A few weeks ago when I visited the brand new stationery store in town, I picked up a fun journal. Written in the Stars ($13.99) is a canvas bound journal from Denik. I was unaware of Denik before now but Ana has written about them before (here and here)
I was immediately drawn to the textured and foil-decorated hard cover notebook because of its look and feel. The journal is mauve with gold foil star patterns, a perfect journal for recording your all your dreamy thoughts. The end papers are simple in this notebook – lavender with small stars.
The paper included is 120 pages of 70 lb/105 gsm cream-color paper that is fairly smooth to the touch. Each page has a small area at the top where you can mark the day and date if you so wish and there is also a cream ribbon bookmark so you never lose your place.
The paper itself is lovely. I used a variety of gel pens, fine liners and a bit of fountain pen ink. The only thing that bled through was when I “swatched” ink onto the page, and even then only when I added a second coat (for the darkest part on the left). In general the ink dried quickly and I saw no feathering or bleeding.
The notebook does come in at not quite an A5 size, measuring 5.25″ x 7.25″ (13 cm x 18.5 cm). The cover is beautiful and I”ll be interested to see how it wears over time.
The final thing I’ll note is a small message inside the front cover about Dinek. Dinek’s mission is that they believe art can change the world. A small portion of each purchase goes to funding schools and providing supplies in Mali, Guatemala, Laos, Ghana, Nicaragua, and the U.S. That’s a mission I can get behind!
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased with my own funds. Please see the About page for more details.
Thank you for reviewing the Denik notebook. I have several of them that I have not tried yet. I did reach out to Denik to ask if the paper was fountain pen friendly. I got a response that included a mention of a blog review, and that the person responding used a fountain pen with the paper.
Denik has a great variety of designs and styles. There is spiral, soft bound and hard bound. I have the soft and hard cover bound versions. Like yours, several of mine are Space theme, though I did get a great retro cover of a VHS tape look, so fun.
The quote “shoot for the moon” was inked in my Kaweco AL Sport with KWZ Raspberry. So yes – I think FP ink is fine as long as you’re not painting it on (like I did at the bottom).
Hi Laura, thank you for confirming again that the paper works with fountain pens when used to write. It’s so nice they help out with schools around the world. I like it when companies do that tangible help. Write Notebooks had a program to donate notebooks to local schools. There would be a code in the notebook that you could look up to see which school your purchase helped. I think they have stopped that. Hopefully they will find a way to keep helping.