I was lucky enough to be one of the last people whose orders were shipped by Bureau Direct before they closed their doors. My last order with them was a small one; I ordered five Papelote Pen Holders. If I’d had an inkling of what was to come I would have ordered more, a lot more as these excellent note book straps are hard to come by; even Papelote don’t sell them separately you can only buy them with a notebook or similar.
Papelote are a company based in the Czech Republic where they produce a wide range of stationery; it is worth taking a look at their online store as they carry a wide range of products at very reasonable prices. They have a store in Prague and photographs and details can be found on their main webpage. Papelote are a very eco-friendly company with notebook paper coming from sustainable sources and the card that the notebook strap is attached to is not just recyclable it is compostable.
Good elastic notebook straps are very hard to come by; there are plenty of options for traveller style notebooks but next to nothing if you want something to keep your notebook shut and even less if you want it to hold a pen or two, which is where Papelote comes in.
Papelote straps come in a variety of colours and sizes – A6, A5 and A4 and fit comfortably around most notebooks. The strap is designed to fit horizontally around the middle of the notebook exactly to opposite of the standard elastic closure found on most notebooks.
This allows for pens and, in most instances, ensures they do not protrude to far over the length of the notebook. Doing a basic size test, I found that the stated size does normally correlate with the notebook size but keep in mind that these are designed for standard sized notebooks; so, if you have a particularly bulky notebook/planner you may have to go up a size.
I have been using them for over a year and they have proved themselves to be very reliable; I always have an A5 strap around an A5 notebook with at least two pens in the holders and the notebook is always has additional papers and pens in it. The strap has never suffered any ill effects from my treatment of it and always returns to size.
The only thing I think Papelote could do better with these straps is to sell them direct; I appreciate that it may not be viable to sell them in ones or twos, hence selling them with notebooks, but if there was a minimum quantity of three or five et cetera then that should make it worthwhile.
Would I recommend them, absolutely. These are the best elastic notebook straps you can buy, and you’ll be surprised how useful they are and maybe, like me, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.
Disclaimer: The Pen Holders were purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
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