Unboxing: A New Devotional Blank Book and Cover

My prior devotional book is wonderful to look at, with a tooled leather cover, and a nice piece of bloodstone on the front:

But the paper is not equally wonderful. It does alright with a ballpoint pen, but it doesn’t work at all with fountain pens (my preferred writing tool) or calligraphy markers (for my forays into decorative art). The pages are stitched into the cover, so I can’t even substitute a different blank journal into the cover. Sigh.

I’ve tried, but it just does not spark joy.

(I’m also not wild about the snaps.)

Thanks to the wonderful artisans at Oberon Design, I have a new blank book to turn into my devotional.

The packaging is quite nice. It comes wrapped in heavy paper, with a notecard:

[Image description: A decorated notecard peeking out of the edge of brown paper wrapping on a book.]

When you pull out the notecard to read it, prior to unwrapping the journal, you find a gift—a charm that matches the button closure on your journal!

[Image description: The notecard with a silver charm on it.]

When you turn over the package to unwrap it, there’s another “thank you” note:

[Image description: A sticker with a drawing of a tree and the words “Oberon Design Thanks You” sits near the bottom of a brown paper wrapped rectangle.]

Then, once you unwrap the paper, the journal itself is revealed.

[Image description: A dark brown leather notebook with an embossed pattern of trees, and a silver button fastener.]

This the “Avenue of Trees” design, in chocolate brown leather. The button features an acorn. This design appeals to me because it speaks of Angrboda and the Iron Wood. Of all the amazing designs on the Oberon site, this is the one that jumped off the screen for me. Also, the blank journal refills can be ordered from Oberon, or purchased at a stationery store, since they’re a standard notebook size.

The paper is smooth and lovely, and tolerates everything I’ve tested on it, with no bleedthrough on the fountain pen inks, and just a bit on the calligraphy markers, so I’ll need to allow an extra blank page between my drawings. But that’s not a problem, because the paper is so wonderful for writing and drawing, it’s a pleasure to do so!

Which is good, because now I need to copy all of the prayers, poems, and other pieces that were in my prior book into this book.

Time to refill the fountain pens, and start writing!