Midori MD Letter Pad Review

Midori MD Letter Pads are designed with a purpose. As the name dictates, they are primarily letter writing pads, but, as someone who doesn’t write letters, I think they are useful for all types of creativity. There are a couple of things they aren’t for, too.

Midori makes some of the best paper products on the market. Not only that, but I would be hard pressed to find another brand with this much variety in their lineup. It’s astonishing, and borderline overwhelming. Even the letter writing focused pads have several different formats and layouts.

I chose a standard letter pad layout in the Midori MD Stationery Horizontal Ruled A, which includes 50 pages of Midori’s proprietary paper. Paper I know, and I love. The line format - soft grey lines 9.5 mm apart, with wide margins - is the unique factor here. This is paper with a purpose, and that is to create something fun, interesting, and beautiful, for someone other than yourself.

What it isn’t is a desk pad, or a journal. Technically, you could use a Midori Letter Pad in this manner, but why? If you love Midori, you have a dozen other choices to solve those problems. Same with the stack of unused notebooks sitting on your shelf right now. You know who you are.

So this notepad isn’t for everyone? Absolutely not. It has a reason to exist, which needs to match your reason to buy it. My reason is that I love Midori, and I love how my handwriting looks on these wide lines and wide margins. Why are the margins designed this way? To make the words in the center of the page stand out. I love the visual it provides.

It’s a large visual, too, with the paper size outside of the normal A5 boundaries. It sits at a similar 210 mm tall, but is 168 mm wide, 20 mm wider than standard. I have no idea why, but it will be wider than A5 envelopes for mailing.

Being a Midori product, my expectation is that will handle every pen, nib, ink type, and pencil I throw at it with ease. It did. It’s not the elite fountain pen ink shader or sheener that paper designed for those characteristics will show, but it shows plenty. All of my currently inked pens performed well on the page, with no feathering, bleed, or show through. Gel ink, rollerball, ballpoint, and pencil all worked great as well.

The only negative I ever list with Midori is its stock cream-colored paper for those preferring a stark white page. I like the cream, and don’t find that it takes away from my ink colors enough to take away from all of the other great features.

Another great feature? The price. This Midori Letter Pad is $8 for 50 sheets. That’s very fair, and in line with the full Midori lineup. That said, this is a specialty product, and if you write multi-page letters with one line per line, and one side of the page, you could work through one of these pads quickly. If you have smaller handwriting, you could fit two handwritten lines between the lines, which is something I may try.

Midori Letter Pads are something you may consider trying, if it fits your needs. Like I said, they have a few specific tasks where they will shine, and aren’t a big commitment. Plus, they are Midori. It doesn’t get much better than that in the world of paper.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Kakimori - A 2-for-1 Quick Look

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

Sometimes I look down at the pile o’ goodness that the Bossman sends me and try to figure out what to play with that is both interesting to me and to you. Most of the time, it is difficult because I’m paralyzed with so many choices! Should I review an ink? Maybe a notebook? Or a new pen? Well, this time, it was a pretty easy choice because I found TWO things that I wanted to play with, so lucky you, you’re gonna get a 2-for-1 quick look today!

I have a bottle of Kakimori 08 Zabun, which is a pigmented ink, and Kakimori Letter Paper. Thank you to Vanness Pens for sending these for review.

Zabun is one of 10 pigmented inks in their classic line from Kakimori and comes in an adorable 35ml bottle. These ink bottles were designed by Makoto Koizumi, who wanted them to look like falling drops. It’s easier to show you than describe but imagine a big round drop of glass with a flat base, but rather than an opening right at the top, it’s off to the side, making it look a little tipsy or lopsided, but in a cute way. The nice wide opening is at an 8-degree angle from the top, making it perfect for dipping as well as inking up pens/converters.

Unlike dye-based inks, pigmented inks are meant to be water, fade and smudge- resistant. It is not an iron gall ink, so it can be used safely in pens with steel as well as gold nibs. Also, because it is pigmented, you should always shake up the bottle prior to inking up a pen to evenly disperse the pigment. Lastly, pigmented inks are mixable, so if your inner alchemist/artist/colorist wants to try making other colors of pigmented ink, have at it - just be sure to use a separate clean vial/bottle for the mixing so you don’t contaminate the original colors.

Because it is meant to be water resistant, pigmented inks may be more difficult to clean out your pen if you leave it unused for a long time, or if it has dried out. Since I don’t always get a chance to rotate my pen usage as much as I’d like, I decided to ink this up in a converter (in case it permanently stains it).

I wrote a few lines on HP 28lb laser jet paper and let the ink dry before running water over it for 15 seconds.

This is what it looked like after I put the wet paper on the counter. Definitely water-resistant!

On Col-o-ring cards, you can see that it is a nice dark teal. I used a Woodshed Pen Company teal demonstrator with a Franklin-Christoph Medium nib for the writing sample. You can see that it is a nice dark teal - neither too green nor too blue. It has average flow, maybe even a teensy bit on the dry side, resulting in a little bit of shading on both the Col-o-ring cards and the Kakimori letter paper.

I put the Col-o-ring cards on the Kakimori letter paper to show that the latter has a slight cream tinge to it.

Similar inks include Ferris Wheel Press Bluegrass Velvet, Papier Plume Ink 13, Monteverde Iced Cookie, Montblanc Blue Hour, Diamine Smoke on the Water (minus the sheen), Straits Pens Sad Stormy Swedish Sea, Sailor 50 States California and KWZ IG Turquoise.

Zabun dries fairly quickly on the Exacompta index card as well as the Kakimori letter paper. It might take a touch longer on more slick papers like Tomoe River, but I didn’t really notice much of a difference for dry time.

Dry time was about 30 seconds on this yellow index card (it’s not my bad lighting this time, lol)

On to the Kakimori letter paper! The paper is blank with teal colored lines and swirls on the top and a single line at the bottom with a small Kakimori logo in the lower right hand corner. The paper is B5-sized and has a laid texture, where there are fine “lines” running across the page both horizontally and vertically. These lines feel like little bumps and can help you write straight without a guide sheet, but it can also be distracting when writing with fine or extra fine nibs as you may feel each bump with up/down strokes. The “front” side of laid paper is the side with the texture. In addition, there is a watermark which will indicate which is the writing side - if you hold it up to the light, you can see the watermark of the word “conqueror” (its placement is random on each sheet). The reverse side is smooth by comparison, but not like Tomoe River or Cosmo Air Light.

It’s a lot easier to see the laid texture as well as the watermark if you hold it up against the light.

It took me a bit to get used to the texture but it was nice not having to use a guide sheet or rely on preprinted lines/dots. The paper held up nicely to a variety of pens, nibs and inks. It handled dye-based inks (what we’d all just call “ink”), this Zabun pigmented ink, shimmer ink as well as a sheening ink, though the paper seems to have soaked up most of the sheen. Other than the bottom swatch where I released a drop of ink from the converter onto the page and smeared it onto the paper, there was really no bleed through, which is impressive. Even then, it barely bled through to the other side.

I didn’t see any feathering with any of the writing samples.

All of the inks looked fine on the page, too.

Barely any ghosting on the back even with the ink swatches.

The Kakimori letter paper comes either as 6 sheets to a pack for $5, or 3 sheets and an envelope in the letter set for $6. This can add up very quickly, especially if you have a lot of penpals or are long-winded like me. But if you wanted something a little more special, this would be a great option. And if you wanted a nice pigmented ink to address your envelopes for rainy season or perhaps use for art or just because you like the color, the Kakimori pigmented ink, at $30 for a 35ml bottle, is also an excellent but somewhat pricey option.

(Brad purchased this product at a discount from Vanness Pens for review purposes.)

San Lorenzo Design Maps Card Portfolio and Scriptorium Writing Sheet Portfolio: A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

When I ordered some loose leaf paper sets from Vanness Pens awhile back, they kindly included two stationery sets from San Lorenzo Design. San Lorenzo Design is an Italian company that sells leather goods, art, notebooks, stationery, and a wide variety of other products (including Pinocchio marionettes!) Their stationery is made in Florence and comes in a variety of designs with gold powder printing and embossing.

Maps Card Portfolio (Large)

The Maps Card Portfolio is comprised of a collage of maps printed on cream-colored card stock. Enclosed in the portfolio are ten cards and ten matching envelopes. Neither the San Lorenzo Design website nor Vanness identifies the weight of the cards or envelopes, but the cards are at least the thickness of manila folders.

A design is printed along the bottom of the cards and the insides of the envelopes.

The cards are smooth (though not slippery) and handle fountain pen ink beautifully. I used a Scribo Feel flex nib fountain pen inked with Bungubox 4B ink. This nib is quite wet and the ink is saturated. The ink did not bleed into the paper and there's little show through and no bleed through on the reverse side. In fact, you can write on both sides of the card without any difficulty.

These cards are 6.6 x 4.4 inches, which is large enough for a short note (if you use just one side) or a lengthier one if you write on both sides.

The envelopes are made of cream paper with the map design on the inside.

Scriptorium Writing Sheet Portfolio

Sheet Portfolio

The Scriptorium portfolio is a large envelope containing ten sheets of paper and ten matching envelopes. The design is a collage of Latin manuscripts with illuminated letters and Latin texts in various fonts.

The ivory paper is decorated with a flower-like embellishment in red and a gold-powder line around the page.

Although the stationery paper is thinner than the card stock, it too handles fountain pen ink admirably. The paper is a joy to write on, and although there is slight show through there's no bleed through. (Note: I realized after I wrote my letter that I had the page upside down with the embellishment on top, but it looks good either way!)

The paper is 6.61 x 8.97 inches. I chose not to write on both sides because of show through, but in all honesty you could probably write on both sides without the show through being too distracting. I have a pad of cream-colored Tomoe River paper that I use for subsequent pages so that I don't run out of this beautiful stationery too quickly.

The envelopes are blank on the outside but the Scriptorium design (with lots of gold powder) covers the inside.

I am absolutely thrilled with these two stationery sets. Both are elegant and both are fountain pen friendly. This is the kind of stationery that makes you want to write more letters, and your recipients will undoubtedly be impressed.

The Map Card Portfolio (Large) and the Scriptorium Writing Sheet Portfolio are $13.50 each. Both are currently in stock at Vanness Pens.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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