A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the co-founder of the Coloring Notebook, and they asked if I'd like to review it. As always with opportunities like these I took a good look at the website, had a nosey at what it was all about and decided that it was something I'd like to have a closer look at!
Something that I liked straight off was that it was a nice simple black notebook, nothing too fancy. This makes it pretty easy to be universal too, it's not aimed at men or women, it's an either or product.
As you will see in the rest of this blogpost, the colouring pages aren't too 'girly' either. There's the odd picture of some cute owls, but there's also a page with what looks like Godzilla attacking a city, so yeh, it's not aimed at any gender in particular, and I'd say that 90% of the pictures to colour are universal.
Above is a photo of the little paper cover that comes on the notebook. It gives you all the specific details about the book, the paper quality, dimensions, pages etc.
Something I thought was pretty good was the fact that you could choose lined, blank or grid & dot paper for the 'notebook' part of the notebook. I got the lined paper one, and I'm happy to say that they aren't wide lines! There's about a 6mm gap between each line which I love, because my writing isn't massive, so I'm always worried incase the lines are super wide. Having the option of blank or grid & dot paper, would mean it could even be a good choice for a bullet journal!
The branding on the notebook is really subtle, which is nice. It's there, and easy to find, but it's not in your face at all, and if anything is adds to the notebook rather than takes anything away from it. Other than that, on the outside there's just a simple black elastic closure.
Inside the pages aren't even, sometimes there's two lined pages between colouring pages, sometimes there's just one, I like this variety. Having the option to write on a double page rather than a single page is nice. If I were to use this as a creative journal, I would probably save the larger chunk of pages for documenting with photos, and the smaller sections for just writing.
Here are a few snaps of the style of colouring pages inside, if you know me, you know I'm a fussy colour-er (I don't think that's even a word, but for the sake of this blogpost we will pretend it is..).
I like bolder lines, and colouring larger chunks of space, or if it's smaller designs then the lines need to be even and not loads of different thicknesses.
There's some pictures in here that honestly aren't up my street. But, after looking through every picture, I would say there's still waaaay more pictures I would colour, compared to the ones I wouldn't. Any that I don't fancy colouring I can use as a fun monochrome patterned background for sticking photos down or something! There's always a way to use a page like this, even if you aren't going to use it for the intended use.
Like I said before with the lined pages, there was a mixture of the number of lined pages between colouring pages. With the colouring pages there's also a mixture of single pages to colour, and then double spreads like the above photo shows!
This variety in the pages is definitely something I'm a fan of! If you watch my creative journaling videos, you know I jump around in my pages, I never go from front to back. This is because I like the variety, and find it easier to fill a book if I start from somewhere in the middle.
It definitely goes along the same lines for me in this book, I feel like the book has already been jumbled up for me, it doesn't go A to B to A to B, so it's not going to feel like I have miles of 'blank' pages ahead.
Does that make sense? Hopefully it does haha, I realise I may not have explained that in the best way.
I decided to test out some pens on the pages. When it comes to colouring I definitely choose pens over pencils, so it is important to me that some sort of pen I own will work on the pages and won't bleed through. The pens I tested were..
Turquoise Sharpie
Pink Stabilo Fine Point
Orange Color' Peps
Blue Berol Papermate Fine
As you can see, the only pen that really bled through was the Sharpie, the other pens I would consider bearable shadowing. Whether you are using pen's or pencils to colour, there's going to be some sort of shadowing or denting in the page, so I think it's a given that they aren't going to stay pristine.
The last two features I wanted to point out in this notebook were the bookmark (LOVE the fact that it's yellow!), and the pocket on the back cover of the notebook. Two features that helps to make this notebook a more functional book, compared to 'just' being a colouring book.
You can purchase the Coloring Notebook on..
(I don't think it's available on the UK Amazon, I wasn't able to find a link.)
Overall I'm pretty impressed with it, a lot of thought has gone into this notebook, and not just with the colouring pages, but the layout of the notebook too. I feel like this can definitely be used for more than just a notebook or just a colouring book.
Happy Friday!
- Daisy X
*Please note, even though these products were sent to me free of charge, this does not sway my views and opinions. I will always share my honest views on the product and company.
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