Book Review# 01 – A -Z of Minimalism by Upasna

First ever #BookReview on my blog and a start to many more am sure 🙂 I think being part of the Blogchatter community has been one of the best decisions in terms of blogging life and many others. 
Can you imagine 33 EBooks were published this year as part of the Blogchatter EBook Carnival giving wings to dreams of many bloggers who now have a book under their names, included in the Good Reads as well ! That’s huge for any budding author am sure. 

A- Z of Minimalism by Upasna

About the Book: Today am reviewing one such book from this amazing lot of authors and its A-Z of Minimalism. The first thing that caught my eye was the word #minimalism. A lot has been spoken about this all around the world and lately i have been trying to understand this process.  And to read it from someone who is a blogger friend makes it believable even more. The book speaks about the journey and gives an insight on how to achieve a minimalist life through the experiences of the author herself. 

#Product Review 01- Creative Woman’s Journal by Matrikas Paper Products

This is officially my first product review in fact any “review” per say on the blog and lets just say it’s the beginning of a new section on this blog 🙂

Do you enjoy stationery shopping ? stuff like pens, notebooks, journals, sketch pens, art and craft supplies , If yes then Welcome to my world!!! Even though I use apps like Evernote, Google Keep and OneNote for maintaining my notes I still feel excited when I buy a new notebook and pen down my thoughts onto it. I love buying journals; I have a ton of them each serving a different purpose. For instance one has quotes, one has daily log, one has recipes, one for important life events etc etc.
Having said that the recent addition to my above set of journals and notebooks is this bright red beautiful looking Journal from Matrikas Paper Products as part of their Matrikas Blogger Outreach Program. I chose one of the four available variant each having a significance like To Dream, To Fly and To Glide . My choice was the Feather – To Write (#obvious) of the Creative Woman’s Journal Series. And did I tell you it’s made in India (#MadeinIndia) 

To Write

Look – this is a beauty 🙂  Bright red cover hard bound with a golden feather and “write” written next to almost like a secret message keeping the minimalism alive. So falling in love with this one was no surprise. Layout – The journal is not dated which I think is a plus for me. And the journal has a mix of different spreads which gives it a fresh element. Few blank pages, then ruled ones, then another set of surprises (yeah surprises read on) there by making the journal really flexible and interesting to use. 

There are ruled pages for notes to write down, blank pages for just scribbling down thoughts or to doodle. If that was not enough to bring in that creative element there are 8 adult coloring pages – what more can you ask for?? Surprised??!!! These days adult coloring has become a rage and is usually used for therapeutic reasons and including them in a journal was just perfect. So this book is the perfect mix for writing –doodling-coloring 🙂 a good bye don’t you think?If you are still not convinced then this would definitely. The journal has almost more than 20 stickers inside it with cool font and phrases. These can be used not just on this journal but anywhere else also. I have already started using a bunch of them. And then towards the perfect end the journal has sections Books to Read and Places to Visit and Name and Address as icing on the cake.There is also an envelope in the end to store few stickers to make your journaling activity even more comfortable. A bookmark, a pen holder and an elastic to help you close the book and keep intact. Perfect! Material – the journal is hard bound yet not heavy so easy to carry along with you. Secondly the blank pages for doodling are thick enough to not let the ink blot over to the next page. But definitely the ruled ones aren’t that thick so when I tried writing it with my sharpie the ink did blot a little. Same goes when I tried coloring the pages so maybe I should stick to coloring the pages with color pencils.

What I didn’t like – the number of pages could have been more since most journals are meant to stay for at least a year and this one doesn’t seem to survive more than 4 to 5 months if you are using it extensively as a journal. Phone book pages were not really needed in this journal since everyone uses mobile phones and this was more on the creative side the journal hence the name and address page didn’t really fit in here. 

All of the above in jt INR 450 – it’s worth every penny!! I have a bunch of other books which come at a higher price with not so many elements. If nothing has convinced you but you enjoy buying books then just for the plain beauty of this book you need to have it in your collection.  This also makes a perfect gifting idea!!!
A glimpse of the journal which I have already started using.You can purchase this and order products from their website or from Amazon

Do you use write down stuff or use apps for making notes? Do you journal..?  Let me know if you have a favorite.

P.S: This journal was sent to me free from Matrikas but the product review is completely mine.