In Link Love

Link Love: Book Nerd Edition

Author AnaPosted on 8 Comments
Link Love: Book Nerd Edition

As I suspect is true with most lovers of stationery, I am also a book nerd. I particularly like the feel of book in my hands but I have also learned to enjoy the convenience and portability of ebooks and audiobooks. At any time, I am reading at least one book but often it’s more like three: one paper book, one audiobook and one ebook.

I had tried to switch to reading all fiction digitally because our house is absolutely bursting at the seams with books and it didn’t seem to make sense to keep hard copies of books I will most likely only read once. This spring, however, in an effort to read more “distraction free” I joined the Book of the Month Club.

Yes, THAT Book of the Month Club. The books are reasonably priced, curated like the front table at your favorite book store and delivered right to my door — an introverts dream. I promise this is not an advertisement for the BOTM club, I just wanted to share my digital vs. analog reading habits.

As a result of my new analog reading habit, I’ve had a lot more kismet reading moments. I can leave a book open on the table and read a page or two as I’m cooking or moving about my day that is a bit harder to do with a digital book which requires keeping the screen on or unlocking the device to read a page or two. And I do like being able to quickly flip pages to see how much longer a chapter is. Sometimes, that just requires folding back the page corner that is not as easy to do with a digital book.

I participate in the GoodReads reading challenge and I am currently several books ahead of my reading goal as a result of my 3-pronged reading approach.

Do you read a lot? Paper or digital?

In link news this week, there is a wonderful post about ink bottles, a post of tools for lefties (I’ve never used or owned left-handed scissors, in most places, they are as rare as hen’s teeth so I learned to use right-handed scissors but maybe I should try them?) and a post about pens and the Ukraine that I found thought-provoking.

What were your favorite links this week?

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things:

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In Planners & Organizers, Tools

2022 Calendar and Planning Goals: Where are they now?

Author Laura CameronPosted on 6 Comments

In the fall, we pen and stationery and planning nerds get excited about the prospect of a brand new year and shiny new notebooks, calendars and planners. But when the rubber meets the road, what do we actually use? Since it’s June already (eeek!), I thought I’d take a quick look at my plans for this year and where we’ve ended up.

2022 Planner: Year of the Snoop

I’m starting with where I’ve had the most success (mostly to make myself feel better!). Back in January I talked about my Year of the Snoop Planner. I’ve been purchasing these quirky, partially hand-made planners from Nikol for the last several years and they meet my needs perfectly. I use them as desk planners, keeping them next to me to jot down notes and to-do lists throughout the workday. Occasionally I use the Saturday and Sunday slots for weekend duties, but often use them to record book titles I’d like to read, notes about craft projects that need to get finished, etc. While this planner may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it fits my needs perfectly and I’ve used it every week without fail.

For me, the highlights are:

  • Spiral bound, so it lays flat.
  • Equal space for every day.
  • Cardstock paper that performs fairly well with fountain pens.
  • Fun, quirky illustration.

Journaling in my Musubi Notebook

Back in February, I wrote about my journaling ambitions for the year. I’d give myself a C in this category. I have written in the journal maybe a dozen times since the beginning of the year, recording mostly my knitting projects, but a few of the other big events of the year (who predicted the war in Ukraine would be in my crafting journal?). In general,  I don’t write very much though. It’s not that I’m being precious with the paper – I enjoy writing in it and don’t regret starting the project. No matter how long it spans (even if it encompasses years) I still think it is a volume I will treasure.

I think my problem is that the days run together and sometimes I’m just tired. The last few years have been so weird in that sometimes they feel like AGES and sometimes they feel like they’re over in a minute. A million things are always happening, and yet I feel like I’m stuck in some kind of groundhog day, mostly living the same day over and over ad infinitum. While I do work on lots of knitting projects, many of them have been longer term, larger garments, so I may only finish a few items a month to journal about. Going forward in the second half of the year, I might put a note on  my calendar (see above) for Fridays or Saturdays, to just write down what I’ve been working on and any reflections on the week. Even touching base a few times a month would make me happier about recording what I’m up to!

Hikemuri Sticky Note Calendar

 

Here’s where I’ve been a TOTAL FAIL. I was so excited to get this calendar back in December and dreamed of saving all the little photos in a cute photobook. Well, you don’t have to be eagle-eyed to notice my calendar is still stuck on the week of May 9, while the rest of the world is on June 7. These illustrations are beautiful and I never look at them. In practice, I peel them off only when I’m getting ready to write in my journal (see above) and then I use only the one I want and junk the rest to get myself caught up. The verdict? Regrettably, I’ll be skipping this one next year, because it just doesn’t fit my way of life.

In Ink Review

A few Birmingham Pen Co. Inks

Author AnaPosted on Leave a comment
A few Birmingham Pen Co. Inks

I recently purchased a handful of inks from Birmingham Pen Co. I had done a post about comparing some of the new inks with their previous formulas but this time I wanted to try a range of their various formulas: the Everlasting Formula (a permanent pigmented ink), the Keystone Inks (formerly known as the Rich Formula [sheening inks] and the Crisp Formula [traditional water-based ink]). We reviewed some of the Twinkle inks (shimmering) previously but I have not tried any of the Wishy-Washy formula (most washable inks).. yet so stayed tuned for that.

The inks we tested in this batch are clockwise from top left: Tesla Coil, Rotten Seaweed, Antique Sepia, Chimney Soot (Everlasting), Smokebox and Periwinkle. All inks sell for $15-$17 per 60ml bottle.

Rotten Seaweed vs (From top to bottom): Robert Oster Saguaro Green, Colorverse Pluto & Beyond, Robert Oster Chartreuse, Colorverse Gluon LE Version, J. Herbin Vert Olive

I’ll start with Rotten Seaweed which is in the range of my favorite colors — that muted lime green. Rotten Seaweed is a bit more gold-green than many in my collection. Its most similar to the Pen Chalet Robert Oster Exclusive Saguaro Green (second swatch from top). J. Herbin Vert Olive is a bit brighter and greener, Oster Chartuese (top sample) is a bit darker. In the middle swatches are Colorverse Pluto & Beyond and Gluon LE Edition from the Standard Model Set. While I have dozens of lime green, these were the closest. Rotten Seaweed is a more muted, golden green. I find it a very intriguing color and the shading gives an array of celery to day-old avocado colors.

Birmingham Pen Co Tesla Coil is a heavy sheening ink in a deep blue with a very visible red/pink sheen. Its a color that is pretty common in the ink world nowadays and is similar to Diamine Maureen, Organics Studio Nitrogen and the Colorverse Dromgoole’s Exclusive NASA Blue.

These inks always remind me of those automotive paint colors that look different in sunlight. Super sheeners like this will catch the light and look more red than blue but in lower, less extreme light or on different paper stocks, the sheen may not be noticeable at all.

Inks this sheening can have some rub off because there is so much pigment that it sits on the surface of the paper. If it comes into contact with any humidity or moisture, the color can smear. Tesla Coil is no more likely to do this than any of these other colors but just be wary. This smearing is of particular concern to lefties and folks who like to use both sides of the paper in their notebooks as there can be some transference.

Ah, Periwinkle! Laura and I were laughing because she’s been reviewing periwinkle hued inks the last few weeks in honor of the Pantone Color of the Year and here I go, encroaching on her theme. Birmingham Pen Co. Periwinkle is  a more orchid reddish purple that some of the colors she’s reviewed (ink 1 and ink 2). Compared to the swatched shown above, Periwinkle as a beautiful shading ink, is a bit darker than Ferris Wheel Press Little Robinia and warmer in hue than Troublemaker Foxglove or Kobe #57 Himeajisai/Hydrangea. Its hard to say definitively if this is my favorite of the lot but its darn close.

Ah, Smokebox. I love a good grey ink an Smokebox is right up there in the shading, neutral/cool grey category along with Kaweco Smokey Grey, Edelstein Moonstone and Montblanc Oyster Grey. Smokebox is a more modestly priced ink when compared to Montblanc and Edelstein but the Kaweco is in a similar price range.

Birmingham Chimney Soot vs. my favorite permanent black, Platinum Carbon Black

I know it was probably unfair to put Birmingham Chimney Soot Everlasting ink up against the reigning champ of permanent black inks but it’s the only permanent black ink I own. Remarkably, it performed quite well with just a little color transfer  on the largest, most ink saturated writing on th top of this card. On both cards, over the lettering,  I brushed a wet paint brush over the writing to test its waterproofiness. Chimney Soot is a competitor!

Birmingham Antique Sepia comparison: (top to bottom) Troublemaker Petrichor, Kala Abstraction Sierra Mist, and Troublemaker Kelp Tea.

The last ink I tried was the Antique Sepia which is a color-shifting ink. It has a lot of mossy green with pools of a warmer pinky-beige and some deeper teal halo-ing. Finding a comp to this weas a challenge. I don’t have a lot of color shifting inks but the Troublemaker colors (Petrichor and Kelp Tea) have some of the same hues but with different over- and under-tones. Kala Abstraction Pigment ink in Sierra Mist is the closest ink I have to the dominant color in Antique Sepia.

Overall, I’m delighted to see how vast the Birmingham Pen Co. ink offerings are and how much they are experimenting with a range of ink properties. Their generous 60ml bottle for approx. $15  is incredibly reasonable for indie-produced inks.

Check out their collection for yourself and let me know what your favorite colors are.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Birmingham Pen Co. for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In news

See You in St. Louis?

Author AnaPosted on 6 Comments

We are just weeks away from the Saint Louis Pen Show. This is the first show since 2019 the Well-Appointed Desk has had a table so you will know exactly where to find me. I will be bringing a full selection of Col-o-ring products, letterpress stationery, rubber stamps, stamp pads and vintage office supplies. I don’t plan on bringing any typewriters unless we have specific requests.

Jesi will once again be helping Dromgoole’s with their ink table.

Jesi and I will also being hosting a seminar All the Inks on Saturday at 2pm. If you have any ink related questions or topics you think we should cover in the seminar, leave a comment below and we will try to add it to the presentation.

And, of course, in the evenings, you may be able to spot Jesi and I hanging around the bar with lots of pens, inks and papers to try. Please come over and say hello. We don’t bite but we do like G&Ts.

If you have any pens that have been reviewed here on the blog that you might like to see in person, leave a comment and I’ll pack it in my trusty USPS “official use only” mail bucket.

I can’t wait to see everyone in person. Will you be there too?

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: A Closer Look at Anderillium

Author Jessica ColesPosted on 2 Comments
Ink Review: A Closer Look at Anderillium

This week I am looking at the properties of Anderillium inks, starting with the first four from the Cepholapod series: Blue-ringed Octopus blue, Bobtail Squid green, Vampire Squid red, and Cuttlefish brown. If you would like to see all 16 ink colors, be sure to read my post from last week!

First, a comparison of colors. Blue-ringed Octopus blue is a bright cyan that sheens red occasionally. It reminds me of Pelikan Edelstein, but when I compared the two, Blue-ringed Octopus is noticeably darker.

Bobtail Squid green is a bit brighter than Robert Oster Jade, and not quite as yellow. I love the shading in this ink – the difference between the dark and light shades is dramatic.

Vampire Squid red is a wonderful bright red that is dark enough to not hurt your eyes. You can see a touch of the gold sheen in the lower right corner of the swatch card below.

Cuttlefish brown is a very interesting ink – when used with a wet-writing pen or nib, it appears off-black. When Cuttlefish is used in a fine pen or a dry pen, it appears as a light, muddy brown with hints of yellow. Montblanc Wood & Tobacco is the closest color I have to Cuttlefish and even the Montblanc ink isn’t quite as dramatic.

Below are the four inks on wheat straw paper from my swatch booklet. There was no feathering and no show-through but also no sheen on this paper.

 

Below is Tomoe River paper. I’ve slightly smeared each ink below to show some of the properties of the ink although please note that the green in the Blue-ringed Octopus smear is from inky fingers, not from the ink itself. TR paper shows the Bobtail ink shading and a bit of the shading in Cuttlefish, but the nibs that I used for Blue-ringed Octopus and Vampire Squid were too narrow to show sheen. You can see a hint of sheen in both in the smeared ink at the bottom of the page, however.

Shading is better on the Cosmo Air Light paper below, especially in Bobtail Squid. Cuttlefish showed no real shading here and I continued to not see sheen in Blue-ringed Octopus or Vampire Squid. The smear tests with the blue and red both showed the sheen, however.

Midori MD paper light seems to have a flattening effect on each of the four inks although you can see more of the color variation in the Cuttlefish smear. I saw no sheen on this paper.

Out of the four types of paper I used in these tests (five if you count the Col-o-ring cards), there was no feathering, no bleed-through, and no smearing (except where I smeared on purpose!). Out of the four inks, Cuttlefish and Bobtail Squid are absolute favorites because of their unique colors. Blue-ringed Octopus is a beautiful cyan and I am going to try a wider nib for better sheen. Vampire Squid red is one I would probably pass on – the color is not quite saturated enough for my taste and was too dry.

All four inks I have shown in this post do feel slightly dry on paper but flow well through the pen. I didn’t experience hard starts or railroading, but the feel on the page was similar to writing on slightly toothy paper. I rather enjoyed the feel of the drier ink! I have several wet-writing pens that will be great to use with Anderillium inks to balance the flow.

Check back next week for more Anderillium ink testing!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: Kitten Vibes

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment
Link Love: Kitten Vibes

The kitty vibe is strong this week. Our pal Charlie over at Doodlewash created a darling watercolor illustration of a kitten ready to pounce and Emmeline Draws released her new enamel pin, Book Kitties. When a theme emerges, I just need to go with it.

Illustration by Charlie O’Shields at Doodlewash

Speaking of kittens, our kitten clan is doing well. The kittens go for their second round of vaccinations this week and Pickle, the one kitten who is already adopted, will be going to her fur-ever home this weekend. They are exuberant, curious and bring us a ton of joy. Hopefully, soon many will go off to new adventures with new homes to bring joy and happiness to others too.

I know there’s been a lot of kitten talk these last few weeks but six kittens and a mama cat certainly have occupied a good deal of my head space (and studio space).

I could have written about the Star Wars Celebration event and the first two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi but you knew I was a Star Wars nerd already?

Don’t forget the great links below including the Dominant Industry Mirror Inks, edible burrito tape and the Lamy Aion gets sour grapes from A Fleeting Ripple. See you all next week!

Posts of the Week:

Pens:

Ink:

Paper & Notebooks:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things:

We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!

In Ink Review

Ink Review: PENBBS #273, Blue Sky Shimmer

Author Laura CameronPosted on Leave a comment

In my ongoing quest to find the perfect periwinkle ink, I couldn’t leave out PENBBS #273, Blue Sky Shimmer (60mL for $16.00). I should say that I’m biased in that I think PENBBS makes some of the best shimmer inks I’ve seen!

Blue Sky Shimmer is a light powder blue, with silver shimmer. It shades quite a bit, and while it is lovely in every application. I do think in writing it’s a bit light for my tastes.

The reason I love PENBBS inks so much is that I think they do shimmer just right for my tastes. They use the finest particles I’ve seen, and I’ve not had one clog up a pen. Their light touch gives the ink just the right amount of shimmer so that I don’t feel like a super sparkly vampire when I’m writing on business documents or signing checks with my fountain pen!

In terms of the recent inks I’ve reviewed, Blue Sky Shimmer is a bit like Vinta Ink Salimbay in terms of intensity. But Salimbay leans a bit more purple, and that shimmer is all pink. Between the two, I might be partial to Salimbay. These two are definitely the lightest and most ethereal looking of the inks I’ve tested so far, and probably come closest to Pantone’s Very Peri. What do you think?

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.