Tomoe River paper is, it's not terribly hardy when it comes to the rough-and-tumble life of a pocket notebook. My notebooks tend to look like they've seen a war by the time I'm done with them, and this book may be too delicate to live in my pocket. As an insert in a traveler-style cover, though, it would be protected and fabulous. So maybe I just need (another) one of those. And then a bunch more of these.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Hi Mojimoji Tagged Life Gear Memo Pad Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Hi Mojimoji Tagged Life Gear memo pads (or Tagged memo pads for short) is a unique and cute memo pad that is well-suited to short jots and tearing out pages for one-off uses, but it has some limitations. Still, the aesthetic is spot on and makes me like the notebook despite its paper quality.

Let’s start with the specifications for the notebook I have on hand, which is the “small” version. It features a unique shape reminiscent of a retail tag, complete with a grommeted hole in the upper left-hand corner of the book. There are 100 sheets in this pad, and each one is perforated for easy removal. The curved sides of the notebook give it a unique flair, but also make it easier to handle.

One of the major features this notebook touts is the water-resistant nature of the paper, which fits nicely with the water/ocean theme that this collection of notebooks display on their covers. There are several covers to choose from, including Anchor (featured in this review), Kingfisher, Lifesaving Float, Rudder, Tyrolean Hat, and Mt. Everest. All styles are available in a large or small size, but they all contain 5mm graph paper inside.

The “small” notebooks are about 2.6 x 4.4 inches, while the “large” notebooks are about 3 x 5 inches. This isn’t a huge difference, and the price is only a dollar apart as well.

On the outside, these notebooks are definitely an eye-catcher. They use interesting colors and high-quality symbols for each theme. The uniform design makes it tempting to collect all six styles, but you have to be comfortable with the paper before committing to that many notebooks.

The paper is “water-resistant,” which always comes with trade-offs. To make paper water-resistant requires a special coating. This coating usually causes certain inks to act much differently than usual — namely, fountain pen and some gel inks.

In general, traditional ballpoint and gel inks won’t have a problem with this kind of paper — pencil is also a great pairing — but don’t count on using your favorite fountain pens or rollerballs with this paper. It bleeds like crazy and shows through to the back side very clearly. The price of water-resistance!

Outside of the expected limitations caused by the water-resistant coating on the paper, it’s a handy little notepad. The graph is the perfect size, the quality is consistent, and it works well with most pens/pencils (as long as they’re not water-based inks).

I’ve had a couple of issues with this notebook that make me pause. One of them is that tearing sheets out of the pad is incredibly difficult/problematic. 100% of the sheets I’ve pulled out have either ripped down into the writing area or pulled additional paper from the binding. None of the sheets have torn out cleanly along the perforations. The purpose of this memo book feels like it’s meant to shed pages rather than be a permanent store of old notes. That being the case, I would expect a better tearing experience. I’m really anxious now about tearing the page when removing a sheet, which shouldn’t be the case.

For the price, you can definitely pick up a 3-pack of better made notebooks. $10 is a standard price for pocket notebooks and memo pads, but these aren’t top performers in my experience. If you dig the aesthetic, though, the Tagged memo books are a good water-resistant memo book.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

LIFE Stationery Margin A5 Side Bound Notebook Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

When it comes to notebooks, you can find one for every specific purpose. Be it certain industries, odd rulings, or other constraints and requirements, there’s probably a notebook for it. I’ve always found that interesting, and it’s no surprise that I was intrigued by the Life Margin notebook.

The Life Margin notebook is a soft cover notebook with 80 pages of smooth, ivory paper that feels incredible to the touch and when writing. Like the other Life notebooks, this is some seriously good stuff. It’s a simple notebook, but it’s also simply wonderful.

On the outside, the Margin notebook is a craft paper material that bends easily, but is still resilient. Depending on the paper rule, the branding and cloth binding material is red (plain), blue (ruled), or yellow (graph). Apart from the minimal product information on the covers, there’s nothing else, which gives it a utilitarian feel. The Margin notebook is A5 in size and is held together by stitching and cloth tape. Overall, it has a clean, professional look on the outside.

On the inside, you’re greeted with a minimal front page that has a space for creating an "index" of your writings, or a place to write down your contact information. After that, we get to the good stuff. This paper is some of my favorite, and there’s 80 pages of it in this little notebook. It’s a light ivory color and has a special coating on it to make it extra smooth. Despite the coating, it handles all types of inks, graphite, etc. with ease. Dry times for inks aren’t affected, and it also does a decent job of preventing show-through on the back of the page.

Apart from the super wet Schmidt P8126 refill, the show-through is minimal and leaves the back pages perfectly usable for other writing. If you typically use wet pens, it will depend on what kind of ink you use with this notebook. In some cases, you may not be able to use the back page.

Writing on this paper is an incredibly enjoyable experience. It’s smooth when writing, has a good weight, and also has a pleasant color. The pages lay open easily, and the notebook closes flat when not in use. The binding seems strong, but also very pliable. There are no pages numbers in the notebook, but it does boast something special.

Like the name implies, this notebook features a vertical margin line about 1.5 inches or 35mm from the left side of the page. It’s an unobtrusive light gray line that’s helpful for leaving a (you guessed it) margin on the left side for notes, edits, or whatever else. Due to the somewhat light weight of the paper, you can also see the margin line showing throw from the back page, which gives you a handy right margin as well. Due to the light ink, it’s easy to disregard the margin when you don’t need it. And, the margin is present on each ruling type. I found the margin useful for making outlines and lists, but I could also see how it would be useful for note-taking and planning. Given the open structure, you can use it in whatever way makes sense to you in different situations.

Life notebooks have long been a favorite of mine due to the paper and build quality, and the Margin notebook is no exception.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!