I recently obtained a 6" x 8 1/4" Clairefontaine clothbound notebook.

The problem is that it may not be able to last very long due to the fact that its cover is made of paper.

(The cover is essential to the survival of the notebook. Once it is ruined, the entire notebook soon follows suit. At least, that is what happens to me.)

Is there a way to make the notebook last longer? Or should I buy a hardcover notebook?

Thanks in advance =)

I can't find the original post, but an FPN member put up this cool tutorial on Instructables for making a moleskine-like cover. I haven't tried it yet, but I probably will soon.

I've just realized that I placed this in the Pen and Paper Paraphernalia Review and Articles section.

Is it possible to have it moved to the General Pen Topics>Paper and Pen Paraphernalia section ?

Are you talking about the notebooks with the cloth spine and textured cardboard covers? They come in black and craft, and if those are the ones you meant they look very durable.

I have 3 on deck; I haven't started one because I already have too many notebooks going on.

Juan

I have one and it's holding up very well. However, I don't carry it out of the house.

The notebook cover isn't made of textured cardboard. It is like thin cardstock.

I've been using Clairefontaine clothbound notebooks, both the ones with colourful covers and the plain black or tobacco ones, for quite some time. Very durable: tossed in a bookbag for the daily commute, used all day, no real problems. The worst that seems to happen to mine is the spine gets a bit distorted over time - instead of a sitting at a nice 90* angle, the spine sometimes ends up canted over at about 70* - a result of pressing the pages flat. I think you'd have to be pretty hard on stuff to do much damage to these covers.

(For comparison, any moleskine I've used has usually lost its ribbon and cracked its spine cover pretty badly under the same use.)

Ryan.

Urgh - I might be one of those people that is hard on stuff, then, because my tobacco colored *and* colorful Clairefontaines are looking kind of rough, even with mostly desk use. I started trying to carry one around but was not happy with the wear on it, which is how it got relegated to desk use.

That said - I don't think it would fall apart if I continued to carry it. I was reading on someone's blog that you can actually open it all the way up and fold the spine back to write on it like a tablet. I might try that next and see how it takes getting roughed up, because I do find that quite an advantage - it's something I like about composition books.

I would be interested to hear how that worked. I don't think mine would do it - It won't lay flat, so I have a hard time believing that you could bend it around completely and have a writable surface.

I should have clarified - I haven't actually carried one around for an extended period of time, so *that's* what I'm going to try. I have tried bending it back. Voila:



et:



sorry about the focus on the last one, but it should give you an idea. I don't think you could bend it back and lay it on a table like a spiral bound - this would only be useful if you were writing on your lap, or standing up, or something like that. Which I do, sometimes.

I buy these notebooks by the dozen, and use them as journals. I did have a leather cover made for them, but I have found them generally very durable, the paper excellent, and quite cost effective. Like many, I chase the "perfect" paper, notebook,etc. The Clairefontaine notebooks are about as good as I've found.

Where do you buy these clothbound notebooks? I'm looking for A4 and A5, but can't find them in stock on any USA website. I also want French ruled.