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!

Popular Pens for Particular Purpose - Part 1 of 4 My Old Favourites and Regularly Used

Dear Scribblers

At the end of my 'Notable Notebooks' series, I mentioned I would post the details of the pens I use with my notebooks, Filofax and more. So here it is!

As I wrote the blog post, I realised I had a lot more to say than I expected, so I've split it into a four day series:

1. My Old Favourites and Regularly Used

2. My Smythson Pens

3. Hidden in my Pencil Case - the Expected and Digital Unexpected

4. Useful Others, Fond Memories, Colour and Beyond!

My longest used pens are these:

My Uni-ball Signo gel-grip 0.7 gel pen in black. This has a good free flow which reminds me of a fountain pen, with the ease of a ball point. Very comfortable to write with for lengthy sessions. I also have the same pen (unphotographed) in white - or as they call it angelic! - which is great for crafting and art journalling. The black one seen here lives in a loop in my Filofax, and there is always an extra on stand-by. My hubby loves to use these too. 

Talking of the other half, the gorgeous silver tiled effect Balmain set was a surprise gift. He knows me well. They are a ball point and cartridge fountain pen, both with black ink, bought from TK Maxx. The gold-tipped fountain pen was my journalling pen for over the last two years, although it has recently been replaced by...

...yet another Balmain fountain pen, also from TK Maxx. This duck egg blue iridium point pen was an absolute find. It came in the matching box, although the ball point which should have been included had been nabbed by some unscrupulous person, so customer services let me buy it at a fraction of the cost, as it was an incomplete item. I was very pleased with the result! The pen is well-balanced with a great nib. It fits perfectly in my hand, as does another old favourite which I keep in the same box now. 

My black and white Kingsley ball point pen is the oldest one I have in my collection. Another present from my husband about 15 years ago! It's my shortest and fattest pen, but the unusual shape lies in the curve of my thumb and forefinger ergonomically. I love the monochrome look and the silver trim has a Greek key design running around it. This pen has had a lot if use, the only problem is that the size of the ink refills. They are unusual, which you don't find on the high street. I need to go searching on-line to get replacements, difficult when you don't know the size you are looking for. 

The pen in the other loop of my Filofax was a birthday present from a friend. It's the Ted Baker ball point pen with screen stylus, and case. It's thin and elegant, and I use it as my everyday pen. Very practical, and it's become a habit to use the stylus tip with my iPad. Helps reduce those greasy finger marks you can't help causing on the screen. As it stays with my Filofax, I don't use the little leather case it came with. It fits a long lipgloss, with additional space at the end, but that's about it. If you can think of a way of using it, please leave a message in the comments. 

Please come back tomorrow for Part 2: My Smythson Pens. 

Happy Scribing!

Important Notes

1. Please note that I am not connected to any company 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 'Popular Pens' 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!