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