One of my favourite letter writing papers is this ultra thin paper from Life Stationery, the Life Airmail pad.

This paper is just a delight – air mail paper this is certainly a bit like onion skin paper, thin and lightweight, as originally designed to cut back postage costs while enabling the author to match more pages into an envelope. I love the idea of stacks of letters, tied along with string, holding the story of months or years apart between a couple. The thin, crinkly texture with this paper is a little nostalgic, and you realize that’s the way that is secret my heart.

But what makes this paper truly excellent is that along with being very thin, it’s also extremely fountain pen friendly, even with broad and wet nibs. The paper is really thin it’s translucent, and yet i will use almost any nib and ink combination We have, with my letters and lines looking clean and crisp.

Alas, considering that the paper can be so see-through, the backside pay for essay reviews regarding the paper just isn’t super for writing on, unless you’ve used a supplementary nib that is fine maybe not a fountain pen.

This paper is not the same as Tomoe River paper – it’s definitely thinner (and contains more show through), as well as has a bit more texture. It’s hard to catch a photograph from it, but while I would still describe this paper as generally smooth, it offers a texture sort of like cotton paper. It’s also more crinkly than Tomoe River paper, since it’s so incredibly thin – the full life Airmail paper is more like true onion skin paper.

On the left is the cream Tomoe River Paper, the lines will be the guidelines incorporated with the pad to place underneath, and regarding the right may be the Airmail paper.

The paper is B5 sized, which is a great size for letters and notebooks, certainly one of my favourite. I use A5 for thank you notes or just writing to say hello, and A4 when I’ve got a lot to say, but B5 is a good intermediate size.

The very best sized envelopes because of this are the no. 6 air mail envelopes from Life, which is the best size for B5 envelopes generally speaking (why don’t more companies get this to size?). These envelopes in particular are also thin, but are still very good. You are meant by this size can just fold your letter up into thirds horizontally, without the need to fold your letter vertically to fit right in.

The biggest drawback for me is the fact that this paper is a bit fragile, so if I’m writing a letter in stages, and have to leave the sheets on my desk overnight and for a few days, they tend to have crumpled and show wear more easily. I guess it is much more reason to create aside a separate time for you to start and finish something, however these full days i’m trying to be productive in every the tiny pockets of time i could find. Perhaps really, it’s much more reason to be a little more organized with all the current junk I have piled up on my desk.

After our hiatus in December, we’re having our Letter Writing Club again tomorrow night, Thursday, January 11th, from 7-9:00. We’re hoping to see some people there! Now with the new baby, things are a little hairy around bed time again, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for two soundly sleeping babies so I am able to join in the enjoyment.

We’re coming through to InCoWriMo again, this February. While I give it a beneficial go on a yearly basis, I find myself leaning increasingly more into longer and more meaningful letters with closer correspondents, when compared with brief letters, which does not lend itself to an everyday activity. I may, however, make things easy on myself, and possibly compile a summary of individuals to whom I’ll send a postcard or note that is short.

We’re slowly settling into a routine back here, even though there are some big, sweeping changes coming up in front of us, and that knows what our day will look like. Things sometimes look like they’re starting to fall into place – dinner plans or replenishing stock after the holidays – and then sometimes I’m searching for renovation photos, find a folder back at my desk top labeled “renovation photos,” only to open it in order to find it empty.

The renovations continue to slog along, with a few road bumps. City zoning and permits and testing that is environmental weird by-laws. I like this populous city, but sometimes the bureaucracy may be a bit much.

We’re getting ready behind the scenes, collecting furniture, repairing treasures from unlikely places, & most exciting of all of the, sourcing a few new brands and lines for the big opening. It’s all basically a jumble back here, wanting to organizing shipping and the warehouse filling up with areas of furniture taken apart and stacked up. You can even see a number of this furniture stacked behind the counters at our shop, similar to this lovely saran-wrapped library card catalogue from the right. It’s actually an old University of Windsor card catalogue that Jon paid an arm and a leg to get delivered here, and today that arm and a leg are only sitting in our shop, operating as a rather tall side table.