Cocoa Paper Notebooks

Last week I revealed to many of you that I'm an author not just of this blog but also a published author who travels around a bit to conventions and sells her books.  This is good way to go beyond the markets my publishers have access to plus when people hear me read, they tend to buy.  In fact I'm at my biggest convention of the year as this post goes live so I thought this would be a great time to return to products from Cocoa Paper since one of the things I always need as a writer is something to write on.  While I love my computer, I grew up using notebooks and sketchbooks, sometimes scraps of paper, to jot down ideas, continue scenes or finish up stories and chapters of books.  So I thought today that I'd look at Cocoa Paper again and their notebooks that you can use to write in.  The question as always with homemade paper: Is it easy to write on?  They sent me a small note pad, a note cube, a notebook, and a leather bound journal that I and my family wrote on these all month long to assess them for you today, Sisters and Brothers.

You'll notice that both the small notebook and the note cube have the truffle theme on them but remember you can have products made with your own logo or select one they all ready offer.

The small notebook has 30 pages and is stab-bound along the top.  The binding means this won't stay open by itself, you have to hold it, but for such a small notepad it isn't a big deal.  The paper is surprisingly smooth to write on though pens work much better than pencils.  This is true for all four items I discovered as I used them.  This was easy to slip into my purse or a pocket to take with me in case I wanted to jot something down.  We also used it to keep a shopping list on during the week.

The note cube has a flip up cover and 160 3.25 X 3.25 inch sheets of paper.  The pieces of paper are loose and easy to remove, their texture surface actually makes them much simpler to grasp than the previous cube of paper we keep near our main telephone.  Yes, we still have telephones in our house not just cellphones because we like to have multiple ways of communicating with the outside world.  We us such stacks of small pieces of paper to write notes on whenever something happens that we need another member of the family to know about but not necessarily keep for any sort of important records.

The two journals are only two of five varieties of such products they offer.

The stab-bound journal has the truffle design on it again and has 30 pages to write on inside.  Just like the small notebook this also will not stay open on its own but I personally find that a bit of annoying for such a large notebook.  I don't write notes really in such books but instead I write stories, longhand reviews when I'm away from my computer.  Needing to put a hand over the other side or an elbow is uncomfortable.  Personally I wouldn't get this particular notebook myself for that reason.

The leather journal has a big button on the front with two cocoa pods etched on it. It has 50 pages inside of of it and is designed to lay flat for for easier writing.  The leather is cowhide and comes dyed in 10 different colors, this one is brown.  Unlike the previous notebook this journal is bound so that the pages lay almost flat, making a much nicer surface to write on.  The cover adds an air of luxury to it so that it makes a very good gift as well without being very expensive.

I had several people ask if they could smell these products as I had them out and about and mentioned they were made in part from cocoa leaves.  The answer is no, they do not smell like cocoa or chocolate in any way, if anything they have that recycled paper smell that tells you it has been cleaned as it was put together.

Cocoa Paper is a great idea that helps empower a community not just the chocolatier, the farm owner or the farmer but everyone touched at the ground level by cacao production.  Of these four products we've looked at today the leather journal is my favorite because the pages lay flatter than the two notebooks.