Notebook Review: Daycraft's Flower Wow

I'm always happy to receive new products to review, especially ink and paper. When Foreal Lee of Daycraft/Tai Shing Diary Ltd. emailed me to ask if I am interested to review their new notebooks, I replied with a fast-as-lightning yes! A week later, DHL delivered a box to my office with the notebooks that Foreal sent. It felt like Christmas morning in August.

Among the notebooks that Foreal sent to me is one of Daycraft's new products, Flower Wow notebook, the one that Daycraft won't claim (but won't rule out, either) as the world's most beautiful notebook. Available in one size (6 in x 8.5 in) and four cover designs, Flower Wow notebooks have real fabric cover with illustrations of stunning colorful bouquets. My notebook has large, beautiful red and pink blooms on the white fabric cover, which according to Daycraft is a special type of printable cloth from The Netherlands.

Flower Wow notebook. Lovely flowers on the front cover...

 

A closer look at the big red flower on the cover.

A smaller flower is printed on the back cover...

 ... that also bears the Daycraft logo, printed in gold. Elegant.

The gold inside cover of this notebook and the colorful blooms on the inside pocket add more elegance to it. 

The Flower Wow notebook has 176 pages of smooth, cream-colored 116g paper. As with my other Daycraft notebooks, I like that it is ruled, and the 6.5mm line spacing is just right for my large handwriting. Consistent with the notebook's theme, the pages are ruled with faint lines in gold.

The spread of the notebook's inside pages shows printed illustrations of flowers on both the lower right and upper left corners.

Flowers on the notebook's pages. 

The edge of the Flower Wow notebook is gilted in gold - this feature, together with the flower prints on the pages, fabric cover, and gold inside cover, makes me wonder if this notebook came from Victorian times.

I tested quite a number of ink colors and fountain pens on the Flower Wow notebook, and though some ink types feathered and bled, there is definitely a great improvement in Daycraft's paper quality in terms of fountain pen and ink friendliness. This is definitely a lot different than the paper quality of the Signature notebook I reviewed last February.

Some inks bled (see photo below), but I'll have to consider the fact that I used mostly medium wet nibs, so both feathering and bleed are hard to avoid. I'm suprised though, that some pen and ink combinations wrote so well without bleed. These are: Waterman Phileas (M) with Mont Blanc Bordeaux (line 4), Parker 45 (M) with Styl' Honore Rouge Amaryllis (line 5), Schneider Base (M) with De Atramentis Fuschia, (line 6), Sheaffer NoNonsense (M) with Caran d'Ache Saffron (line 8), Sheaffer NoNonsense (fine italic) with Diamine Burnt Sienna (line 9), Schneider iD (M) with J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche (line 17), and Lamy Safari (M) with J. Herbin Diabolo Menthé.

The other side of the test page. Some inks bled. Some are just right. Which means I can use this notebook with my fountain pens. For journalling. Then I'd feel like a lady from the courts of Victoria writing about hard work, perseverance, love and luck.

Below are some macro shots of some of the ink colors on the Flower Wow notebook:

Noodler's Midnight Blue

Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher

Diamine Oxblood

J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche

Irozhizuku Kiri-same

Waterman Havana Brown

De Atramentis Fuschia

Caran d'Ache Saffron

Mont Blanc Bordeaux

The Flower Wow notebook is another great addition to the beautiful products of Daycraft. I am glad, as well as other Pinoy pen and paper enthusiasts to know that Mr. Foreal Lee, Retail and Marketing Manager of Tai Shing Diary, makers of Daycraft noteboks, have facilitated the availability of their products here in the Philippines.

Daycraft products such as diaries, notebooks, and sketchbooks are available at Scribe Writing Essentials located at Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City.