This is fun AND totally functional. I love it!
Sugru is a better version of sticky putty. Buy a pack of eight foil-wrapped nuggets for $22 from the Sugru website or check your local hardware store.
Book: Letters To My Future Self
Letters to My Future Self ($14.95 MSRP) is a marvelously designed little book that contains self-sealing letters and prompts to write letters to yourself. The book was designed by Lea Redmond best know for the World’s Smallest Post Service Kit.
The letters fold up and include designed stamps, labels and wonderful air mail patterns.
On the back of each page is the prompt for the letter and a place to add the date your wrote it and the date it should be opened again.
When you unfold the page, there is a full sheet of paper to write your letter to yourself. They remind me of Postalettes or the WWII V-Mail. I haven’t tried writing on the paper but it feels like a good quality 80lb text weight or so. This paper will probably withstand a fine-nibbed fountain pen or any good quality gel, rollerball, or ballpoint. Pencil would be good too.
In the back of the book are stickers for sealing the envelopes.
The book includes a dozen letters to write and the hard cover string-bound spine gives a nice look to the whole package. There is also a Letters to My Baby book and several journals for grandchildren, neices and nephews all under the category of “Paper Time Capsule“.
I think the whole collection is incredibly well done and a great way to inspire me to write some goals and some “how I feel now” to refer to sometime later. If you’re not inclined to maintain a full-fledged journal, this may be a great way to take a letter per week or, since there’s twelve, a letter per month, and get some words on paper.
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Leafcutter Designs for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Fashionable Friday: In the Navy
I never thought I’d develop a fondness for navy. I was always inclined to favor black or grey but navy looks good with bright pops of color and easily as warm, rich browns. It can be nautical or French with hits of red and stripes, or thoroughly modern with a warm pink. Mixed with Kelly green, it’s totally preppy. And it looks fabulous with lime (I’m just sayin’). I was inspired by this librarian chic ensemble and imagined the best office accessories to compliment it.
- Letts of London Noteletts Large Yellow Ruled Notebook $14.95 (via Pen Boutique)
- Kaweco Sport Yellow Cab Fountain Pen £16,95 (via Fontoplumo)*
- If I Do Say So Myself Large Notebook $24 (via Kate Spade)
- White + Navy West 18th 3-Drawer File Cabinet $199 (via Poppin)
- A.G. Spalding & Bros Hexagonal Body Ballpoint Pen in Navy $16.50 (via Jet Pens)
- Sun-Star Stickyle Pen-Style Scissors in Navy Blue $8.25 (via Jet Pens)
- Diamine Sargasso Sea Ink $12.95 (via Goulet Pens)
- Private Reserve Buttercup Ink $11 (via Goulet Pens)
- KUM Magnesium 2 Hole Pencil Sharpener $3.50 (via European Paper)
- Dixon Ticonderoga, box of 12 pre-sharpened $3.17 (via Dick Blick)
- Navy Tape Dispenser $12 (via Poppin)
(Outfit from Boden)
* Argh! I hung this whole post on the gorgeous, yellow cab Kaweco Sport which is no longer available. I recommend the Kaweco Art Sport in Amecitrin £89,50, if you’re in the market for a bright yellow pocket fountain pen.
Link Love: Hobby or Obssession?
Post of the Week:
This is the follow-up to the post last week and continues to consider and evaluate pen purchasing for fun, profit and completeness (one of everything from a series).
Liking Pens Part II: Can Pens Be An Investment? (via Clicky Post)
Pens:
- Marlen Aleph Fountain Pen (via Pen Paper Inks…Whatever)
- Surprises in a $1.99 Bag-O-Pens & Pencils: Mont Blanc? (via To Type, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth…)
- Custom ground Pelikan nibs (via Pens! Paper! Pencils!)
- Two Tines, Three Tines: A Symphony of Music Nibs (via Gourmet Pens)
- My Pelikan M205 Fountain Pen (via Pete Dennison)
- Pelikan Dion P42 Fountain Pen Review (via Write To Me Often)
- BIC Disposable Fountain Pens (via Office Supply Geek)
- Sailor Lecoule Fountain Pen Review (via Pen Addict)
- Pilot Prera Demonstrator Fountain Pen (via The Clicky Post)
- J. Herbin Fountain Pen Ink Rollerball (via Pen Pursuit)
- Staedtler Digital Pen 2.0 (via The Pencil Case Blog)
Inks:
- Caran d’Ache Magnetic Blue (via Inkdependence)
- Montblanc Daniel Defoe Palm Green (via From The Pen Cup)
- The Cartridge Chronicles – How many pages can you get out of a standard international? (via Fountain Pen Physicist)
- Organics Studio The Real Teal (via Ed Jelley)
- J. Herbin 1670 Stormy Grey (via Ed Jelley)
Pencils:
- My Pencil: The Palomino Blackwing Pearl (via From The Pen Cup)
- Pencils! Five More. (via Gentleman Stationer)
Paper & Notebooks:
- The Stamford Notebook (via Inkophile)
- Thoughts on Field Notes Unexposed (via Modern Stationer)
- Monk Paper A4 Soft Cover Sketchbook (via East…West…Everywhere)
- Two Alternatives To Field Notes (via The Cramped)
- Moleskine Hobbit 2014 Limited Edition boxed notebook (via Plannerisms)
- Kokuyo Century Edition A5 Notebook Review (via Unroyal Warrant)
Other great stuff:
- Singapore Pen Meet: Sept 2014 (via Alt. Haven)
- Kickstarter: Sticky Page Markers (via All Things Stationery)
And finally,
Pen Chalet is hosting a giveaway on Sheaffer commemorative items including a silver Sheaffer coin and the book 100 years of Sheaffer. There are three copies of the book available and the grand prize winner will also receive the commemorative coin. Lots of ways to enter too
Erasable Podcast Sticker
Do you have your Erasable podcast sticker proudly displayed? I do.Thanks to Andy for sending me a couple before they sold out. If you want one, put in a request, I’m sure they’ll do a reprint soon.
I guess it’s about time that I made some Well-Appointed Desk stickers. Would anyone be interested?
From The Archives: Marvy LePen
Over the last four years of writing The Well-Appointed Desk, I’ve mentioned my propensity for Mary Le Pens but I realized I’ve never actually published a review. I initially discovered Le Pen in my pre-teens and it may be THE PEN that lead me to where I am today. Before finding LePens, I had only known black, blue or red ballpoints and the occasional rollerballs. Le Pens opened my eyes to good quality “felt tip” pens in a wide array of colors at a price I could afford on a teenager’s allowance. By the time I graduated from college, I found it harder to find Le Pens and I assumed they had faded from the world like so many other things. Then a couple years ago, I stumbled across them in my local art supply store and I bought just about every color that was available.
Ergonomically, they isn’t much to recommend them. Encased in a slim, straight, plastic cylinder with a snap cap and a simple silver clip that can easily be bent out of shape, and a nylon/fiber tip point that wears down over time, they are not in the same league as many pens I’ve reviewed over the years. But with a retail price of $1.15, these 0.3mm, acid-free, smudge-proof markers are some of my favorite pens. There are more than a dozen colors available and my favorites are the deeper, more complex colors like the gray, orchid, olive and teal. A full set of all 18 colors is available on Jet Pens.
Giveaway: To share my love and devotion for LePens, I’d like to give one lucky reader a full set of 18 Le Pens, compliments of Jet Pens. Just leave a note in the comments and tell me which color is (or could be) your favorite Le Pen to be officially entered.
FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Sunday, September 28, 2014. 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 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 30 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. US readers only this time, thanks!
Beyond The Halfway Point: Hobonichi Techo Planner 2014
When I got my Hobonichi Techo at the end of last year, I was dedicatedly using it. But somewhere around the end of May, I lost steam. I just sort of stopped using it. I don’t know if work got slow, or crazy or monotonous but I just stopped writing in it. And I had been using my Hobonichi for more than just meeting notes. I would write what we ate for dinner, if we watched a movie, what days I exercised and so on. So, there really wasn’t any reason to stop.
A few months after I got my Hobonichi planner and cover, I decided I needed to personalize it. The cover was already a distinctly TARDIS blue so the solution seemed obvious. I found some artwork online, resized it in Photoshop. I printed it out, trimmed it to size and then slid the artwork underneath the plastic sleeves. No adhesives were used so the cover was not damaged in my customizing. If I ever feel like removing the TARDIS art, it would just mean removing the plastic covers and pulling the art out. Easy Peasy.
At the beginning of September I picked it back up. Luckily, the Hobonichi did not try to shame me for the missed months. I just opened to the current day and started writing again. Its still a great notebook. Its an easy size to use — not too big, not too small. The paper is good for fountain pens though I find some inks take to long to dry and I end up closing the book too soon and smearing the ink on the facing page.
The plastic protective cover and the fabric cover have all protected the planner beautifully.
Even the pen loops show minimal wear even though they see the most abuse. My TWSBI Mini fits comfortably in the loops and the Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku coordinates nicely though I often jot notes with whatever colored pen or pencil I have in my hand at the moment.
I haven’t collected too much detritus in the front pockets.
I’ve been inspired by Patrick Rhone’s mini doodles so I’ve been trying to add my own versions. I’ve also started dividing my pages vertically. Meetings or activities on the left and lists of to-do’s on the right.
Someone brought back some classic Japanese planner stickers for me which I’ve tried to add to my planner here and there. I’m saving the fuzzy alpaca for a big knitting-related day.
Yup, TARDIS on the back too. Though it looks like the back cover TARDIS sheet is slipping a little.
My Hobonichi is definitely bigger on the inside.