This article was written for Nero's Notes, about my new favourite things, Foglietto.

Warning. This article may well cost you money.

Effortless organisation. That’s what I want. A system that’s instinctive, forgiving and easy on the eye. That’s not too much to ask for, is it? No? Well, while we’re here, I’d also like extendibility and expandability. A system that can grow with my needs.

A bit like this.

Meet Foglietto.

A system built around record cards. Colourful ones.

Bits of card are fantastically portable. They’re great, pinned to a notice board. But put them on a desk, and they’ll do their level best to escape. If only there was…

I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago. It arrived, and I ordered a couple more. Lovely ornaments for any desk. Mrs L has been eyeing one up as a kitchen store for recipes.

Naturally, there are divider packs, to keep my notes, (or recipes), in good order.

To the cards themselves.

They come in A6 and A7. The A7 is the star of the show, with its beautiful, Zettelkasten inspired home, gorgeously named Tesoro. There isn’t an A6 sized box yet, but I wouldn’t write it off. Maybe one day. There are 6 rulings. To-do, lined, dotted, squared, blank and ruled. Now - sharp-eyed stationery nerds that you are, you’re asking “lined and ruled?” Well spotted. One is, as one might expect, a card with lines across it. The other, is a clever wee thing. It has a sort of ruler down the side, creating a wonderfully gallic approach to note governance. “I might time-block my day, or I might just create a beautiful design in the open space. I’m French. Eeeets like zat.” Of course, being French-born, the cards come in a variety of excellent colour-shades.

As you can probably tell, I like these cards more than is really appropriate for a middle-aged stationery nerd.

Then I wrote on one.

Oh.

They’re only 260 gsm Fedrigoni card, aren’t they? Fountain-pen friendly cards. I’m in love.

Foglietto is the creation of Emeline Pedemonte, a French woman who has married an Italian. (She and I might form a support group). She is sickening talented and multi-lingual. I’ll let her copy do the work for me:

“Soft and strong at the same time, surprising and yet so familiar, lively and at the same time so tender… The Foglietto memo cards are printed on recycled paper from the historic Italian manufacturer Fedrigoni.

Our paper is made from 80% recycled paper. The last 20% comes from sustainably managed forests, certified by the FSC label. The FSC label is currently considered by WWF to be “the only certification that is sufficiently demanding to assure the consumer of the legality of the wood and the sustainable management of the farm”. It is also free of heavy metals, chlorine and acids, making our memo cards fully compostable.

And as we love our little Liré as much as we love the Latin Tiber, we work with the printing company Setig Abelia, located in the Loire Valley, who only works with vegetable inks. Our leather folders are made a few kilometres from Nantes, by hand, in the Audouin family’s workshop.. Finally, our wooden pencils are manufactured in the last wooden pencil factory in France.”

Given that I’m a raging Francophile, married to an Italian, and that I carry a fountain pen with me everywhere - this brand was always going to appeal to me, and boy does it.

The cards come in a range of pack make-ups to get you going, and there are extremely clever cardboard archive boxes too.