Oh my goodness! It’s been a while. After an unexpected break from all things (except surviving and trudging through the days) in my life, I am so glad to sit down at my computer and write my thoughts. The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of emotions and adjustment. It took much longer for my kids to get acclimated back to school and figure out a schedule. I think it’s safe to say we have our schedule pretty well figured out, just in time for it to change for the holidays. But to the real reason for this post – a Product Review for The Black Page Journal.
Product Review for The Black Page Journal
I’m excited to do something a little different – a product review of the latest notebook I’m trying out! It’s a black page dot-grid notebook, larger than the normal A5s and a really fun experiment. I thought it was completely appropriate for October & Halloween. I planned on using this notebook for September and October. This notebook was purchased with my own money, and all opinions are mine, I was not compensated for my opinion.
Watch the Product Review below – and subscribe to my YouTube Channel!
Book Stats – The Black Page Journal:
- Roughly 7×10 inches or 180 mm x 255 mm
- 100 un-numbered pages
- 30 dots across per page x 45 dots down per page
- I count square sections made by dots not dots themselves – so to me, it is 29×44
- Approximately 5mm dot grid with gray dots (the grid is not precisely 5mm)
My Thoughts:
The quality of the journal could be better – a majority of the pages were cut at a slight angle, so there are some white edges on a lot of the pages. Some cuts are worse than others. Having run a copy center for 9 years, I know the process and would have made one of my employees redo the job or adjust the cuts if possible. However, if this were a white-page notebook, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
You can’t use a pencil to sketch out your designs because the eraser leaves marks on the page, so everything had to be freehand. Later, I discovered that I could use a black pen to replace my correction tape in my regular journals and correct mistakes. Which, if you’ve seen my YouTube videos, I try to leave any and all mistakes in the editing. One reason to show how to fix mistakes and the second to show you that I’m not perfect, nor do I claim to be.
The pages are a little rough in comparison to the notebooks I typically use. I wouldn’t use a brush pen on them anyway since it’s a black page journal, so that doesn’t really matter. White gel pens stood out, and so did other colors. (I linked the products I used below – check them out). After doing the video review, I used Prisma colored pencils and was astonished at how well the colors stood out and popped off the page. I would definitely use more white and pastel colors for future pages of color pencil.
Conclusion – Would I buy it again?
All in all, I paid about $5 USD for the book. It was a great experiment and if I wanted a black page journal again, I would probably buy it for the same price, but I’d think twice if the price went up and I knew the quality stayed the same. I loved the color pencils and how the gel pens contrasted with the black pages and want to try out some more dark paper specifically for the pens and pencils. If you buy one, make sure to carry a gel pen so you can use your notebook anywhere!
By the way, if you want a good laugh, look at the description on Amazon for the book. I didn’t read it before I bought it, I got a good chuckle from the description.
Products Used on the Test Page for the Journal (affiliate links):
(** are products I like the most on this journal)
From the Pen test Page:
**Metallic Bullet Pens – Classy Shop – bit.ly/cm-metallicbullet use Choc15 for 15% off discount
**Metallic Brush Pens – Classy Shop – bit.ly/cm-metallicbrush use Choc15 for 15% off discount
Pilot Silver Marker
Pentel Gold/Silver Gel Pens
Sharpie Metallic Fine Point Markers – Copper, Gold, & Silver
**Uniball Signo White Broad Pen
**Pentel Milky Pop 4-pack Gel Pens
Sakura Gelly Roll
**Helix Circle Maker – One of my all-time favorite products
Pentel Click Eraser Stick
Eraser
Kneaded Eraser
Micron Pens
——–
Logitech WebCam
Microphone Blue Yeti
Camera Tripod
Adobe Premiere Elements/Photoshop
——–