50 Sheets A4 160gsm White Card - Premium Thick Printing Paper Suitable for All Printers

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But you know me… I’m just a nerdy skeptic at heart. If too many people are all talking about the same brand of notebook, I tend to get very suspicious. Well, technically I first get annoyed, then I move into seriously pissed off… but then it usually settles down into suspicion. I’m a pretty even-tempered person but when I reach the end of my patience and I get fed up with the obsessive evangelizing, it usually results in a massive research project to uncover the truth. Promotional discounts cannot be used on Office Papers unless stated otherwise. Due to the competitive prices of our Office Papers we are unable to include these in promotional offers or our Trade Discount. If you are looking to buy a large quantity of Office Paper we can offer pallets here.

Buke Notebooks– this is the only notebook brand in this review that has an option both hardcover and softcover versions. All of the covers have the embossed gold owl on the front and you have several color options to choose from. Dylusions Distress Ink – diluted with water – same as above, but this time I diluted it slightly with water to see if that made a difference. My favorite part of this whole thing was this part! I love getting my fingers all messy with paint and ink – it felt more like playing than working. Although, is reviewing stationery supplies really “work” …. Ha! Probably not.Anger + Shopping = “Shopping Rage”– similar to Road Rage, but without cars, and involves credit cards, retail outlets, and excessive nerdy research. The weight range of standard office paper, used in your desktop laser printer or photocopier and would rarely be used for brochures.

Movingaway from paper, this is regarded as card (board) weights which can add a quality finish to a book if used as a cover. Based on all the chatter, you’d think there were only two notebooks in the whole wide world that have 160gsm dotted paper designed specifically for bullet journal enthusiasts. Those two would be Archer & Olive and Scribbles That Matter. But I was convinced that there had to be more than just those two. You know … brands without a massive marketing budget. Here is where we begin the rating portion of this comparison. In each notebook, I tested 16 different writing pens. These are the types of brands you’d expect to use in a normal bullet journal or standard long-form journaling notebook. Fineliners, gel pens, ballpoint, fountain pen inks, highlighters, and calligraphy brush markers. Here’s the list. SUPPLY LIST Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink – this ink is not really designed to be used on paper, it’s more for non-porous surfaces. But why not try and see what happens? In the next section, there’s a line on the chart that talks about the cover options, but I wanted to mention that in more detail here.

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Eclectic Scribbles– No feathering problems here on the Eclectic Scribbles paper and the surface is smooth to write on. Archer & Olive and Scribbles That Matter are the two notebooks getting all the attention these days. Mostly A&O, right?! This test includes two different factors. First I want to see how the pen glides along the surface of the paper. Is it smooth or does the tooth (texture) of the paper cause a rough writing experience? We’ve already covered the bleeding and ghosting side of things, so that’s not a factor here.

First, it was 100gsm paper, then it was 120gsm paper… and now everyone is going nuts over 160gsm paper. There are only a couple of the well-known brands who carry a notebook or journal with dotted 160gsm paper and those companies have gotten a LOT of coverage in the blogosphere. So I dug through my craft room (remember the huge Craft Room Cleanup from last spring?) and pulled out art supplies that should work in these journals …. Along with a few supplies that I knew were going to likely fail. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised at the results. The term ‘GSM’ simply stands for ‘Grams per Square Metre’ and is used for measuring paper weight. Put simply, if you were to take a 1m² piece of a certain type of paper, how much would it weigh in grams? So the only way I was able to rate these notebooks from best to worst in this category was to take into account the two alcohol markers and the Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts fountain pen ink. We’ll judge those markers again in the art supply section. PEN TEST WINNER

Posters/Large Format

Whew! We’ve made it to the end. This review was a monster to complete and took me months longer than I first thought it would take. Eclectic Scribbles– this notebook comes in three design options – Mandala (the one I bought), Zentangle, and Steampunk Cat – all of which were designed by Amanda. Her artwork is beautiful and being able to see it on a journal is a great bonus. Take note, though, that the GSM you should choose will highly depend on your application while the paper’s finish will greatly affect the design. Again, there are paper weights that are more suitable for photocopying or office printing. You should not use the same GSM for printing marketing materials like booklets and posters if you want to achieve the best quality. I didn’t think about it like that in terms of manufacturing (I don’t know much about that process), but I have other cloth cover journals with a metallic debossed design (Baron Fig) that are not similar at all to A&O’s designs. For me personally, QiHeng’s designs just still seem just too similar to A&O for me to be comfortable with them.

Gold Medal Winners – both QiHeng and Tekukor ended up with one art medium that bled through in addition to the two alcohol-based supplies. QiHeng failed with dye ink and Tekukor failed with a Sharpie Marker and both of them had a little bit of trouble with the swatch of fountain pen ink. I would give QiHeng a slight edge over Tekukor because of the way the paper performed with watercolor (Tekukor got more crinkled). Ranger Dylusions Distress Ink – full-strength – even though this is a spray bottle I used it with a small paintbrush instead (spraying this stuff makes a huge mess!) This test was the ink straight out of the bottle.Usually the weightsof a good business card. Some will use 300gsm, or less, for a business card but we do not recommend it. 350gsm can also be used as a cover for your book but it’s important to remember the stitching and folding implications of using heavy board as a cover. There is also an option for PU leather covers with various emblems on the front – I haven’t tested the durability of this other style but I am going to assume it’s the same as the linen cover version. Ahhh… art supplies! This is where things get real! You know that a major part of the marketing efforts from these companies claim that 160gsm paper in their notebooks stands up to the “no bleed” test with all sorts of pens and art supplies. Hold on there, cowboy! This nerd doesn’t believe your hype! Silver Medal Winners– Buke Notebooks and Eclectic Scribbles did very well too. Besides the two art supplies that were thrown out, each only had two major problems with bleed-through. Buke failed with dye ink and Sharpie Marker, Eclectic Scribbles failed with Sharpie Marker, fountain pen ink and a little bit of the Dylusions Distress Ink. Buke performed a tiny bit better than Eclectic Scribbles.