Monday, January 19, 2009

A New Creative Tool From Exaclair: DecoPatch Meets An Exacompta Basics Sketch Book

My journal craze. The newest Exacompta Sketch Book is second from the top

It has happened. I have succumbed. I am a journal junkie. Granted I do write in my journal everyday & I have even found new reasons to require more journals. I use one for books I am currently reading- as a convenient place to write down words I want to look up, concepts that interest me or quotations that seem pithy or useful. I use another journal to take notes for things that I want to write blog posts about, and yet another notebook is used to record daily things - hum drum lists and what not. Karen Doherty from Exaclair has helped me along the the way. She has become one of my suppliers of my mood adulterant of choice - journals & sketchbooks! Most recently she sent me an Exacompta Basics Sketch Book to 'play' with along with some of Exaclair's newest product called DecoPatch. The DecoPatch papers are beautiful, just a bit heavier than regular tissue paper, and they make covering things - lots of things - just plain fun to do. Karen included a variety of papers, a jar of DecoPatch satin finish/glue & a DecoPatch brush to complete the the fun filled bounty box. I was beginning to salivate just thinking about the things I could cover with these fun, happy papers! The most likely candidate was lying right there - the Exacompta Sketch Book.
The Exacompta Basics Sketch book comes in two sizes, 5.5" X 8.25" (the size of a Moleskein) or 4"X5.5". There are 100 sheets/200 pages in the book. The creamy paper is similar to laid paper - slightly textured on one side & smooth on the other. It's beautiful to draw on and is also just about impervious to bleed-through. I have used watercolors, various fountain pen inks (more on this in another post), colored pens, & Sharpie xtra fines. The Sharpies bled through just ever so slightly - and that is amazing for any paper! The cover is black hard board - pretty plain all in all.
Not a lot of product branding on the covers. A nice colored book mark is also included.
Here's is the selection of DecoPatch papers, glue & the handy little brush
Here is the same Exacompta journal after I played with the Decoatch paper! Using the DecoPatch was easy & it was lot's of fun. I enjoyed combining papers, designs & colors but a project would look just as well using a single paper because each paper has variety & color variations in the pattern You could decorate boxes, journals - well, even chairs or dressers with this stuff! It's a great new product from Exaclair - you should give some a try - and will be happily surprised at how much fun it is to work/play with!
The 'new' journal - opened up.
Here's a look at the smooth, creamy pages about to be doodled on. It's a pleasure to draw on this paper - now I want to try one of the ruled 'Basics' journals (I think they also have 100 sheets/200 pages). This large size is most similar to the size of the ruled Moleskein journal that I use for daily ramblings. For some reason it is the size I have become most comfortable with. Anything smaller is too small and another larger seems too large. I may have found a perfect alternative! I love my Moleskein journal but the paper is too thin to support my favorite fountain pens or colored pens without a lot of bleed through to the back side of the paper - so this "Exacompta Basics' may be the answer I have been looking for with it's nearly "bullet-proof" paper. Were I to grade this Exacompta Basics Sketch Book I would give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars! The ruled journal mught even garner 5 stars - we'll have to wait and see!

6 comments:

gunnelsvensson said...

Very beautiful! I also love journals, notebooks and sketchbooks and you can have many ! And now I see it in every bog I read and at flickr, and it seems like everyone are doing art journaling :-)

Jeannie said...

Oh my! First you tempt me with silk and now journals - you know my weaknesses! I'm betting next will be yarns :) I love what you did with the papers. Have fun creating. I'm off to buy some journals! Cheers.

Karoda said...

You find the coolest items on the web!!!! love love love the possibilities of stuff to cover with the decopatch...i have 2 tables that I've been wanting my brother to paint in his funky African mojo style but now, maybe I'll just have some fun on my own.

Robin said...

Yummy papers... love your book!!!

Sandy said...

It looks like you had fun. I love journals but don't seem to write in them much-just collect them!

Unknown said...

the papers look really fun...i have seen them at a local store and have wanted to play...Melinda

Casino Bonus