Spotlight Stationery July 2016 Box Review

Yes, the above pic may or may not contain spoilers ;) But July box is sold out and the August boxes have been shipped, so this review has been a little bit over due but I wanted to share it and my thoughts about it with you at any rate. 

I've been following Spotlight Stationery (a (bi)monthly stationery subscription box service based in the UK) on Instagram for a while now and then they posted a while back that they still had one July box left, I grabbed that chance with both hands (also because the spoiler photo had something Turquoise in it and yeah how can I let that pass me by?!) Mary from Spotlight Stationery crew kindly let me buy the box as a one-off, which I really appreciate as I was on the fence to get a subscription right away. So thank you again, Mary! The boxes are 25£ plus postage and packaging (UK: £2.00 Europe: £5.25 Rest of the world: £7.50) So I paid the equivalent of 36€ including PP and a few days later I had this waiting for me in my mailbox:

It looked well stuffed and I was beyond excited to open it!

The goodies came in nicely packaged in tissue paper and looks very stylish with their logo and slogan "Indulge your passion for stationery" which I certainly did!

And these are the contents of the July box; I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Rhodia themed!

The set included (pricing is based on uk webstore prices upon googling the items): 2 staple bound small pocket notebooks (grid) (2£ for both), triangle orange pencil (1,50£), soft black leather pencil case (10£ but a seemingly hard item to find as it's out of stock in most stores...) and the turquoise thing I was so curious about is a soft cover Rhodiarama A5 notebook in dot grid (13,75£) which I always wanted to try out! So I was super thrilled to find that in the box. Also I have to note that this was a departure from their usual boxes as they made it themed based on a brand. I definitely like this idea and I hope they will do that again in the future!

What I also like about this subscription box is that you get an assortment of postcards by young/up and coming artists along with it. There are some really talented people out there and I always love to support indie illustrators and by getting a Spotlight Stationery box you are also helping a charity. For every box they ship they will make a donation to National Star, a charity working with young people with disabilities and acquired brain injuries. I don't know about you, but for me this does lessen the guilt of buying or as they put it "indulging" in buying more stationery. Well played Spotlight Stationery team, well played!

I am definitely happy with the content of my first ever (no I kid you not!) surprise stationery box purchase. (I haven't done subscriptions ever since I stopped with the Inkdrop offered by Goulet pens back in the day) I definitely think that the cost of the box is well worth the content in this case. The summed up amount is 27,50£ and that isn't even included the postcards. Lets say those are 2£ each and then the total would be 35,25£ which what you pay for the box incl. shipping to the EU! So if you like the content of the box as much as I do it is definitely worth it IMHO. 

The question I am struggling with though is will I get a subscription? Will I indeed subscribe to indulge in my stationery needs? The thing is, while I do like surprises, I also like knowing what I will get and what I like about Spotlight Stationery they also offer their past boxes as a one-off buy. I have not made up my mind about this yet, but as I typed this I have noticed they still had one of the August boxes left! Which is a total surprise as I have not seen any spoiler pics of the content yet. So I went ahead and got that one as well and I'm going to wait and see the August box content before I do subscribe. 

If you want to subscribe, when you register for their email news letter, you will get a discount code for 15% off on your first box. Yeah I also have no idea what I am waiting for really, it's such a good deal... maybe it's the fact that I am still thinking - do I really need all this stationery as my closets are overflowing with notebooks I have not even used yet. Well maybe I should make a conscious effort to do so and do some more stationery related reviews!

At any rate, I hope this review was useful to you if you are considering to subscribe to the Spotlight Stationery box yourself. Thanks for stopping by and have great day!

namasté

Disclaimer: I was not in any way compensated by Spotlight Stationery for this review. There are no affiliated links and the opinions reflected above are completely my own.