All I want is sheets!

January 15, 2006 7:07 PM

For the love of God, do truly blank pads of paper exist?

I'd love the following: 8.5*11in pads of white, unruled paper, with the little cardboard tops.
I would give someone else's first child for these - or, alternately, money.
(Maybe I should just get some paper bound?)

posted by metaculpa to Shopping (14 answers total)

I once found some at the local dollar store. I usually keep pads of paper around the house, and stocked up on some. I ran out about the time that Target had all of their back to school spiral notebooks on clearance: a box of 50 was $3.

But anyhoo, check the dollar store, seriously.
posted by damnjezebel at 7:10 PM on January 15, 2006

Putting some stuff in Yahoo shopping like "blank pad" came up with results like this.
posted by hodyoaten at 7:14 PM on January 15, 2006

Get a skech pad. The paper will be thicker, though.
posted by delmoi at 7:29 PM on January 15, 2006

Have you looked at sketchbooks in your local art store?
posted by advil at 7:29 PM on January 15, 2006

Check any art store.
posted by disillusioned at 7:30 PM on January 15, 2006

Gosh. You live in SFO and you haven't gone to Paper Source?
posted by mykescipark at 9:03 PM on January 15, 2006

The Rhodia pads that hodyoaten linked to are the stuff I use. It's extremely durable, unlined, pure white vellum paper wrapped in sturdy cardboard. I prefer this to moleskines because it's lightweight and doesn't have the bulky moleskine hard cover. Note that it's a French manufacturer so they don't actually have any 8.5x11 pads - the closest is A4 size at 8.25x11.75.
posted by junesix at 9:05 PM on January 15, 2006

Your local SF "Blick Art Materials" has a selection of sketchpads that may be what you're looking for :-)
posted by vanoakenfold at 9:35 PM on January 15, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for all this - woo, those Rhodia pads are expensive compared to the usual Ampad. These are for notes/writing rather than art, so paper quality isn't super important. Just, um, volume. I go through one a week (at 100 pages) and $8 a pop for $50 pages is a bit steep.

Maybe a newsprint quality artist pad is what I'm looking for?
Now I just have to find 8.5 x 11in...
posted by metaculpa at 10:22 PM on January 15, 2006

I buy pre-three-hole-punched reams of printer paper and use a big 3-ring binder. Many advantages over a traditional wirebound sketchbook if you don't mind the paper being a bit lower quality.
posted by wanderingmind at 11:34 PM on January 15, 2006

As a kid, we always had plain printer paper that had been cut into quarters, stacked up about 75 sheets high and bound on top with gummy stuff. My grandmother made them at the school district print shop where she worked. I wonder if Kinkos can do this?
posted by mullacc at 1:20 AM on January 16, 2006

You can make DIY pads with Padding Glue. I used the stuff all through college to bind my scratch sheets and photocopy collections too thick for staples and three-rings.
posted by brownpau at 4:40 AM on January 16, 2006

You don't need to buy padding glue to make pads--at the print shop I worked at in high school we used ordinary white glue (albeit in enormous bulk containers). Just press the sheets down with something heavy like a cast iron frying pan, placing chipboard every 50 sheets (or whatever) and paint the glue all along one edge. Let it dry and then do a second coat. When it's dry, gently lift a chipboard sheet and run a razor blade right underneath it to separate each pad from the stack.
posted by bcwinters at 5:33 AM on January 16, 2006

And if doing it yourself is too much to bear have a FedEx/Kinko's do it for you.
posted by FlamingBore at 6:21 AM on January 16, 2006