The term ‘GSM’ simply stands for ‘Grams per Square Metre’ and is used for measuring paper weight. Put simply, if you were to take a 1m² piece of a certain type of paper, how much would it weigh in grams? Silver Medal Winners– Buke Notebooks and Eclectic Scribbles did very well too. Besides the two art supplies that were thrown out, each only had two major problems with bleed-through. Buke failed with dye ink and Sharpie Marker, Eclectic Scribbles failed with Sharpie Marker, fountain pen ink and a little bit of the Dylusions Distress Ink. Buke performed a tiny bit better than Eclectic Scribbles.

Ranger Dylusions Distress Ink – full-strength – even though this is a spray bottle I used it with a small paintbrush instead (spraying this stuff makes a huge mess!) This test was the ink straight out of the bottle.Buke Notebooks– The paper in Buke is smooth and it’s a pleasure to write on. Plus it passes the feathering test. No problems at all here. My favorite part of this whole thing was this part! I love getting my fingers all messy with paint and ink – it felt more like playing than working. Although, is reviewing stationery supplies really “work” …. Ha! Probably not. See, if I take out the 2 alcohol markers from the list then there’s nothing left to “compare” because all these notebooks did just fine with all these pens. There’s virtually no ghosting in any of the notebooks. Featuring an excellent 160 CIE whiteness, this A3 paper will ensure that the results are vibrant and eye catching every time you print. Specifically designed to reduce ink blot, it will provide you with a level of colour separation and clarity that cannot be beaten. For businesses wishing to enhance their green credentials, CCW0350 paper is EU-Eco Label certified and CO² neutral.

For sure, you have often heard people saying that the higher the GSM, the better. However, let us tell you that this is NOT necessarily true. GSM is not used to measure quality. It is only used to measure paper weight and nothing more. Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink – this ink is not really designed to be used on paper, it’s more for non-porous surfaces. But why not try and see what happens? It’s clear from the standings that QiHeng is the winner in the performance categories. The construction and durability of the QiHeng notebook are outstanding and the paper is better than any of the other options. Gold Medal Winners – both QiHeng and Tekukor ended up with one art medium that bled through in addition to the two alcohol-based supplies. QiHeng failed with dye ink and Tekukor failed with a Sharpie Marker and both of them had a little bit of trouble with the swatch of fountain pen ink. I would give QiHeng a slight edge over Tekukor because of the way the paper performed with watercolor (Tekukor got more crinkled). And this is where I get to play with toys! I dug out my magnifying glass, to begin with, but that just didn’t give me the amount of magnification I wanted to examine how the ink behaves on the paper. I’ve also got a jeweler’s loop that has 60x magnification. Wow! This thing is amazing and it lets me see clearly how the ink behaves with amazing detail. You should have seen me trying to finagle my camera to line up with that tiny eyepiece. But I did it! Anything for you guys! FOUNTAIN PEN & FEATHERING TEST WINNERTechnical—a certain special technique such as a foil stamp or a die-cut won’t work with all papers, and some books may need heavier paper to suit the binding Dye-based Ink – similar to the alcohol ink but there’s no alcohol in this version. It’s a water-based dye ink instead of being alcohol-based.