November 4

A Review about “Shadow and Bone” (Netflix)

Rezension: Shadow & Bone – Eine Reise in die Welt der Grisha - Filme & Serien

Where to watch: Only Netflix (because it’s a Netflix Original)
Published: 23. April 2021
Length: Currently only one season, but renewed for at least a second (based on the books there might be 3 seasons in total)
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Main place of action: A made-up world and different made-up cities, heavily inspired by Russia

What is it about?
In this world there are people existing who have different magical powers like bending the wind, controlling the water, and creating fire. They are called Grisha and in most countries, they are feared for their powers, isolated from society or even hunted down. Only in Ravka they are protecting by the King and serve in his army to fight a common enemy “the Fold”. It is otherwise known as the Unsea because it’s like the void of the ocean, but also not at all and it harbors all kinds of creatures, and everything that enters their world is their prey. Even the famous Grisha are not powerful enough to keep them at bay until a Sun Summoner is found. Her light is the only weapon capable of destroying the darkness… or is it?

Was it good?
“Shadow and Bone” is a book adaptation of the original trilogie and some other books from the Grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo. When I say “some other books” I mean that the Netflix Series does cover more than the Story of the original 3 books. You could actually say it’s more inspired by the books, than a real adaptation because they basically took parts of other books which take place in the same universe but a diffrent time and characters who never appear in the first Grishaverse trilogy and weaved them into their version of the story. Which made it more interesting actually 😉 If you want to know more about what they changed(with spoilers) you can read my other post about it *here*.

Since I loved the idea of avatar-esque element bending, I was really intrigued to watch the series! And I was pleasantly surprised about how good the series is, from a visual standpoint but also storywise. But maybe not because of the main storyline, which might be confusing to someone who has not yet watched the series. I try to keep this review spoiler-free, but very early on you will meet a set of characters that will immediately steal the show. They are called the crows a group of thieves who has their own series of books called “The Six of Crows”.

Without telling you about their role in the events unfolding, I can tell you they play a crucial part and they will be in every episode of the show. When following them on their journey you pretty much forget about the other stuff happening and you look forward to them appearing on screen again. I actually talked to multiple people about it and a bunch of thieves just seem to be more relatable than a Marry Sue character, who is part of a prophecy, you know will lead her to win in the end. Don’t get me wrong, her story is still somewhat interesting and it’s important to understand how the world around them is working, but it’s not the reason you will watch this show 😉

On top of these two different storylines, you will follow another set of characters on their journey and in every episode, you will switch between them. You will get to see different perspectives in totally different parts of the world, and meet a ton of new people. That must be very confusing, right? That was what I thought, but it actually is not like that at all. It’s fun and entertaining to see the different roads they take and it spices everything up a bit. I really like that they did it that way and I have not seen it done in any other series yet!

The show has intrigued me so much that I read the book series and so far they manage to adapt the story in a very good way and used their 8 episodes to cover book one completely. Season two will most likely be covering book two, that’s why I predicted that there have to be at least 3 seasons, to cover the 3 original books. Maybe more, since they created their own story on top of everything, and if all seasons are as good as this one, the more the merrier!

Final Verdict
As you might have noticed, I think the series is worth the hype it got and it’s great that it was renewed for a second season. I would want to give it 5-star rating for its excellent cast, the great visual effects, and the way they improved the narrative compared to the story of the books. But they also made some not-so-understandable decisions, which if you want to get spoilered, you can read about in my before mentioned post. Therefore I will give it 4 and a half stars or in this case popcorn bags, but I am still very much am looking forward to the next season.

Category: Review, TV/Web-Series | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 20

Shadow and Bone – Differences between the book and the Netflix-Series

“Shadow and Bone” is a very popular Netflix Series about a Russian-inspired Fantasy world, in which witches and warlocks are called Grisha. In most of the Countries, Grisha’s are actually feared, or even hunted down. But the land of Ravka treats them like royalty, raises them in wealth, and trains them to become soldiers in an age-old war. The story, which has been called the Harry Potter of the new generation, is heavenly inspired by the books of Leigh Bardugo, but after reading the first one myself, I noticed some major differences that I wanted to share with you. So if you thought about maybe reading the books because you loved the series much, as I did, this post is perfect for you 😉 But it might also be interesting to the people who only read the books too, if you want to see what got adapted and what did not. The things I will be pointing out are SPOILERS, if you are new to this series and don’t like to hear spoilers at all, I would highly recommend go watch the series now and come back after that. It has only 8 episodes and it’s very bindgeable 😉

1: Alina is not Shu, nor belongs to any other minority
This might not be something affecting the story directly, so changing it made no real difference there, but it was still something that really confused me. The first few minutes of the first episode show that as a Shu-looking woman Alina has to face racism every day, which of course is a problem we have in our world too. But in the books, Alina is only an orphan, nothing is said about her heritage, she is not criticized because of her skin color and she does not even seem to speak any of the languages outside of Ravka. Don’t get me wrong, being an orphan, having your life completely change, and having to face jealousy from other Grisha does not make her life easier, but still. Making her part of a minority group like that, without any real reasoning behind it, makes it seems as if they wanted her to be more of a victim and that does not sit right with me.

2: There are no parallel timelines, so more Mal and Alina?
If you loved the way the story was told in the series, being able to see the crows preparing the heist, Mal trying to get to Alina and Nina being abducted and growing onto her kidnapper, you will be disappointed in the books. Because the only storyline we get to experience in full detail is Alinas, we only get a small glimpse of Mal at the end when their storylines became one again in the series, after finding and defeating the stag. But until then, we don’t even know that Mal is looking for Alina and honestly, we don’t even care about him anymore. If I would not have seen the series first, I would not even have known, they were in love with each other for the first 2/3 of the book. Alina does say she is in love, but we have no information about Mal whatsoever and with him seemingly not answering her letters, we readers will tend to like the Darkling as a possible love interest way more. Which is another thing, caused by the different style of storytelling: In the series you could see the Darkling being manipulative, hiding things from Alina, you just knew something was off. But in the books, you don’t really get that feeling. I can’t really decide which way is better…

3: The Darkling is not an “older” man
A bit like changing Alina to being Shu, at least for me it felt like they changed the Darkling to be intentionally older than he was described in the books. Yes as a powerful Grisha and with all of his backstory being known at one point, he is very much older than Alina, but in the books, he does not look that way, he is actually described as being as young as Alina herself. And I think it’s important because the whole first book is about how naive Alina is, how she falls for him and his orders and how he slowly begins to own her. I think that partially is due to the way he is looking, Alina seeing someone not older than her, forgetting about his long life and being more easily manipulated by him. To be honest, that might also be why I felt as if it was obvious that he had bad intentions from the start. And again I don’t know which execution I liked more: the series being very open about Alina and Mal belonging together and the Darkling being bad or the books only hinting at Alina and Mals possible future but having the Darkling be less obviously the bad guy, making readers actually root for him.

4 +5: The crows and the Grisha hunters are not present
For many viewers including me, the crows were even more interesting than the whole Alina-being-the-savior storyline. They were just more relatable than a prophecy character who became royalty overnight, not to mention the brilliant acting and very fitting casting choices for lovable gangsters. The only problem is, they are not present in book one. They are not mentioned once, they don’t just show up at one point as Mal does and basically, their whole storyline in the series never happened in the books. After doing some research while also trying not to get spoilered myself, I came to the conclusion that the characters actually only exist in their own books called “The six of crows”. The same goes for the Kidnapping timeline, Nina and Matthias also have their story told in the Crows book series. Both seem to only have inspired the character we know from the series, their stories being altered to match the new storyline, but you can still consider the duology their original story. I actually think the series was more interesting including them in the way they did and it did not change Alinas Storyline up to this point at all, so I think it was a clever decision to make, also not having to do multiple series but putting all the cool stuff in one. The only problem is, if you were looking forward to reading about the crows or even Nina and Matthias, you will either have to wait or just read “the six of crows” right away, instead of the original Grishaverse trilogy.

All in all, I have to say, that I was a bit disappointed in the books, having had certain expectations from watching the series first, which of course is more my fault than Bardugos. But I think many people will be in the same situation, so I thought it was worth writing about. I was very sad that my favorite characters were missing, that the story was basically the same as in the series, meaning that I did not even get as many cool details out of reading the books as I would have liked and I think I do actually prefer the way viewers were introduced to Alina and Mal’s relationship in the series. In the books, because we don’t know about his efforts, we don’t really grow attached to the idea of them being together, even though their love is very clearly shown at the end. I am looking forward to reading the next books, since apart from the other timelines, we saw in the series, but not in book one, it ends more or less exactly where the Netflix series ends. So everything from book two will be new to me and maybe it will make reading a bit more interesting and who knows, maybe the crows do show up at one point and if not, I already have their own Duologie at hand 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Book Review, Review, TV/Web-Series | 3 Comments on Shadow and Bone – Differences between the book and the Netflix-Series
October 13

Gamereview “Hollow Knight”

The last time I talked about a game on here, it was about a combined experience of gameplay and watching a tv series, that I found so special that I had to share it. This time I want to talk about a game which is also one of its kind, you may have heard of it before. “Hollow Knight” was published in 2017 so it’s already some years old but it has not lost its charm since then. It’s a platform jump’n’run like super Mario, but it has a very eerie vibe to it, which makes a further comparison to its cheery counterpart almost impossible. Let’s jump right into the review.

Review
The story of the game is kinda hard to put together because it’s not something linear that leads you through the game. You get fragments of knowledge from people you meet and statues you find, which leads you to explore the story and discover all the pieces on your own. For me that was very different and I have to say, I felt kinda lost at some points, and in the end, I really did not play the game to find out what it was about. Might be a plus to some people who really want to solve the mystery, but I kinda ignored it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because it means the game itself, got me coming back again and again.

The general mechanics are fairly easy, you are playing an unnamed character, as far as I have understood it, it’s not the Hollow Kight, but for the purpose of this review let’s call him Knight 😉 Knight wakes up in a cave, follows some kind of call, and ends up in an almost empty village. There he meets an old bug, who tells him that all other members have gone into an underground dungeon to fight and never came back. So Knight decides to do the same and jump down a well to get into a sewage system and his adventure starts.

In typical jump’n’run fashion, you are exploring a sidescrolling environment, fighting your way through enemies with a sword, and find secrets and hidden items. What’s interesting is that the one environment you are entering is actually only a part of a big map with different areas that have different enemies and different designs. You can find the other areas by beating bosses, learning new moves, and finding new ways to travel. It was very intuitive because you have to revisit tunnels where you have been before, as soon as you learn to jump higher or wider, to explore caves and so on.

I have heard some people comparing the game to “dark souls” because it’s harder than most of its kind. But since I have played and terribly failed at dark souls, I think I can safely say that “Hollow Knight” is at least playable 😉 If you die, you will lose all of the currency you have earned, but you can get it back by fighting “the remains you have left”. At some point in the game, you also unlock some kind of bank where you can go back and store the so-called Geo you find and save it from getting lost in battle(but be careful with that xD) and other options too. In the same way, you can also unlock a way to quick travel, which can be very convenient, and combined it make a less nerve-wracking experience than dark souls.

Final Thoughts
All in all, it’s a challenging game that might be harder than Super Mario, but not as hard that it would keep you from finishing it. It has a mysterious story that frames the experience, but can be ignored if needed. The gameplay is very intuitive and interesting and the environments are minimalistic but stunning. The music seems very well composed so that it accompanies you on your journey, but it does not distract you from your tasks. The boss battles are diverse and every new move you learn will be needed to access a new area. I think it’s a very great game 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Gaming, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 8

Papergang Box September 2021

The September box actually arrived almost immediately after the August box came in the mail, meaning I had to pay the before mentioned taxes again -.-” If you want to know more about the situation take a look *here*. But hopefully, this will be the last box with those extra costs and I try not to let it ruin the opening of the box for me 😉 Let’s take a look inside together!

In the box, we get an A6 daily planner with a beautiful yet simple mountain-type design, similar to the front of the box. We also get 3 birthday greeting cards with fittingly designed envelopes, an A5 art print which I like the most out of all we have gotten from Papergang this year! Last but not least we got some sticker markers with different designs and 6 differently colored felt tip markers.

I am very happy with this box, everything can be used together and I like the designs and earth colors they used very much 🙂 Like I said the print is my favorite up till now and the sun going up and down in the sticker marks is pretty cute 😛 What is a bit disappointing are the felt tip markers, they are very reminiscent of the german Stabilo markers, but they feel a bit cheap compared to those. Having “Papergang” written on them has a nice touch, but not if it’s in exchange for quality, you know? Aside from that, there is nothing to complain about 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT
October 4

Papergang Box August 2021

After many many troubles, about which I might even make a post on its own, my august Papergangbox FINALLY arrived! Actually, I have not that much to say about it, other than I really like the colorful block design on the front, let’s take a look inside!

In this month’s box we have an A4-ish Notebook with lined pages, an orange pencils case with a chunky metal zipper, a pack of A5 sticker sheets in 2 different designs, a ballpoint pen with black ink, and 3 erasers with rounded edges 3 different marble effects and printed quotes.

I have to say that I am VERY happy to finally have gotten a pencil case for all of the pencils I got in my previous boxes. To be honest, if we view it as a year-long subscription, I would have liked the pencil case earlier, to be able to store everything I will get from early on. But asidefrom that, I have no complaints about it, the pencil case feels very nice, it looks great and it’s spacious^^

Let’s talk about the other items in this box 😉 I do like the marble design of the erasers very much and I know quotes are kinda OhDeers signature trade, having them on books, pencils, and erasers for sure, but I feel like the marble design would have been cool on its own. I do like the design of the ballpoint pen too, even though it feels a bit cheaper than other supplies from them and I would have loved a marble design on it too^^

What is really confusing to me is the notebook, because when I saw the sticker sheet I thought of bullet journaling, which was (or is?) a great idea for a boxes theme! Even though I would have liked some more pens to highlight text or use different colors for headers and stuff. But what I would really need is a BLANK notebook, to be fully free in the designs I want to make, to stick my stickers everywhere I want. With the lined notebook we got, I feel somewhat restrained, because I can’t use all the space exactly as I want, without the lines guiding. And bullet journaling for me is all about not being guided and doing my own thing.

So, the theme, if there was one, seemed a bit lose to me. If it was about bullet journaling we have not got enough pens and the wrong notebook. If it was about taking notes in general, I feel like the stickers are too detailed. And why do we have cool erasers but no graphite pencil to go with them? Maybe I am searching for something again, which is not even there intentionally, which would be a wasted opportunity for me. But all in all, I was still very happy about the box, mostly because I finally got my pencil case 😉

And do you remember the “extras” I was promised for the delay of my packages, this one in particular? Well, I think that I have gotten them, but they are not what I had expected. I guess I should not complain about free stuff and I do like some of it, I just had something different in mind. I got 4 different cards for different occasions, I love the fox the most but sadly can’t give the card to myself, right? xD I also got one very random pen with a random quote, but it has a very small tip, which is very interesting!
But I do have to say, I like the cards that we get in the Papergangbox, in general, the least from everything, because you can’t do anything with them, you can’t create something because it has already been created. So getting 3 different cards as an extra to make up for the stress I had recently did not really sit that well with me. Still, I take it and I will find someone I can send the cards to. And since I am currently in contact with them anyway, talking about compensations for different problems, I hope to be satisfied in the end. Because their customers service never let me down up till now 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT
September 8

My first poetry with Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey Review)

Cover of the book: black backround with white text saying "Milk and honey, rupi kaur" and two realistically drawn bees. Text on the end is orange and says: "#1 New York Times Besteller".

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 4th of November 2014
Length: 208 Pages
Genre: Collection of Poetry and Prose
Price: 11,49€ on Amazon

Review
Let me tell you the story of how I got to know the work of Rupi Kaur. I am actually not a big fan of poetry, at least not of the stuff we had to read and analyze at school. I guess not everyone liked to unpack a Sonett and its multiple layers of meaning, especially when it’s about something you are not interested in at all. So when a pen pal of mine, actually recommend Kaur’s work to me, in a totally different context and I got to read some of her poems, I was quite surprised that I was enjoying it. The friend suggested using her poems and illustration to get inspired for my own works of art, mostly illustrations too. So the intention was not even to get me into poetry, but maybe it kinda did?

But then, in an effort to find out more about this artist who got me interested in reading poems, I found out that not everyone was enjoying what she wrote, quite the contrary. Many people called her a wanna be-, Instagram- or tumblr poet, they were saying that her work seemed lazy and not quite thoughtful. People were pointing out that some of her work would be considered statements, might have even been Twitter posts, but not art. Which really got me thinking: what is art and who can decide on the definition? (There are famous people in Germany I know of whose whole art persona is based on sharing their own tweets on different platforms, it might not be poetry, so maybe to be the best example, but I would say it could be art, modern art so to speak.) That’s why I really wanted to write this review because I guess if I would not have been reading some of her poems before, hearing and reading all these negative things about Kaur’s might have been the point where I would have stopped researching. I might not even have bought the books I already put in my online shopping card. But glad I didn’t, I gave this artist a chance and I can’t say that I am regretting it.

I am not an expert on this field obviously and I don’t try to discredit the people who gave their very negative opinions on Kaur’s work, but I want to try and give another perspective on the topic. Because I think, what some people might actively or subconsciously have done was gatekeeping and I think in its essence, that was wrong. Comparing Kaur’s work with what I knew from schools, definitely showed some differences. Most of her poems are quite short and as I said, their meaning can be understood easily. The themes of her poetry surround around womanhood, abuse, family and relationships and you can say they feel like very meaningful quotes. The most popular one, which her first book is named after is “Milk and Honey”:

Image shows on of the poems from the book, black text on a white backround: "how is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked Milk and honey dripped from my lips as i answered Cause people have not been kind to me - rupi kaur". On the right side of the page there is a illustrauion of a glas with a honey stick ontop and bees fling around it.

The messages of this poem seems to be: people who have been hurt, try not to hurt others because they don’t want anyone else to feel the pain, they felt. It’s said with a more visual language and emphasizes with a not quite fitting illustration, to which we get in a moment, but you get a general idea. There is no second or third layer behind it, which some people might consider lazy or consciously vague so that more people can relate to it. But what exactly would be the problem with that?
Kaurs work in her first book feels very much like a sort of theraphy session for herself and the reader, where you get lead through diffrent stages from “the hurting”, over “the loving”, to “the breaking” and in the end “the healing”. Writing down those maningful quote-like and longer poems, seemed to have helped her deal with certain things that might have happend to her. And it did help me feel understood somewhat too. Since I can’t believe Kaur only did that to become famous, I want to ask again: what exactly would be the problem with that? If she was helping herself and others with her words, is that not the purest form of art?

I said the illustration was not quite fitting, not because I wanted to critique her art style, but because I think a different imagine might have emphasized the message a little bit more. Her Illustration is general, seem to be what people like to complain about the second most though, also calling it lazy. I feel like that’s very subjective like the whole thing might be because I actually really like the art style Kaur used. Just because it’s not shaded or colored, because the ends of the lines don’t connect to each other all the time, it still has something very interesting to it, that I really enjoy. I actually even tried to recreate that, which is not as easy as it might seem. People also like to point out that it feels like the illustrations are only there to fill the pages, make the book seem fuller, they don’t really see it as part of the poem, which I find strange. I see them, the illustrations and the poems, as a connected piece of art. Like in this example:

Another Poem from the book, black text on a white backround: "the idea that we are so capable of love but still choose to be toxic - rupi kaur" with an illustration of a scorpion on the right end of the page.

It’s one of her shorter poems, which again can be understood very easily but with the scorpion she choose to put on that specific page, it might tell a bigger different story. I see it as a nod to the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which goes something like this: A scorpion asks a frog if he can ride on his back to get from one side of the river to the other side. The frog asks “Why should I risk getting stung by you?” to which the scorpion answers “Why should I sting you on the river, if it would mean that we both drown?”. The frog sees the logic in that and decides to help the scorpion, but halfway over the river, the scorpion goes against his word and stings the frog. With his last dying breath, the frog asks the scorpion why he did that and doomed them both, and the scorpion answers “It’s just my nature”. So both the poem and the story play with the idea of people making bad decisions, hurting themselves and others in the process. But Kaur’s poems seem to condemn the actions more, going against the idea of “It’s just my nature” whereas the fable kinda leaves that more open to interpretation. With that in mind, I don’t think Kaur just put random art on the page to fill up her book, she did it because it was part of the art she wanted to create and maybe the message she wanted to sent.

Final Thoughts
So, all in all, I would say art is a very subjective thing, so don’t let other people tell you that something you enjoy is bad and always try to make up your own mind. From what I understand, Rupi Kaur’s work might be considered Level 1 poetry: fun to read, easy to understand, and aesthetically pleasing. It might not be comparable to Level 5 or Level 10 poerty, but that does not mean it’s not good or not poetry at all. So this might be a good book to get you started on poems in general, especially if you like the topics mentioned. It might get you interested in this form of art and that’s never wrong.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Book Review, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 25

Over half a year of Papergang boxes!

When you are following my blog for at least a month, you might have seen that I am doing a monthly review of a subscription box called Papergang by OhDeer. It’s a box that gets a new design and content every time and I have had a one-year subscription for a little over half a year now. So I thought I might give you my first thoughts about what I liked and what I did not like so far. Keep in mind there are still 5 boxes coming(while I am writing this review), so they still have time to improve upon some things. But let’s start with the impressing stuff!

Impressing stuff
This monthly subscription box was the first one of its kind that I ever got. Even though I really love the concept of it, I think they might not be as popular in Germany, which is why many have never heard of them before. I can’t even remember how I got to know about this box in particular, but I am very glad that I did! I do love stationery and art and this box combines them both and it feels like the people behind it are very passionate about what they do and with whom they work together.

I love that the box is designed in a way, that it fits into a regular mailbox with no problem. Especially since the pandamic hit, I really hate taking on parcels personally, so I love to send them to special package stations in Germany. The only problem is, that these package stations can only be open by the customer and the workers of DHL, the biggest german mail company. Meaning that if I get something from outside the country, which is not shipped with DHL, I can’t let it be delivered to one of those stations. So having it fit into my mailbox is almost as good, if not even better, because I only have to go check my mail, to get it out 😉

I had some troubles with getting the boxes shipped to me in the first place, which might sound like a bad thing, but it’s actually nothing the people over at OhDeer can be blamed for. It often was a customs problem, in the time where the UK was leaving the EU and some parcels just got missing. But the customer service at the Papergangs HQ, has never let me down. They answered emails fairly quickly and always tried to either explain to me what happened and calm me down, or got to work on a solution right away. And as of now, all the missing parcels were replaced without a problem.

Things to improve upon
Sadly I have to say that not everything worked out as expected. What got me into wanting a year-long subscription of the Papergang boxes for 2021, were the pictures I saw of the boxes from 2020. Mainly the October and November boxes got me hyped up and very sad about not getting one of them! They were not only beautifully designed but also packed with great stuff, on some pictures I was even surprised to see how many things fit into such a small box. And I know, there should not be quantity over quality, but I feel like both of these things have gone somewhat down.

What I mostly miss in the boxes is a theme, a thought behind why exactly these stationaries were chosen for a particular box. Are they part of a kind of letter set, that I can use to write my penpals? Or are they part of a note-taking set, an office supply set, and so on. Because oftentimes, especially with the last 3 boxes, it felt as if they would have just randomly put together some stationary, put a unique design over it and call it a day. As I said in my reviews, stationery is never too much, I will always find a use for a pen, or a notepad, or something similar. But the boxes just don’t get me as excited anymore, if it just feels like I am getting random supplies. I really hope they can improve upon that with their last 5 boxes of the year because that will really be the tipping point for me to decide if I want to get another subscription of them or not.

This last point might be a bit contradictory to the last point I spoke about in the “impressive things” category because it’s again about shipping and customers service. As I am writing this review, my august box has still not arrived and it’s less than a week till the next month(as of me writing the review, might post it later :P). But I knew that would happen because I got an email saying that some shipping errors arose again and my parcel will only be shipped at the end of august or the beginning o September. Someone took responsibility for it this time and promised some “extra gifts” to compensate for the inconvenience. Now I have not received these gifts, but I really hope they will be there in the first place. Because even though I can understand why the shipping errors happened at the time of the Brexit, it does kinda get annoying when it happens over and over again. And before this email, I got nothing to compensate for it. So I guess if they really will be following up on this email, it will an improvement, if not, I know what to talk about in my full years’ review of the boxes 😉

Final Thoughts
The Papergang got me into subscriptions in general, which I am super happy about and grateful for. But I have to say at this point, I am already thinking about if it would make sense to keep up my subscription or to use my money on another one next year. Just because the excitement I got in the beginning, did not really last until now. And like I said, I think that’s because of the “randomness” that I get with many of the boxes. When the next 5 will be better, I will change my mind and I would gladly do so. Because I still really love the idea behind the boxes, not only just repackaging some products and shipping them, but designing them, working with artists, making it a very unique experience. That’s what I bought my subscription for, that’s what I loved seeing the old boxes. So please Papergang, fill me with this excitement again!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 29

Papergangbox July 2021

This month’s box arrived over 10 days before the end of the month and I think that’s how it will be all the time from now on since they changed the carrier recently! I am very happy about that and I am looking forward to my Papergang boxes even more from now on 😉 So let’s take a look into this months box together now 😛

Cover of the box from July 2021 with diffrent colored swiggles in the backround and the text "Papergang by Ohh Deer" in white.

This months box was designed by Clara LeRoy and it contained an A6 notebook with 128 pages of checkered paper, 2 embroidered patches with the texts “keep going” and “be nice” in different colors, 2 sections of sticky notes with different designs, and 30 sheets each, a special embroidery scissors and a multicolored marble pencil in a craft paper sleeve which writes in a mixture of blue, red and purple.

Insides of the box: A Notebook with the same pattern from the cover, two dirrent designed sticky notes one with the pattern from the cover and a white cirle, the other one has a purple backround and the text "be nice", also two patched one saying "be nice" and the other one "keep going", a multicolored pencil and am embroidery scissors-

I don’t have much to say about this month’s box, to be real honest. It’s just not my kind of box, there is no real theme to be seen here, I don’t like checkered pages in notebooks and what would I need embroidery scissors for in a stationery box? I appreciate the patches, I guess I can always find a place for stuff like that, but I think there will be other people, who were expecting more pens and paper and who don’t really care about patched at all, let alone doing embroidery themselves, which they could need scissors for. The designs are okay(again just not m style, but not bad at all!), I especially like the sticky note with the circle on it, kinda like highlighting the notes you will take on it. But that does not really save the box for me. Hopefully, next months theme will be more my thing 😉 I would be so ready for another lettering box theme, with lettering paper, and maybe some stuff to put onto the paper or on envelopes. Maybe some post stamp-like stickers would be a great idea!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Photo that shows the inside of the Notebook with a small white box where you can put your name, phones number and email.
Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | 1 Comment on Papergangbox July 2021
July 21

Review of the Artful Box: Calligraphy

Cover of the box shows an underwater envoiroment with diffrent corals and a few fish, with the artful logo.

If everything goes according to plan, you have already read my review on this quarters Artfulbox with the theme: Watercolor. If you have not, but want to, just click on the unterlined text to get there 😉 If you are new to this: Artful is a quarterly subscription box from the UK, made by OhDeer the same people that came up with the Paperganboxes! Due to some Brexit issues most of my subcription boxes from April-Mai got lost in the mail, so did this one, which is why I am reviewing it only now. Gladly I got a replacement for all of my boxes and I was especially looking forward to this one, because I already have some experience on the fiel of Calligraphy and Handlettering. Though I have to say that the box itself does not really match it’s contents, I think Calligraphy has nothing to do with the ocean and fish, so I was a bit confused at first. The Artwork is great of course, but I would not have choosen it for this theme. But enough talk about the outside, let’s take a look inside!

Inside of the box: Many diffrent colored tombow markder lay beside a pencil and an earaser, ontop of a small book and blank greetingcards.

The box was made together with the company Tombow from Japan, which is a well established brand in the community of letter art and it’s actually diffrent from the newest Box where they made their very own supplies. Just something I have noticed, maybe getting what is needed for a good watercolor set was easier than making theirown brushpens or it was a matter of money and they just had more to put into the watercolors box 😉
In this box we get 8 Tombow Dual Brushpens in a very limited color scheme(we don’t get a yellow for example), 5 Tombow Twin-Tone Dual Tipmarkers, a Tombow MONO Ereaser and a HB graphite lead pencil, aswell as an A4 Bristol 250gsm drawing pad and 4 blank greeting cards plus envelopes.
Let’s talk about the 112 page magazine! Structuerwise it does not make a lot of sense to me… The table of contents begins on page 10 after a “the brief history of typography” and an editors note, after which the first thing we see is a making off of the boxart itself. A making off is always intresting to me, but not when I waited to get into the process of creating art, after waiting so long to get my box. Then comes the first interview and a tutorial which has nothing to do with Calligraphy or Hand Lettering at all. On page 30 we get the first glimpse of what creating letter art could look like with the first tutorial of blending colors together. But that also is a bit nonsensical because we get to know about the basics of how to use the brushpens and how to create letter art on page 50 and 66! Please tell me what was the thought behind that…? I guess you could argue that the box was not meant for beginners, but if that’s true we would not have needed the basic tutorials at all and could have used the space for some more interviews and advanced tutorials. Maybe they wanted to show first, what different kinds of letter arts could look like, but I don’t think they made the right call here and for a beginner that might even be a bit overwhelming. I know they already got better in the next box, so I don’t want to complain about it too much, since they seems to have noticed their errors, but I still wanted to mention it.

Collage of the before mentioned book with text that says "Let's learn about calligraphy + other stuff" on the right and on the left it's a picture of the bristol paperpad from tombow.

As I said in the beginning I have some experience when it comes to this topic, which is why I was confused again. When I think of Calligraphy I think of quill pens with metal nips tipped in ink, sliding across the paper. But I have to say, that’s western-style Calligraphy over in some Asian countries Calligraphy was always done with brushes. Calligraphy itself might be a kind of umbrella term, describing the art or lettering. So I would say they did nothing wrong with the title, but I would have loved to maybe let it be more specific. Because what we got in the box, were supplies for what I and many others call Hand Lettering. The difference for me really lies in the supplies you are working with and the different techniques you can use because of it. You can’t do the same strokes with a brush of course, that you can do with a metal nib and vice versa. I can’t really speak for Asian Countries and if their traditional style of Calligraphy is different from that, like maybe what I think is traditional western Calligraphy is, is using metal nibs and old fonds, recreating the traditional feel of it. Maybe traditional Asian Calligraphy is using special brushes, with only black ink, which might be why they too would say the supplies given are more for a modern type of Calligraphy. For me both of these types of letter art are cool, so I am okay with getting some great Tombow supplies, but I think some people might expect something different and get disappointed because of it, so maybe boxes like this could use a longer title like “Modern Calligraphy” or “Calligraphy: Hand Lettering”. And I would also love if maybe traditional wester and Asian Calligraphy could maybe be a future boxes topic 😉
The tutorials themselves are interesting, I will separate them into tutorials for beginners, advanced techniques, and tutorials that are not tied to the topic. The tutorials for beginners are very good, you can’t really go wrong with that, to be honest. But I would have loved to maybe get a separate sheet to practice on(there is one in the magazine, but maybe a separate one would have been better, since who likes to write in books, right?), since I to this day struggle with what the right amount of pressure to put on the brush to get he result I am imgaining. I think especially for beginners that can’t be hard and a sheet like that can always be very helpful.
The more advance tutroials would be the ones talking about blending and using the special twin-tone markers, since that’s not something a beginner need to learn ASAP. You can go a long way just with the basics and being creative 😉 Since I have never worked with the twin-tonw markers before, I am looking forward to creating something with the help of the tutorials.
The last typ of tutorials kinda used the brushpens in diffrent way to create drawings. Of course, you can use your brushpens for drawing, but including these tutorials felt like as if the people behind the box though using the markers only for lettering purposes did not do them enough justice. The lettering is not “real art” or something like that. I really did not get the need behind including them if I am honest. We could have used some more inspiration or maybe diffrent alphabeth and fonds to copy better, especially for beginners, but I am also up for learning new alphabeths even though I am lettering for some time now.

Close up of the diffrent pens.

With my last box, I tried to make a greeting card for someone’s birthday and since many people’s birthdays are coming up, I made another one with this box too! For this one, I used the twin-tone markers and the faux calligraphy technique. I have to say I really like the bright colors(which we have not gotten with the big Tombow markers) but I might have used them wrong… when going over a certain spot multiple times, the paper flacked very fast, which was quite surprising to me, since it was specially chosen for this box. But I have to say, it might be a user error, still something I wanted to mention. The tutorial on how to use them did not help me much since actually the person in the “tutorial” also used them for the first time xD And the “tutorial” was more about using the thin tip for outlining and the bigger one for coloring in the lettering art. So I have to say it was not very helpful :/ The other tutorial about putting a shadow behind the letter, was as helpful to be honest. It basically goes like this:
1. Write a word(not showing hot to do that with the brush pen the best way)
2. Put shadow behind it in different colors.
3. Done
I have to say I am a bit disappointed since that’s kinda what I could come up with myself, a tutorial would really take its time to guide me through the process step by step more, especially when I either have problems using the brush pens or have never used them before. I felt kinda let down. But I am still kinda happy with the card I have made, maybe I can put some more details in later, but I really like the colors, I have to say I rarely work with them, so it was nice to do that for a change.

Greetingcard done by me with the paper and diffrent pens from the box. It has a white backround and a text in tghe middle saying "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag"(meaning Happy Birthday in German). Left and right of the text are two party canon that fire simply drawn streamers and confetti.
“Alles Gute zum Geburtstag” is the long version of german people saying “Happy BIrthday” 😛

All in all, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the box. The supplies we got were high quality, but I can’t really understand why we got those limited colors for example(still kinda mad about not getting a yellow), why there was no blending pen or a sheet of a practice alphabet. It just kinda feels a bit random to me. As random as the order of the chapters in the magazines, to be honest xD The whole box did not feel very thought through or maybe put together by someone, who does not enjoy Calligraphy very much. Maybe that’s why I am so disappointed in it, because Calligraphy is something I always liked to do, which is why I was looking forward to it so much! But I have to say again, this box came out before the watercolor one and it feels like they found and fixed many of the mistakes they made in this box like for example having a more structured magazine and less random supplies! So I will keep an eye on future boxes and their themes and I will definitely try another one sometime in the future 🙂 So you too should maybe not only judge them on this particular box and keep an eye on them, if you are interested in the general idea of these boxes! Now that I think about it, I am quite happy that I accidentally bought the watercolor box too, so that I was able to review both of them and see how the company has improved^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 14

Papergangbox May 2021

This will be the second post this week, just because it should have technically already been up two months ago xD As you might have already read, there was a problem with Brexit regulation in April and May which leads to many packages getting lost. This box was amongst them, but I am glad it got replaced and I am able to review it now! Hopefully, this will be the last you hear about the Brexit stuff, since all of the stuff that got lost, is accounted for now xD But maybe there will be some post talking about stuff I got, I apologize in advance 😛

Photo shows the cover of the box from may 2021, it's a colorful flower drawing with a big red cirle in the middle and the text "Papergang by Ohh Deer" in silber foil.

It’s kinda funny to me how the Junes box was a bit to dull to me colorwise or better to put it: it was not rainbow enough for pride month xD The mays box is! This is just so funny to me because technically they just would have to switch out the box designs and to me, it would have made so much more sense xD But in general, I have to say this months theme is one of the prettiest ones I have seen so far 🙂
As for the contents we have a 256 pages linen daily planner with the beautiful color gradient, an A5 print designed by Steffi Lynn(as everything in the box is :P), a set of point sticker markers with 5 different designs, a large vinyl sticker, two pencils with holographic foil and a small bag filled with 40 multicolored paperclips (60 advertised in the booklet but maybe not delivered?).

Insides of the box: An art print of the cover design with the text "have a nice day", a vynl sticker of a purple flower, a planner with the text "Have a nice day",Stocky notes with diffrent design, two graphite pencils with a holografic outside and a small orange bad filled with colorful metal clips.

When you follow me for a while and have read my other reviews on the previous Papergang boxes you know I love to look for a DIY aspect or a theme in the contents we are getting. This box weirdly does not feel as it has a theme at all, it more feels like a refill box: Is your planner from January already full? Here you get a new one! Have you lost your paperclips again? There you go! All of your pencils are broken again? We have some extra shiny ones for you and some point markers for good measure! 😉 And don’t get me wrong, refills are a good thing, especially if you frequently use all of your stationery, so I appreciate getting refills kinda automatically with every new box. But one box just with refills feels a bit lame. Maybe that’s just my point of view and others get to enjoy the box more, but I would have loved there to be a theme or DIY aspect to follow.

Orange packingpaper with a golden sticker that says "Papergang".

For me, the Mays box was a bit underwhelming, which might be due to the circumstances of already having received multiple boxes and comparing them to each other. I think the Januarys box actually did not look much different from what we got and I got to appreciate it more. And like I mentioned in June I might have celebrated the colorfulness of it more… Sounds kinda strange if I put it like that, but that’s just my opinion 😉 And I have to view the Papergang boxes as a subscription because I do think some people might get a single one if they really like the content, but in general, most people will get it as a subscription. And I think it’s completely normal to then view it that way and compare the different boxes with each other. I am looking forward to the next boxes still since I love the Papergang stuff in general, I just hope to be more blown away next time!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT