Louise Carmen Roadbook Heritage Review

Once again I have been on the search for more interesting analog systems. This time thanks to Instagram I stumbled upon Lousie Carmen. In this post, I will give you some background information and overall how I feel about it.

Louise Carmen is a boutique shop in Paris that makes beautiful and refillable leather notebooks. Louise Carmen was created in 2016 by Fabien and Nathalie Valmary. I personally love the passion they have to bring leather notebooks to France. We see leather notebooks like the Traveler's Notebook in Japan and even Roterfaden from Germany so I hope the overall joy of leather notebooks can be available to as many people as possible. Thankfully they have this lovely website which I was able to order from!

They have much different leather notebook sizes with their own features and added accessories you can pick as you browse their online store. Thankfully the website has French and English options so if you are like me you can also navigate and select the designs you prefer.

I picked the Roadbook Heritage because I like the trifold opening and that I can fit three notebooks. I got it in the color vert London with a brown cord, three white 120g notebooks, a noel theme travel pouch, and engraving in a neutral color. The shipping was very fast with UPS and cost 40.11 euros. In total everything was 187.11 euros.

It was packaged very well and was wrapped like a gift in black tissue paper with a golden sticker with Louise Carmen on it. When I took the paper off the travel pouch with notebook system inside greeted me. The pouch is very lovely and likes how the brand is sewed on. The notebook itself is beautiful as the vert London is a nice dark green and love how smooth it feels. The engraving looks amazing on the cover bottom right corner and I am very happy with it. After having it for a little while I also appreciate the bit of metal hardware which prevent the cords from rubbing against the leather.

Overall I love this system and hope to use it for a personal comic project. The notebook can also fit Traveler's Notebook inserts so for now my setup is two Traveler Company watercolor regular inserts and one Louise Carman dot notebook. I recommend this to people who want a light multiple notebook system but need wider notebooks. These have plenty of space to draw and write plus the experience of shopping from them is wonderful.

Hope you all enjoyed this, until next time, stay hyped!

Everything I am Using for 2022! (Planners, journals and notebooks)

Hello everybody! It is almost the end of 2021 and I orginally was only going to do an update post on my Hobonichi covers, until I realized a lot more changed and I should go over all the covers, notebooks and planners I am using in 2022. So here is the full and complete breakdown!

What I will talk about first is what I am using on a daily basis. I have any systems but not all of them are used everyday.

Hobonichi Weeks in Cinnamon Beige (2022): This is where all of my tasks, events and day to day items go. My days are spilt my morning, afternoon and evening times where I have a few items in each section or even none at all if I ended up relaxing. In the memo section I will write items on my wish list as I plan on doing another year of not buying a lot of stuff in general. The Weeks rotates between my Galen Leather Hobonichi Weeks wallet, Steiff Cafe au Lait Hobonichi Weeks wallet and Steiff Trinity Hobonichi Weeks wallet.

Galen Lather Customized Hobonichi Weeks Wallet

Top: Steiff Trinity Wallet

Bottom: Steiff Cafe au Lait Wallet

Stalogy A6 Editor's Series 365 Days: This will be my daily journal for 2022 where I write about everyday, tape in cute pictures and other items to save the memories. The journal will mostly be in my Custom LeCow A6 cover until the year is up to then it will retire in my Candy Stripper Spruced-up Cat Lilac Cover. My Candy Stripper Sweet Bunny will be used for 2023.

Left to right: Custom LeCow A6 cover, Candy Stripper Spruced-up Cat Lilac and Sweet Bunny

Traveler's Company Traveler's Notebook in Olive: My on the go playground where I do a little bit of everything from doodling to writing about my favorite cafes. I have a bunch of inserts which I change out depending on what I do during the day. Sometimes an insert and my Galen Lather Hobonichi Weeks wallet are paired up depending on what I plan to do!

London Gifties 5th Anniversary Traveler's Notebook: Used with Ca.Crea A4/3 Premium notebooks to write down all my blog drafts. Before it is uploaded here it is written in this.

Rollbahn 2022 notebook: This will be used for budgeting and a spending tracker all for 2022. Wanted to keep all my financies in one place.

Now to cover everything else I use every other day mostly because they are for speific items or projects.

Hello Kitty Hobonichi A6 Cover (2016 lineup) with Hobonichi Plain Notebook: This is used for transcribing my English to Latin dictonary. Great way to expand vocab and memorize words better.

Hello Kitty Hobonichi A5 Cover (2016 lineup) with Hobonichi day free: This is used for Latin study and translation practice.

Steiff Trinity Hobonichi Cover A6 cover (2020 lineup) with Hobonichi papers: Used to hold my ink art pieces.

Steiff Cafe au Lait Hobonichi A6 cover (2019 lineup) with Hobonichi papers: Used to hold my watercolor art pieces.

Steiff Hobonichi A6 cover (2018 lineup) with Hobonichi Plain notebook: Used to write down changed and updates to my trading card game decks.

Inuyasha Successor Hobonichi A6 cover (2022 lineup) with Hobonichi Plain notebook: Used for environmental and sustainability research articles. I write down summaries and my personal thoughts on the advancements.

Winnie the Pooh Hobonichi A6 cover (2012 lineup) with MD notebook: Is a personal project I started which is writing on how to be a sustainable project manager.

Search & Collect Hobonichi A6 cover (2020) with Hobonichi 5-Year Techo: My person 5 year journey of living more sustainaibly now will be recorded in here. Will be grat in helping me go towards sustainable options.

Roterfaden A5 Olive with random A5 notebook, Kleid notebook and MD frame notebook: Used for practicing handwriting, swatching pens I have and swatching fountain pen inks.

Louise Carmen Road House in Vert London: Lastest analog system that uses Traveler's Notebook watercolor paper and Louise Carmen dot paper for a comic project I hope to share soon!

That concludes this amazing post! I am hyped up for 2022 and can't wait to use everything. I will see you all in 2022 and remember to stay hype!

Analog: Helping me Live my Best Life

Why do I use a paper calendar over Google calendar and digital calendars? Why do I like to send postcards and letters instead of emails? Why do I use a notebook instead of typing it up and saving it to a drive? The general answer is that I really love writing and being analog! However lately, it came to mind that analog does benefit me in ways I had not realized before, which is what this post will explore.

For a while, I thought I wouldn't have a digital dependency until I noticed that most of the apps I was using were taking up most of my time. I had to delete many apps and force myself to go on my laptop to go on certain sites instead. Going analog helped me not be on my laptop and phone all day and definitely gives my eyes a break from a screen.

Writing helps me organize and think better and faster, even if what I write gets typed up anyway. I learned that my paper drafts are a lot better than typed-up drafts and I can catch mistakes quicker than on a screen. This has helped me keep up my blog and expand it to what it is today! In the early days of this blog I did type up the drafts and they are not so good in my opinion.

Thanks to me posting my journals and analog systems, I found a nice warm community to chat and share ideas and information with! At one point I was searching Reddit after watching all the stationery video I had on my YouTube feed and stumbled upon a Discord for Hobonichi and now also one for fountain pens. I do check the Discords often and it helps me think of more ideas to blog and write in my journals.

I love having a paper calendar cause I get to decorate the holidays, birthdays, when I take a trip and when I finally take days off. Surprisingly I also remember holidays and events a lot better than my coworkers and friends. 

Handwriting is one skill I practice daily thanks to journaling and my analog systems. I feel like my handwriting is slowly improving even if people, in general, think my handwriting is good. Over my few years of working in my day job, I noticed a severe decline in handwriting with people that depend on digital organizers. This is one major reason why I will keep journaling, at least my handwriting will hold up in the long run. The secondary reason is to keep up cursive as it seems to be on the decline due to schools not teaching it. I find cursive beautiful and quicker in some cases so I hope to influence people to keep doing cursive.

Since I mostly use notebooks I haven't had to expand my OneDrive, DropBox, Google Drive, or any other cloud storage. The most I do is use storage for pictures and then clean them out when I print them for my journal or share them with friends in chats. Life is simple without having to remember storage.

Analog helped me connect with stationery stores. Yes, I do spend a bit of money on ink and paper but I get to communicate and share my opinions and what I learned with stores I trust and will keep buying from for years to come. The people that keep these stores going really love when people tell their stories about the products they bought from them and I am happy to provide them with some.

Overall going analog and writing has connected me with so many people that I very much recommend trying out journaling, messing around with planners, or just having a notebook for notes.

Kaweco x Hello Kitty AL Sport and Kaweco Midnight Green AL Sport Limited Edition Fountain Pen Review

Hello, fountain pen collectors and Hello Kity lovers! I am back with a double limited edition fountain review.

For a while, I wanted to get a Kaweco Sport fountain pen and I am so happy I waited. Recently a friend sent me an IG post about the limited edition Kaweco x Hello Kitty AL Sport. However, it is a limited release and is a Hong Kong exclusive.

Thankfully I was able to order it on Pen and Tool along with the limited edition Midnight Green AL Sport. For the last couple of months, I was searching for a nice green Kaweco that wasn't plastic and this green is perfect for me. I am still thinking about the Kaweco Art Sport Metallic in turquoise and the Kaweco Art Sport Metallic Green in acrylic but if I get them later I will make a separate review on them.

Both pens with shipping came to about $315 and got here in four days! Please note I did pay for FedEx Priority and it did not disappoint, especially since it came from Hong Kong to the US.

The Kaweco x Hello Kitty by itself was is $158 but I didn't mind the price since most limited edition Hello Kitty pens are much higher than that. This only comes in a fine nib size which is perfect for me as I usually use fine nibs. The Kaweco nostalgic clip and the nib are both gold and go well with the sakura pink body. The nib is 24k gold-plated Jowo with Hello Kitty's iconic face stamped onto it. The Kaweco x Hello Kitty logo is branded on the cap and looks amazing.

It writes smoothly and holding it feels great. Currently, I am using the blue ink cartridge it came with since I hope to clean it out and refill it with J. Herbin bouquet d'Antan. This fine feels like an actual fine cause it doesn't rival my Preppy extra fine pens and it isn't as thick as a Pelikan fine.

The Midnight Green is a must-have for green pen collectors. The green is a dark gray-green that looks black in poor light but really shows the green in a good light. The price was $138  It came with a Kaweco nostalgic black clip and a PVC black-plated steel nib to match. The logo Kaweco AL Sport is branded on the cap.

For the Midnight Green, I chose the extra/double board (BB) nib and it is amazing. Unlike the TWSBI stub, this really is thick both vertically and horizontally almost as if you wrote with a juicy 1.0mm gel pen. This one came with a black ink cartridge which I will fill with J. Herbin vert empire. 

I bought these mostly to travel with cause I do worry about me dropping these in the park and on the concrete since I live in the city, so plastic is not going to last in the long run. I could have easily bought another fountain pen but the Sport is great to clip into my back pants pocket if I want to doodle on the go or make a quick note. I also wanted a clip so I can secure them in my pen holders in my analog travel pouch. The Hello Kitty was also bought cause I am trying to collect all the Hello Kitty fountain pens, but this one might be the sturdiest one I will ever buy and the second-lowest priced (first being Hello Kitty Preppy).

Overall I am very glad I bought these and can't wait to use these in my travels. I would not recommend the Kaweco x Hello AL Sport to everybody as there are a lot of people that don't like fine nibs and switching the nib out really takes away from the whole iconic Hello Kitty cuteness of the pen. Very much would send it to Hello Kitty fans looking for a fountain pen under $200. The polishing aluminum finish feels great and is sturdy to travel with. If you are looking for a nonplastic travel-sized pen I recommend looking at the Kaweco Sport AL especially since there are a lot of limited editions popping up, especially if you want a specific color.

That is all for this review! Let me know if you have or are looking for a Kaweco AL Sport in the comments. Until next time, stay hype!