First thing I bought in Amsterdam? Paper!

My Amsterdam trip was amazing, as I knew it would be... but it was probably even more amazing than I figured. Where to begin? Our hotel room was unbelievable. (We got a great deal, we thought it was a great deal before we even saw the room, and then when I saw the room, I practically fainted - nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in in my life. We had our own FLOOR. No one next to us, and we were on the top.) The weather was perfect: low 50s, and it didn't rain a single day. I didn't get any blisters. We walked miles and miles every day, drank great beer, had quality time with an old friend, and just got everything we wanted and needed out of the vacation.




But back to business, for this blog post. Can you guess what the VERY FIRST THING I bought in Amsterdam was? Paper, of course! We stumbled upon an excellent stationery store (I'm sorry, I don't remember where it was or what it was called), and it was my beloved who pointed out this paper.



Made by G. Lalo, the Eclat D'Ors paper has little flecks of gold in it. I've heard tell it's great for fountain pens - what from G. Lalo isn't? - but it isn't available in the USA, so of course I HAD to buy a pack!



I haven't used it yet, but I'll be sure to let you know what I think.

Review: G. Lalo Verge de France Deckle-Edged Correspondence Set

It's time for another Exaclair product review from all the goodies I got this summer!

Here we have the G. Lalo Verge de France Deckle-Edged Correspondence Set in blue. It comes with 10 cards and 10 tissue-lined envelopes. You can see full product information here, but the way the catalog is done in some weird animation programming (flash?) makes me dizzy and I find it hard to read. (Wha' happened to the good old PDF pages?)



My husband used one of these before I did, for a short thank-you note, and his conclusion is that they are perfect for just that purpose... or, he said, for a letter where you have very little to say. I concur about the thank-you note length - short and sweet, but obviously paper of high quality and good craftsmanship.



Here it is with my beloved letter-opener; don't they look nice together? You can see the edges have a pattern to them, hence the "deckle-edged" title, on both the envelope and the card itself. The stock is nice and thick, akin to card stock, and as with all G. Lalo papers, it is exquisite with fountain pens. I don't think you could bleed through this puppy if you tried, and I've never experienced any feathering. (This is not my first time buying these - I've used them before.)



I hope this shot lets you see the gentle texture of the laid finish. It's almost like tiny raised lines, but I don't find it at all distracting. If you have trouble writing in a straight horizontal line, the laid surface can assist as a guide. I've used very fine nibs on these and not had a problem with the texture. Here you can also get a nice close look at the fine tissue lining in the envelope.



Finally, you can see a blank card with the envelope.

These are 3.25 x 5.25 inches, and my pack has 10 cards and envelopes with a retial price of $9. I'd rate that a very good value, at less than $1 per card, for some very high quality stationery.

G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack: Pistache / Green

In my continuing saga of Exaclair product sample reviews, I give you the G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack, shown here in Pistache / Green.



The set comes wrapped in cellophane, with the G. Lalo logo embossed in gold on the band that holds them all together so prettily.



The paper texture on the cards and envelopes is laid, or slightly textured/lined. On the cards it is straight/horizontal, and on the envelopes it has a lovely diagonal slant. The envelopes are lined with nice, crinkly white tissue liner.

Although I am a big fan of green, I don't tend to like pastels, and this one seems to have a lot of orange/brown undertones with a kind of washed-out feel. Would I have chosen this off the shelf? No. But it's still an enjoyable experience to write a note on it. Actually, contemplating the color... for you ink-nuts out there, perhaps the new Noodler's V-mail GI Green would be a match. I hear it has some funky orange undertones and edges to it. (Sorry, inside ink joke there for those of us that follow new Noodler's inks and their funky behaviors... maybe just a bit too closely.)



Of course how it behaves with fountain pen ink is one of my primary considerations, so here you can see a closeup (and if you want even closer, view large). I used a Sheaffer Agio fountain pen with a fine nib, carrying Noodler's Hunter Green ink. This ink doesn't exactly harmonize with the shade of green on the border, but oh well. At least the ink is waterproof. It behaved beautifully on the paper - quick drying, no hint of feathering.



The envelopes are so elegant and beautiful - thick and weighty, but not too much so - that they hardly need anything else... but this peacock wanted to go along for the ride.

Though there was no price on this pack of cards, my research direct from the Exaclair website indicates these retail for $13 and come in packs of 10. (You can purchase them at Distinctive Stationery.) I am generally loathe to pay more than $1 per card unless it's something spectacular, and this is a little too understated for my definition of spectacular, so I probably wouldn't buy them. But, they're still lovely and I'll enjoy using them.

Exaclair samples, many reviews coming

The Bastille Day offer on the Quo Vadis blog, an opportunity for their blog readers to request and sample any red or blue J. Herbin fountain pen ink, seems generous, oui? So I said, what the heck, I'll probably never buy one but I'm up for sampling the Eclat de Saphir blue ink, after it looked so nice in Biffybeans' review back in October. (I've seen it in a few letters, too, and thought the color looked pretty groovy.) The very generous Karen at Exaclair offered to put together a nice package for me including some papers to review, since they were sending me the ink anyway. She even asked for, and honored, my color preferences - waaaay cool. But man, I didn't expect such a boon in a box! I am not going to do the math on this, but this is a lot of money's worth in some very fine stationery.

As you probably know if you've been reading my blog for a while, or reading my letters, I am already a big fan of Clairefontaine and G. Lalo papers. Good stuff. But Karen did a fantastic job of sending me some of their products that I haven't tried before.

As the lovely Miss Soda must be present for any unpacking of a glorious cardboard box, she joined the photo shoot to help display these products. (I can't help noting that her loveliness is sitting next to my hands, just in front of my keyboard, purring melodiously as I type. I love this cat.)



I promise, when I actually review each of these items individually, I will get their names right and provide full links. For the time being, I'll tell you that from Clairefontaine we have some Pollen stationery in grey, in two sizes (a larger notecard and a smaller flat card), and a little red wire-bound spiral notebook. From J. Herbin there is the promised Eclat de Saphir blue fountain pen ink. From G. Lalo, a tablet of Verge de France paper in ivory with matching lined envelopes (the cover of this tablet is what is glittering gold in the top photo of the items still packaged in a box - cooool; I capture glitter totally inadvertently), Mode de Paris boxed flat cards, small blue flat cards with lined envelopes, and green-bordered flat cards with green envelopes.



Now I'm just shamelessly showing you more photos from different angles, just to show off how cute Soda is when she inspects my new stationery items. (Oh yes - that's my happy gin and tonic in the corner.)



It's official: Soda approves. (That's her "I'm so happy I'm purring with my eyes closed" smile, which is kind of freaky in photos because it makes her eyes look like they disappear.)

Stay tuned - each of these fine stationery products will get a review in the coming weeks. I'll give a spoiler already and say I'm liking the Eclat de Saphir a lot better than I expected.

My G. Lalo binge: a French paper extravaganza

You've probably heard me bemoan my stationery-buying habit. It's a bit of a problem, and I am quite the hoarder. Combine this tendency with a really fantastic sale on high-quality papers I love, and that gets me a ginormous box of paper. Woo hoo!

I've just discovered Distinctive Stationery. How did I discover them? I can't even remember if it was a google search or if someone on the Fountain Pen Network recommended them. But they're having a big sale right now, folks, and I did succumb. Oh yes, I did.

They carry some Crane's, and I am pretty well set on that so I was able to resist, but I gave in to their selection of G. Lalo papers. Zowie. Here's my haul:



All of these were right around 50% off, which is a fantastic deal. I always have some of the Verge de France tablets around; they make excellent second (or third, or fourth, etc) sheets in letters when I'm using my beloved fold-and-mails or decorative paper/envelope combinations. I had never tried the others, though, because I found them just too too expensive. Half price, though, I can swing. The Opera and Diane de Poitiers papers seem very much like the white or ivory Verge de France tablet sheets, except they're a slightly different size and they have deckled (kind of a pattern-cut) edges. One of these days (yeah, yeah, I know) I'll take a photo of those. The envelopes are really lovely, also with the pattern-cut flap and lined with crinkly tissue paper. The Borghese and Mode de Paris are heavier flat cards, and smaller. Writing a letter on any of these babies feels positively luxurious. I'm sure you'll all be seeing some of these wares in your mailbox from me at some point.

I will again plug the big sale, AKA the Clearance Closet, at Distinctive Sationery, for anyone looking for some fine papers. Their packaging, as seen above (they bubble-wrap PAPER??), is very secure, and these arrived extremely quickly. I'm satisfied with the service AND the prices.

Just for fun and for the curious, here's a little bit more about G. Lalo.

Guess I'd better go dig into that letter pile now and write me some letters!