Saturday, May 14, 2011

Rock, Paper... Uh-oh

Sometimes I feel guilty about my paper addiction because of the quantity of dead tree bits I have laying around my house, so I'm always excited to find alternate paper sources. It saves trees, and some of these non-wood papers are just plain fun. Last month I was cruising the local clearance rack at Target, and I found these two notebooks.



Stone paper! Paper made from rocks! How very Fred Flintstone! Unfortunately, the label didn't say what kind of rocks they used for the paper or much about the process of making it. Seriously, how do we go from rock to paper? Inquiring paperphiles want to know.

The label does say that it's tree-free and acid-free and made without water or bleach. (I learned a new word today: apophatic, which means describing something by saying what it's not instead of what it is.) The label also says, though, that it's made by Gartner, but the back of the notebook says that it's Roobee by Mara-Mi. I couldn't find the notebooks or any information about stone paper on either the Gartner or the Mara-Mi websites.

The paper is really smooth and cool to the touch. It's also heavy. Each of these notebooks is 5 1/2" square with 80 sheets of paper and weighs 4 ounces. That's four fairly small notebooks to the pound, which is much heavier than traditional paper. The paper is white with 1 cm rule, which is really wide, and it has a 1' margin at the top of every page. One inch is a bit excessive for a notebook this small, as is the wide rule. The lines are a light blue that disappears in the scans. I do like the green and yellow covers, which are the only style I saw in the store.

The real test, of course, is when pen hits page. Let's have a look at the ink test:



I will say this: No feathering except with the PR Sherwood Green -- and even then minimal. No bleed-through (even from the Sharpie!!!) and little show-through. No problem writing on both sides of the paper. Dry time for the fountain pens is really slow, especially with the Noodler's ink. Funnily enough, the pen that had the most trouble was the ballpoint; every ballpoint I've tried has had trouble with this paper.

I didn't see these notebooks in any other sizes or formats, and this size isn't very useful. It's a little too big to fit into a pocket, and the cover isn't really durable enough for it to survive riding around in my bag. Of course, if they made a full-size journal out of this paper, it would be as heavy as a Buick and probably make a hole in the bottom of my bag. Since I wasn't able to find any information about the materials or process involved in making these, I'm also not convinced that these notebooks are more environment friendly than conventional ones.

Overall assessment: Good paper but not very practical for a wide range of notebooks and journals. I also wish that the ruling and margins were more in proportion with the size of the notebook.