As a stationery lover, I’m fond of beautiful notebooks, and have far, far too many. However, most of the notebooks I’ve acquired in the last year or so have been simple softcovers in a variety of bright colours, from neon pink, to bright yellow and cobalt blue. 

So usually when I’ve seen Paperblanks notebooks around online or in places like Waterstones, I’ve thought they were really beautiful, but not necessarily my style, especially because I’m not a huge fan of hardcovers. However, when I stumbled upon the Midnight Rebel Bold softcover, I just couldn’t resist, and ordered it immediately. It arrived yesterday, and thankfully it looks just as good in person, and is probably the prettiest notebook I own! 

Paperblanks do a lot of really ornate notebooks with embossing and metallics on them, so the Midnight Rebel Bold notebook is probably one of their plainer looking notebooks, but personally I love it! It has the appearance of an old, black leather-bound book with some filigree detailing on it in a subtle silver, and an incredibly ornate spine. However, despite the leathery look of it, this notebook has a softcover, which is a massive plus for me, because I find that more comfortable to write in. 

I also love that the edges of the paper have a pattern printed onto them, which also adds to that ‘old book’ aesthetic. The paper itself is an off white colour, and isn’t super thick (100 gsm), so I’m not sure how it will hold up to fountain pen ink, but a small test I did in the back with an 0.5 gel pen didn’t result in any bleed through and very little ghosting. There’s also a red ribbon marker, which I like as a little pop of colour to the otherwise dark aesthetic of this notebook. 

The only criticism I really have of the notebook is that because of the rounded book-style spine on the notebook it doesn’t lie completely flat on its own, and will have to be held open when I’m writing in it, which isn’t ideal. I’m also slightly worried about breaking the spine, but hopefully that will just add to the ‘old book’ charm of it! 

I’ll also say that this notebook is small! This is the mini version of the Midnight Rebel Bold, so I knew it would be small, but it is a little smaller than I expected. The measurements given for it are 95 x 140mm, which is a little smaller than A6, which is what I was expecting. 

It’s super cute though, and I’m excited to use it…I just haven’t quite decided what I plan to use it for yet! Buying this notebook has definitely reminded me why I started to veer more towards plainer notebooks, because if they’re too fancy I feel too intimidated to use them. 

But this is such a lovely little notebook, I’m determined to find a use for it, and I don’t regret buying it! In fact, I kind of want some of the other Paperblanks Softcover notebooks now…

So do you own any Paperblanks notebooks? What do you think of them? Do you tend to buy plainer notebooks, or fancier ones?