In Tools

Giveaway: Galen Leather zippered 10-slots pen case with magnetic insert!

Author Laura CameronPosted on 82 Comments

I told you Ana brought back the goodies from the San Francisco Pen Show! One of the fun things she brought back was a new Galen Leather zippered 10-slot pen case ($58). Now we’ve given these away on the blog before, but this one has a new feature: magnetic inserts.

All Galen Leather cases come with soft suede-like leather inside, and elastic pen loops to hold your pens so they don’t touch each other or get damaged in transport. But now they’ve made that insert detachable, so that you can remove it to load your pens and magnetically pop it back into place when you’re done. That means that for tall pens (like my Heinze pen or my Esterbrook) there’s less risk of the pen getting scratched by the zipper. Neat, huh?

So here’s the deal: I have one 10-slot zippered leather pen case in Crazy Horse Brown from Galen leather available to one lucky winner. I’ll choose one lucky winner and throw in some Desk swag! Also – fountain pens pictured are NOT included. (get your own pens ya scallywags!)

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell me about your favorite pen case? If you don’t have a favorite pen case, then tell me which pens you’ll be storing in your new Galen case! One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site (wouldn’t a monkey case have been fun???). Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give the monkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Friday, September 20, 2024. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 5 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this giveaway were provided to us free of charge by Galen Leather. Please see the About page for more details.

In Pen Review

Pen Review: Teranishi Guitar Glass Pen with Cap (Aurora Long in Jelly Blue)

Author AnaPosted on 4 Comments
Pen Review: Teranishi Guitar Glass Pen with Cap (Aurora Long in Jelly Blue)

Ever since I bought a “glass pen” with a cap through Ebay several years ago, I’ve been on the hunt for others. The one I purchased is no longer available and I’ve had to reattach the nib to the grip section so many times its now permanently crooked.

I love the capped design of my original and have purchased several others in search of the same smooth, fine line writing experience. When I heard about the Teranishi Guitar Glass Pen with Cap – Aurora Long – Jelly Blue ($45), I was ready to give it a shot.

Glass pens are great when sampling and testing ink as they can often give a similar writing experience without have to ink up a whole pen and clean up is as simple as a dip in some water and a swipe with a paper towel.

The overall pen is beautiful with a cracked ice gradient color from blue to green. The cap can be screwed to the base of the pen when using for a longer length and less chance to misplace it. I ended up not using the pen with the cap posted as it made it quite long for me but if you have larger hands, this might be just what you need.

  • Length – Capped: 5.0 inches
  • Length – Uncapped: 4.3 inches
  • Length – Posted: 6.7 inches

One thing I did notice is that the grooves in the nib of the Teranishi are all parallel, running from the base to the tip. My other pen has grooves that twist around the pen like a candy cane twist to hold the ink. I’m not saying either method hold more or less ink, I just thought it was interesting.

The tip of the Teranishi writes with a bold, monoline stroke. The actually tip is quite smooth and there is very little feedback on the paper. I occasionally ran into hard start issues after dipping the nib in ink but once I got the pen going, it wrote smoothly for quite awhile before I needed to dip again.

Maybe its just because I’ve used my old pink glass dip pen for so long its actually developed a bit of a stub italic angle but I still can’t find another pen that will replace it (even with its wonky angle).

The Teranishi is a beautiful pen and well crafted with a smooth point but it’s too wide for me. I’ll keep working with it to see if I grow to like it more but, right now, I still like my old janky pen better.

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In Planners & Organizers

Video: Plan With Me

Author AnaPosted on
Video: Plan With Me

After my September Planner Set-Up video I got requests for a “Plan With Me” video so, ask and you shall receive! Grab your supplies and a cuppa because this video is long but I’ll keep you company through your Friday afternoon!

I set-up the last 15 days of September in real time and babble while I do it. Enjoy! Let me know if oyu want more videos like this in the future!

 

 

In Ink Review

Ink Review: Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive

Author AnaPosted on 3 Comments
Ink Review: Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive

I was able to pick up the Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive ink somewhere along the Pen Show Trail this year and finally had a moment to uncap and check out the color. The label suggested a yellow-undertone dark green so I was stoked to give it a try.

My initial swatch card was so dark — almost black with a slight green undertone. The swatch showed very little shading and no sheen.

So I decided to play with a brush and some other swatching tools to see some of the color depth.

With a Pilot Iro-Utsushi Dip Pen ($11), the color was much lighter with more of the green tones evident. With a paint brush, I was also able to see more of the color variation. The Kakimori dip pen (starting at $58) put down a lot more ink and was therefore very dark again.

I played more with a folded nib, eye dropper and the Kakimori and made some fun color marks and saw a lot more variety in this ink.

When compared with other inks, Diamine Salamander is probably the closest in color. The Sailor Jentle Miruai is more of a bluish-green. The other colors were lighter, more saturated greens.

Overall, the Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive ink is a quite dark, dramatic ink. A lot of its most interesting characteristics are lost until water is added (like a water brush) or its used with a fine nib. There was not a lot of shading until it was used in a finer pen and no sheening on any of the papers I used.

So, if you didn’t make it to a pen show to grab a bottle of this ink, I don’t think you really missed anything.  I may try to ink a pen with it and use it to see if I warm up to it but honestly, I am not crazy about this ink. Do you have a bottle? Do you like it?

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

In Link Love

Link Love: Reading Mojo

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment
Link Love: Reading Mojo

Do you ever find a book (or two or three) that you just don’t get into? Do you DNF (did not finish) it or do you slog through it? Do you feel like you’ve lost your reading mojo?

That’s been me for the past month or so. No book mojo. Every book I picked up for over a month just made me feel “bleh”. They probably weren’t bad books, they just weren’t engaging for me. I might not have been in the right mood for the type of book I grabbed or they were just slow to get going.

I have talked with several people who also dealt with a little of book malaise recently.

But finally, FINALLY! I broke the malaise. I chose a book that was on my library list and just plunged in and finished it in two days.

I am a voracious reader so when I don’t read much or lose enthusiasm, I start to question my identity. Am I not a book nerd? Am I broken? So, grabbing a light, frothy little romantasy story unlocked my inner book lover who may have gotten buried under beliefs that I have to like every book I read, finish every book, or just love everything.

If you have had a bit of book malaise lately, remember… you’re not being graded. There’s no quiz and no one should judge you if you don’t love or finish the books on the NYTimes bestseller list or that was on your TBR pile. Read what you love and love what you read.

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In Art of the Day

Do you doodle?

Author Laura CameronPosted on 9 Comments

Traditionally, I have been far more inclined towards the needle arts than the graphic ones. I draw TERRIBLY. But I am drawn to color and shapes and patterns…and doodles!

I haven’t shared many of my crafts of late and that’s because this year I have been dealing with tendonitis. This means I have had to severely limit the time I spend knitting and spinning, knitting being my one truest love. In the interim, I have dabbled in some other needle crafts (embroidery and quilting) that don’t seem to aggravate my arm as much. I’ve started following an increased variety of crafters on Instagram and what the algorithm feeds me has been changing.

Suddenly I’ve been thrust into watercolors (gorgeous, but I wouldn’t know where to start) and doodling reels. Doodling – abstract shapes and colors that don’t have to look like anything in particular, well that has seemed to catch my attention. I suspect a lot of it is the popularity of Zentangle, but somehow I decided I might like to try. After all, I have fine liners and all kinds of pens (Sailor Ink Pens, those beloved Gelly Rolls, Marvy Le Pens, and more!) to use.

Despite having a MILLION notebooks, I did decided to invest in a new one so that I could purchase slightly thicker art paper in case I decide to add ink washes, alcohol markers or anything else. I opted for simple and purchased a Bee Creative Drawing Book ($16.19 at Dick Blick). This is an 8″ x 8″ book of 160lb (260gsm) white drawing paper. The book contains 35 acid free pages that I’m hoping to fill up.

So far, I’m doing what I think many new artists do: imitation. I’m working on the second of my doodled drawing and realizing how much time it takes to do small details! But I am enjoying it quite a bit, and my hope is that by the time I reach the end of the book, I’ll be doing less copying and more creating my own designs.

So, do you doodle?

In Fountain Pen Review

Fountain Pen Review: Rubato Map Nib Fountain Pen

Author AnaPosted on 1 Comment
Fountain Pen Review: Rubato Map Nib Fountain Pen
My small collection of Rubato Pens including an extra nib unit for the map nib. The pen with the pompom has a standard Schmidt nib at the moment. The Bee pen has the G nib unit

Rubato Pen Studio is a one-woman pen maker who I have met at both the California and SF Pen Show. I am totally enamored with the designs she creates and the experimentation she is employing in her pen development. She comes from a calligraphy background and is definitely an artist (she drew the adorable cat sketch pictured above) so what she is creating are pens that help creative people use fountain pen(-ish?) pens for their creative endeavors. I was initially taken with her use of color and inclusions in her resins. There are pale translucent colors with glitter and creamsicle swirls. She has added wildflowers, leaves, seeds and charm inclusions into some of her pen designs.

The pens are tiny but the caps thread onto the body to create a longer, more comfortable writing experience.

The prices for a complete pen range from about $90-$150 depending on the pen, nib unit and add-ons.

What continues my excitement and enthusiasm for her work is her innovations in nibs and her amazing ink caps made of a clear plastic material with pyramid-like hollows like the back of an alligator that hold ink and look SOOOO COOL!

This is the G nib with the ink capture piece on top with ink collected in it. I am puling ink from the cartridge in the pen and not from dipping though dipping the pen will definitely help to charge the nib and feed.

When ink is flowing, the ink pools into the folds of the ink cap (What should this be called?!?! According to her web site, it’s an “upper reservoir” but I like Ink Alligator!) allowing the pen to be used for longer periods of time as a dip pen or with the ink cartridge without as much of the railroading that can often happen with more flexible nibs if the feed cannot keep up.

The upper reservoir without ink to more clearly show the pyramid areas that hold ink.
This is the map nib with a smaller upper reservoir/”ink alligator” — I don’t know what else to call the clear plastic piece on top of the nib. So cool!

The map nib unit holds a smaller than normal dip nib called a map nib for its extra-extra fine lines often used for details on (you guessed it) maps. The map nibs can be quite scratchy and are not for the faint of heart. They are great for detailed linework in sketching and drawing.

I absolutely love using the G nib unit. I had no issues with railroading while using it and I find the G nibs to be pretty smooth to use. The map nib is scratchy for me (lefty here!) but it was not ink starved, just very freakin’ pointy. The incredibly fine line of the map nib has its appeal in some cases but I would not recommend this as an everyday writer or for a newbie.

In general, there is some play to the flex nib units on the Rubato pens so I wouldn’t recommend them to a new fountain pen user in general. If you love the look of these pens, I would recommend starting with her standard Schmidt nib unit to get the great looks with a more traditional nib. If you’e ready to experiment with flexible nibs, then the G nib unit is amazing but may require a little adjustment here and there (the nib and upper reservoir/alligator are friction fit and held to each other with a silicone rubber band which can require being reset or adjusted if it’s been cleaned or bumped. It’s not a big deal but it’s something more experienced fountain pen users will be more familiar with (“are the feed and nib fully inserted into the housing?” type of knowledge) and may require getting your fingers a little inky.

Overall, the Rubato Pen Studio pens and nibs are some of the most unique and innovative that I’ve seen in the maker markets this year. Hopefully, Rubato Pen Studio will be at the California Pen Show in February next year with more of her amazing, unique creations.

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