Lulu Guinness Stationery Review - made to be stopped and stared at!

Dear Scribblers

Have you seen the gorgeous new Lulu Guinness stationery? As an owner of a few pieces of her stunning handbags and accessories line, I was so pleased to hear the fabulous British designer was bringing out a stationery range, too. So as soon as I could, I hopped on-line, and bought 3 out of the launched 5 items. I picked mine up mid-August from Amazon UK, which was quite a chunk cheaper than her website. See pricing and full product details at the end of this post.

Here are all three of the covers:

Top left: notebook with 2 sticker sheets.
Bottom left: 2017 diary - a week a page with notes.
On the left are 3 mini notebooks with box.
And an overview of the paper in them all:

Top 2 show the 2017 diary layout and close-up of one of the top-loading envelopes.
Bottom left - notebook showing tabs and stickers.
Bottom right - 3 small books w/ different style paper
They couldn't be more perfect for me, my favourite colours: red, black and white, with some of my most chosen design elements: stripes and lips, with a little bit of a cat illustration, all by one of my top 5 fav designers. (If you'd added diamond quilting and stars, and it would have been perfect. 😂)

A5 'Custom' Notebook 💋

The item I've used the most has been the A5 notebook. There are 2 notebooks this size in her range: a hard-backed one called 'Dare to Be Different', and this one called the 'Custom' notebook. It has an old-style 'school exercise book' cardboard cover. There's 30 doubled-sided sheets (60 pages) - lined at the front of the book and plain in the second half, all tabbed into 8 sections printed with her signature lip, hand and eye logos. The 'custom' part probably refers to the 2 sheets of stickers, at the centre of the notebook, of 2 of each of the designs above along with 2 cats faces and 2 'Lulu Guinness London' logos.

The paper is high quality, almost card quality, (don't ask me about gsm as these are lost on me, although as a stationery addict, it's something I should definitely learn about!)

It's a dream to write on, even taking fountain pen and light watercolour washes. Please note that the book is stapled together and doesn't naturally lie flat, it can stand some manipulation.

We had a number of home renovations in recent months, which a list of jobs still to be completed, and this has been my house workbook to keep a track of it all. The front lined section for to-do lists and contact details with a separate tabbed area relating to a separate area of the house. Even though there's logos on the tabs, there's still plenty of space to write your own heading. The back plain pages are used for calendar layouts (so I can track on-going projects), sketches of floor plans and mini-mood boards of items torn from magazines, brochures and paint swatches. (If you'd like a separate post of the used pages, please leave a comments.)
There's plenty of Lulu design elements - I especially like the lip book plate on the cover for writing in the project. I can imagine a very stylish teen or college student with 3 or 4 of these containing their important revision notes. I also like the faux turned back corner on the cover, showing the glimpse of the little red lip, along with the signature gold foil logo on the back cover.
My only wish is that the stickers were smaller, and that there were more of them. At around an approx of minimum of 3 cm to 6cm max (1 X 2in), they certainly pack a punch. Not your average planner sticker.
A delectable designed notebook for all your notes, to-dos and doodles.
Lulu Icons Set of 3 A6 Notebooks 💋
If pocket and handbag jotters are more your style, you'll love this set of 3 mini Notebooks which come a cute slide-in black box to, all with different design looks and papers. Each has 48 sheets - 96 sides.
The black and white stripe cat print has plain paper, with pale pink cover lining and the quote "Kooky Cat" on the inside front cover.
The multiple red lips and half black and white stripe cover carries the stripes inside and reads "A little lipstick never hurts." This comes with .7cm lined paper.

Finally, the half red/half black and white lips cover is lined in red with a quote of "Don't forget your lipstick" and is filled with .7cm square grid/graph pages.

Once again, the paper is high quality, but not as thick as the notebook above, which would actually be too much for books of this size.

I've been dabbling in these, but not used them as much as the notebook. I could see myself dropping these into a fauxdori/travelers notebook sort of cover and using the plain book for sketching/mini art journal, the lined one as a common place book or for jotting down storylines, poetry and blog ideas, and of course, the grid would make a great bullet journal. Although, the graph squares are quite large, so if you're anything like me, you might find yourself filling up the book pretty quickly!
If your intention was to use all three, it would make for a very chunky set to carry around with you. There's another reason why the 'fauxdori' route may not work, as the papers are stitched in groups and then these sections are glued into the spine, so there's no defined centre to the book. It's also a worry, as the book doesn't lie open, once you begin to manipulate it as you attempt to create an easy working surface, will these sections fall out? I hope that the binding glue is strong and holds them together. I'll let you know as I use them.
My aim is to use the grid book as my bullet to-do list, along with the diary - as their covers match! Then the other two as discussed above, but not to carry around together.
If you look at them, for what they are intended for, as little pocket notebooks, then they are fun to use, gorgeous to look at, and will certainly be a talking point when you bring it out of your bag.
I hope you've found these reviews interesting, as they ran a little longer than I expected, I've decided to split it, so there's not too much information coming at you. I hope that you'll return again tomorrow for the full review on the 50:50 2017 diary.
Please see all pricing and details listed below.

Happy Scribing!

Prices & codes
Custom A5 notebook
Style no: 50125173
ISBN 978-1-84949-863-0
Lulu Guinness website £8:00
Amazon UK £8:00

Lulu Icons A6 Set of 3 Notebooks
Style: 50125166
ISBN 978-1-84949-864-7
Lulu - £15:00
Amazon - £10:00

Made by Quadrille (Hardie Grant) for Lulu Guinness - www.quadrille.co.uk - www.quadrille.com
Prices shown as listed on www.luluguinness.com and Amazon Prime UK - 19 October 2016. For all these items, a quick search on the net brings up alternative stockists, too
Also in the range - A5 luxury notebook, and notecard set.

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