After mentioning the Lyra & Co goodies I purchased this year, I’m finally getting around to writing the review!

If you haven’t seen me mention this shop before Lyra & Co is a UK based Etsy shop that specialises in notebook covers and accessories. These are primarily fabric, although a leather cover has recently made an appearance in the shop. The great thing about fabric is that there’s just so much more choice. Leather you’re pretty limited to just one colour but fabric opens up so many possibilities. I took a look at the shop as I wanted a cover for my Leuchtturm. Not knowing how I was going to like it in a cover, I didn’t want to splurge on a leather one just yet.

Notebook cover

The A5 fabric covers are reasonably priced at around the £22 mark. I chose a blue flowery fabric, with two pink elastics and a pen loop. There weren’t any customisation options available, this was how it came. Thankfully, I love the colour selections here. That pop of pink is beautiful. I’m not normally one for gold hardware in planner, but those rivets don’t look out of place at all. The elastic you get in this is really thick and strong. The only downside to that is you do get some pretty big knots in the planner from it. My only complaint about the cover is the size of this pen loop. It seems too large and the pen ends up sitting quite proud of the cover because of it. For that reason, I don’t actually use this loop that often. I’ve stuck to the one stuck in my Leuchtturm mainly.

This is my first fabric cover so I don’t have much to measure it against. However it definitely feels and looks well made. It’s a nice thickness, soft on the inside and more rigid on the outside. The corners of the front do tend to turn up slightly, but this isn’t much of a surprise and they’re easily bent the right way round.

In use

As there’s two elastics in here I’ve popped my Leuchtturm in and another notebook. This is just a pretty notebook I picked up while shopping in Leeds. I’m not a massive fan of the paper used inside so I use it a little like a scratch pad for jotting down notes and lists that I don’t want to put in my Leuchtturm. The cover design is beautiful but the paper inside is recycled with very wide dots. 

I’ve liked having these notebooks in this cover. It looks nicer with my other planners than just the notebook on it’s own. 

Planner pouch

While looking around the shop I also spotted the planner pouches. These are pencil cases that have an extra pocket and a band so it can slip around your planner. As they had one in the same fabric as the notebook cover, I picked one up. I figured having something to carry supplies around with my Leuchtturm would be ideal. Once again, you get a nice pop of pink with this fabric. The band on the back though is white. As with the planner cover this is clearly well made. It’s lovely and soft but probably has quite a bit more padding than your usual pencil case. 

Because of this extra bulk, when popped on the front of the Leuchtturm it’s a little too thick for the notebook cover. You can still get it closed, but it’s definitely bursting. This does fit on Happy Planners as well so I did have it on that for a while. 

I did find though that because the elastic was so strong and new it did have a tendency to bend the cover a little. As I now just leave the Happy Planner open on my desk I took it off and put it back on the Leuchtturm. It is fantastically useful though. The zipped pocket has things like stickers, ruler and tweezers in. The main pocket has all my favourite Pilot Juice pens in. It has been great to have those pens close to hand all the time. I’m definitely using them a lot more now.

Will I be buying more fabric doris?

Another word for these covers is a dori, as in Midori. I do love my Midori and think when it comes to buying another travelers notebook style cover it’ll probably be leather. While the Lyra & Co cover is lovely, the fabric does add extra bulk. I also feel you’re limited in terms of pockets you can put inside, unlike with leather varieties. Also I’m pretty clumsy. One spill of anything on this cover and it’ll likely be ruined. The planner cover however is fantastic. If I ever take my Happy Planner away with me, it’ll be coming along too. Otherwise, it’ll stay in my dori holding my planning essentials.

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