Lorenzo Dini Firenze Cat TN covers – it’s love!

A few weeks ago I wrote about Lorenzo Dini Firenze. After I had written the article I sent Lorenzo a link to it via his Etsy shop and – wow! – he offered me a discount on an order. I was thrilled!

I never ask for review copies, samples or discounts – I generally just either purchase an item, or write articles about a particular shop, then send the vendor a link to my article or review. Sometimes though, I am offered a discount, as in this case.

It took me about two seconds to make a decision – the cats of course! The Japanese one did catch my eye for a minute (can you blame me?)…

….but, as always, cats won!

I don’t usually use A6 size in TNs but…well….look at the cat in the hat below. It was ready made and a one off!

And then I chose this A5 beauty with an inspirational quote on the back cover. I requested this one in gold. You can choose different colours and motivational quotes on Lorenzo’s covers.

Lorenzo kindly offered to send the ready-made A6 one immediately which is a nice gesture to a buyer I think. Most sellers wait until the custom orders are ready before sending everything as one package, even though part of the order may already be ready to ship. I chose to receive it all as one shipment.

I received them both on Friday. Beautifully packaged. One in a box with a clear cover, one in a regular cardboard box. They were tied with string and had thank you cards on them.

Inside, each cover was covered in gold tissue paper with a card on them. Under each cover lay a bronze satin carrying pouch with drawstring ties.

And look at this A6 beauty below! I sometimes use A6 ring organisers, because I think they are the perfect size (not as big as personal, not as small as pocket) but I have never used an A6 TN cover.

I actually whooped when I saw this. It is too beautiful for words. I love it more than I can say. It is absolutely beautiful and the cheeky expression on the cat’s face is just perfect. My guess is that Lorenzo knows cats! Look at the kitty’s little belt and those paws!

The leather is undyed (my favourite) and is thick and stiff (just how I like it!)

Below is a feature I really like – it is a clasp specially made to hang charms on. NOW, if anyone can find me a cat in a hat charm I would be in heaven!

There is also an unusual two- grommet system for the spine elastic. I think grommets are really nice on holes. I know Gillio, Van Der Spek and ImperfectlyPerfekt also use them.

Another ingenious thing is that there is no elastic knot closure on the 4 spine elastics or the elastic closure.  The elastic closure knot is under the leather clasp on the front and is not knotted but tied. No bumps! Perfect! I hate the way large knots in the spine elastics cause bumps in your books and mean they don’t close neatly.

Another thing I love is the thick closure elastic – I love thick elastics on the outside. The internal elastics are thinner and I like that because they do not affect the way the books close the way that thick elastics do.

 

Below you can see the flat knot under the leather tag, keeping the spine clear. You can also see the burnished edges.

See the making of this cover in the video below

And here comes the other beauty – in gold!

This one is an A5 and is going to hold my sales books for 2017. I have to become more organised regarding sales and donations and this is going to help me. I try to have regular clear outs and sales but have been very bad of late. The only thing I have been keeping up with is donating things to the homeless shelter.

This leather is thinner and lighter but is good in a book this size because they can be very heavy. It has 6 elastics (you can choose between 2, 4 or 6) and I am going to put A5 Tomoe River notebooks from Curnow Bookbinders in it.