Lulu Guinness Stationery Review - Part Two!

Dear Scribblers

After yesterday's review of the Lulu Guinness Custom A5 notebook and the Lulu Icons Set of 3 A6 notebooks, the review continues...

50:50 Lip Diary for 2017 💋
Here's the review that most planner addicts have been waiting for, which you'll find is my most disappointing of all 3 items, but it's not all bad!

I love the design and A5 size. The cover is made of a study hard card with gold foil lettering and recessed black cloth blinding - allowing it to lay fairly flat. The pages are stitched in sections and glued.

There's a stripy silky ribbon bookmark, triangle card inside slip-pocket in the back cover, and 6 top-loading card pockets which are all useful. Although, I wish the top-loading files were spread out a bit more evenly throughout the book than they are. They appear at 3 weeks into the year, then one at a further 8 weeks, then we wait for another 16 weeks! Followed by 8 weeks, 16 weeks then the last one appears in the address book section 8 pages later. Obviously, there's a pattern here to the layout, which must be to do with how they are glued in, but it doesn't make a lot of practical sense. 2 have the multiple red lip design on one side and plain black on the other, and 4 are black and white stripes with plain red on the other side.

The main bulk of the diary is taken up with the layout of a week a page with notes opposite. This has always been one of my favourite styles to work with.

The diary begins with the usual personal information page, followed by a spread of blank red pages declaring the following page is 2017 Year at a Glance, and low and behold, it is! Next, there's the multi red lip design over two pages, stating that the next set of pages are a Month at a Glance... and you guessed it, they were right! I think you may be getting the idea that I think there's a lot of wasted space. I'm sure I can think of ways of using all this superfluous real estate.
I must say, I do really enjoy how they have drawn the monthly layouts. Each month is on a single page, but you turn the book to landscape to use it, and you don't lose out on writing space, so much easier to use than the month across 2 pages.
This is followed by stripy pages separating the month from the main Week at a Glance. I love that all the days have the same amount of space, unlike some diaries that squash poor old Saturday and Sunday. All the main UK holidays are listed, along with the dates of the main international fashion weeks. A chic touch! As is the little red lips at the bottom of each notes page.

An address section (12 pages - a few too many for my liking) is next. Followed by notes and doodles - which has plain lightly patterned pages, sections entitled "museums, galleries & exhibitions", "films & books", 4 sides of numbered to-lists, 2 for shopping lists and 27 sides of lined note pages.
 Both of these have the ubiquitous patterned double page separator. It ends with a page of international dialling codes, and page listing international holidays for 13 'major' countries.

Unfortunately, it loses points for a couple of reasons - the last two pages, on my copy, were stuck together and ripped. A little disappointing, but I can overlook it.

The main reason I feel disheartened is due to the poor quality of the paper. It feels rough, yet thin, which lets the 'designer' style down.

 It's so different from the notebooks reviewed yesterday. This paper is a world away in look, touch and how the pen feels when writing.

I also wanted show you a pen test, and you can see what it's like for yourself.

I'm not going to be able to use my fountain pens in it at all, and even though the other pens do not necessarily seep through, the depth of indentation of my writing is quite astounding! I know I'm not the lightest writer, but my hand isn't that heavy. I also gave it a quick wash of watercolour, the paper pilled immediately, but I knew that was a tough task. I think I'd only trust ball point pens, and pencils on this paper.

I know now that I couldn't use this as my main diary, as the limitations of pens would drive me insane. I love writing with my fountain pen, so I know I couldn't put up with that. However, it won't go to waste, as I'll be using it as my social media planner for the new year, along with my multi-coloured ball point pen!

If you love the Lulu Guinness aesthetic and her colours, this is a must... as long as you can look past the paper quality. There's much more going for it than not.

Happy Scribing!

Price & Codes
50:50 Lip Diary 2017
Style: 50125135
ISBN 978-1-84949-861-6
Lulu Guinness website - £18:00
Amazon UK - £13:06

Made by Quadrille (Hardie Grant) for Lulu Guinness - www.quadrille.co.uk - www.quadrille.com
Prices shown as listed on www.luluguinness.com and Amazon Prime UK - 19 October 2016. For all these items, a quick search on the net brings up alternative stockists, too
Also in the range - A5 luxury notebook, and notecard set.

Important Notes

1. Please note that I am not connected to any companies mentioned in this post. I do not receive any products, funding or gifting from these businesses. All products shown have been bought by me, or gifts from family or friends. I mention the items because I like them or have my own private opinion about them. It's just little old me talking about ma stuff! ;-)

2. If you would like to see more of anything in this series, please write a comment below, or 'like' and leave a comment by my latest Instagram photo, letting me know what you would like me to post photos and write about.

3. If you like what you read, don't forget to bookmark this site, and please share it with your friends.

4. You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram - @TheCraftyScribe which I update regularly with all things crafty, scribbling, beauty, fashion, the cats, sci-fi, fantasy, and the ephemera of 42*...................
*42 = Life, The Universe and Everything!

Lulu Guinness Stationery Review - made to be stopped and stared at!

Dear Scribblers

Have you seen the gorgeous new Lulu Guinness stationery? As an owner of a few pieces of her stunning handbags and accessories line, I was so pleased to hear the fabulous British designer was bringing out a stationery range, too. So as soon as I could, I hopped on-line, and bought 3 out of the launched 5 items. I picked mine up mid-August from Amazon UK, which was quite a chunk cheaper than her website. See pricing and full product details at the end of this post.

Here are all three of the covers:

Top left: notebook with 2 sticker sheets.
Bottom left: 2017 diary - a week a page with notes.
On the left are 3 mini notebooks with box.
And an overview of the paper in them all:

Top 2 show the 2017 diary layout and close-up of one of the top-loading envelopes.
Bottom left - notebook showing tabs and stickers.
Bottom right - 3 small books w/ different style paper
They couldn't be more perfect for me, my favourite colours: red, black and white, with some of my most chosen design elements: stripes and lips, with a little bit of a cat illustration, all by one of my top 5 fav designers. (If you'd added diamond quilting and stars, and it would have been perfect. 😂)

A5 'Custom' Notebook 💋

The item I've used the most has been the A5 notebook. There are 2 notebooks this size in her range: a hard-backed one called 'Dare to Be Different', and this one called the 'Custom' notebook. It has an old-style 'school exercise book' cardboard cover. There's 30 doubled-sided sheets (60 pages) - lined at the front of the book and plain in the second half, all tabbed into 8 sections printed with her signature lip, hand and eye logos. The 'custom' part probably refers to the 2 sheets of stickers, at the centre of the notebook, of 2 of each of the designs above along with 2 cats faces and 2 'Lulu Guinness London' logos.

The paper is high quality, almost card quality, (don't ask me about gsm as these are lost on me, although as a stationery addict, it's something I should definitely learn about!)

It's a dream to write on, even taking fountain pen and light watercolour washes. Please note that the book is stapled together and doesn't naturally lie flat, it can stand some manipulation.

We had a number of home renovations in recent months, which a list of jobs still to be completed, and this has been my house workbook to keep a track of it all. The front lined section for to-do lists and contact details with a separate tabbed area relating to a separate area of the house. Even though there's logos on the tabs, there's still plenty of space to write your own heading. The back plain pages are used for calendar layouts (so I can track on-going projects), sketches of floor plans and mini-mood boards of items torn from magazines, brochures and paint swatches. (If you'd like a separate post of the used pages, please leave a comments.)
There's plenty of Lulu design elements - I especially like the lip book plate on the cover for writing in the project. I can imagine a very stylish teen or college student with 3 or 4 of these containing their important revision notes. I also like the faux turned back corner on the cover, showing the glimpse of the little red lip, along with the signature gold foil logo on the back cover.
My only wish is that the stickers were smaller, and that there were more of them. At around an approx of minimum of 3 cm to 6cm max (1 X 2in), they certainly pack a punch. Not your average planner sticker.
A delectable designed notebook for all your notes, to-dos and doodles.
Lulu Icons Set of 3 A6 Notebooks 💋
If pocket and handbag jotters are more your style, you'll love this set of 3 mini Notebooks which come a cute slide-in black box to, all with different design looks and papers. Each has 48 sheets - 96 sides.
The black and white stripe cat print has plain paper, with pale pink cover lining and the quote "Kooky Cat" on the inside front cover.
The multiple red lips and half black and white stripe cover carries the stripes inside and reads "A little lipstick never hurts." This comes with .7cm lined paper.

Finally, the half red/half black and white lips cover is lined in red with a quote of "Don't forget your lipstick" and is filled with .7cm square grid/graph pages.

Once again, the paper is high quality, but not as thick as the notebook above, which would actually be too much for books of this size.

I've been dabbling in these, but not used them as much as the notebook. I could see myself dropping these into a fauxdori/travelers notebook sort of cover and using the plain book for sketching/mini art journal, the lined one as a common place book or for jotting down storylines, poetry and blog ideas, and of course, the grid would make a great bullet journal. Although, the graph squares are quite large, so if you're anything like me, you might find yourself filling up the book pretty quickly!
If your intention was to use all three, it would make for a very chunky set to carry around with you. There's another reason why the 'fauxdori' route may not work, as the papers are stitched in groups and then these sections are glued into the spine, so there's no defined centre to the book. It's also a worry, as the book doesn't lie open, once you begin to manipulate it as you attempt to create an easy working surface, will these sections fall out? I hope that the binding glue is strong and holds them together. I'll let you know as I use them.
My aim is to use the grid book as my bullet to-do list, along with the diary - as their covers match! Then the other two as discussed above, but not to carry around together.
If you look at them, for what they are intended for, as little pocket notebooks, then they are fun to use, gorgeous to look at, and will certainly be a talking point when you bring it out of your bag.
I hope you've found these reviews interesting, as they ran a little longer than I expected, I've decided to split it, so there's not too much information coming at you. I hope that you'll return again tomorrow for the full review on the 50:50 2017 diary.
Please see all pricing and details listed below.

Happy Scribing!

Prices & codes
Custom A5 notebook
Style no: 50125173
ISBN 978-1-84949-863-0
Lulu Guinness website £8:00
Amazon UK £8:00

Lulu Icons A6 Set of 3 Notebooks
Style: 50125166
ISBN 978-1-84949-864-7
Lulu - £15:00
Amazon - £10:00

Made by Quadrille (Hardie Grant) for Lulu Guinness - www.quadrille.co.uk - www.quadrille.com
Prices shown as listed on www.luluguinness.com and Amazon Prime UK - 19 October 2016. For all these items, a quick search on the net brings up alternative stockists, too
Also in the range - A5 luxury notebook, and notecard set.

Important Notes

1. Please note that I am not connected to any companies mentioned in this post. I do not receive any products, funding or gifting from these businesses. All products shown have been bought by me, or gifts from family or friends. I mention the items because I like them or have my own private opinion about them. It's just little old me talking about ma stuff! ;-)
2. If you would like to see more of anything in this series, please write a comment below, or 'like' and leave a comment by my latest Instagram photo, letting me know what you would like me to post photos and write about.
3. If you like what you read, don't forget to bookmark this site, and please share it with your friends.
4. You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram - @TheCraftyScribe which I update regularly with all things crafty, scribbling, beauty, fashion, the cats, sci-fi, fantasy, and the ephemera of 42*................... *42 = Life, The Universe and Everything!

I'm Back... Back Again... Again!

So... Hello!
(waving frantically)
Hello?
(taps the screen - knock knock knock!) Anyone out there?
(sigh!)
Probably not.
It's been about a year since I pounded at the keys and flung words at this page. I'm so, so sorry. I really don't know what happened. Where has the year gone??? For anyone still around...

Hello Scribblers!

I've missed you! I know, I know. I've said all this before. If we were in a relationship, you would have broken up with me already. I deserve it. But here I am, back again, saying I'm going to try better, and I will. (Even though I haven't even brought flowers!)

My aim is to get my blogging game together, and post various wonderments and thoughts upon this here space. I hope you'll have enough faith to stick around and give it a go, and if I prove my blogger badge again, you'll let your buddies know too.

If you want to see what I dabbled at in the past year, you might want to take a long look on Instagram and Twitter to see my past postings there - @TheCraftyScribe (original, ain't I? 😜) ((I also tried Snapchat, but I'm not keen. I've posted a couple of Instagram Stories. Still unsure. What do you think? Is it worth it?))

As well as photos of 42 (see intro on photo), on Instagram, I often write mini-reviews of 'stuff', but I think most people skip over the verbals to lay their orbital seeing vessels on the filtered-to-the-hilters pics. So I'd like to expand those reviews, plonk 'em here to tell you what I really, really think.

Plus there's other reviewing thoughts which often don't have a pretty still life to post on the Instas, such as thoughts on websites, stores, courses, history, clouds* and all forms of writing, which would fit perfectly within the lovely lines for posting right here.

I'm sure that many of you will be entering your mind palaces and bringing out great literary - as yet undiscovered - works of art for NaNoWriMo - the fabulous (Inter)National Novel Writing Month, and creating your first drafts of 50,000 words in 30 days. I'm sorta, maybe, ya'know, considering, thinking about, taking part again this year. Although, as of yet, I'm totally unprepared, and haven't even thought of what to do. It would be 100% flying-by-the-seat-of-my-knickers! If I do, I want you to keep me honest, and I'll write a daily progress and pre-November planning (if there is any) article here. If that's something you'd like to read about, please let me know.

Talking of planning, I'm also going to write a little about various planning techniques I've used in the past, and how I'm tackling it all now, along with favourite products and stationery. Think about it as more, 'How I Do It' rather that teaching you how to do it. Maybe, you might see a tip or one, but I think there's some great organisational peeps out there (including YOU! Yes, You. I can see you. 👁👁) that it might be a case of teaching granny to suck eggs 👵🏻😙🐣 or planneraddicts to stick stickers, might be a better phrase here!

I'll bring out some of my old journals and scrapbooks, along with showing you my present style, but I think much of the last paragraph applies here, too. Same goes for photography.

I'd like to get a little more personal with you, if that clicks your pen top. I'll show you stuff I normally post on Instagram (cats, travel, handbags and accessories, fashion and beauty) but in more detail, along with other aspects of my life that I don't show on Instagram. Such as my home including my favourite place to sit and write, recent home renovations, where I do my make-up, my wardrobe and study. Then there's mindfulness and spirituality, favourite television, movies, theatre and music. I'll delve even deeper and explain to you some of the more difficult life experiences I've been through, and the health issue I deal with every day.

If I can sort it out, I'd like to post a couple of quizzes to answer some questions about the look of my site, and also the frequency of posts you'd like. I'll shout out on Twitter and Instagram, once I've created them.

So what do you think? Does it sound like your mug of Rosie Lee**?

If so, please meet me back here... and also, let me know what you'd like me to write about. I love getting your feedback. Looking forward to seeing this blog active again, and in the words of Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest' -

"This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last!"

Happy Scribing!

(and I've remembered the flowers!)

* I don't necessarily have much to review about clouds, except I love all the different types - except the heavy grey one which covers the sky and causes rain, I don't like that one.
I also love to play the game where you find different shapes of faces, animals and objects in the white fluffy clouds. Next time you get the chance go out side, lie down and look for the shapes. Take a photo and post it to Instagram with #TheCraftyScribeClouds and link me in. If you do, I promise to follow you on your social media (if, you want me to! 😉)

**Rosie Lee - TEA! ☕️ (That's London Cockney Rhyming Slang, that is! 😃👍)