The Well-Appointed Desk

Ex Postal Facto

AnaOctober 17, 2013Leave a comment

Have I mentioned Ex Postal Facto yet? Its coming up in February 14-16, 2014 in San Francisco. It will be a 3-day mail art extravaganza. I am going to be there! I cannot wait to meet pen pals, see awesome inspiring mail art and hit lots of fabulous shops in the SF area. I even plan to bring an assortment of my stamps to trade and/or sell to folks interested in acquiring them. I may even unveil some new designs.

Tips for food, office supplies and drinking establishments in SF are welcome.

This is going to be the best Valentine’s Day EVER.

Ex Postal Facto Mail Art Book — A somewhat wonky, early morning shot of my submission for the Mail/Art/Book exhibition. Wanted to at least capture it before I dropped it in the mail at the last possible second!

In photo

The Desk Looks Good On European Paper

AnaOctober 16, 2013Leave a comment

The folks over at European Paper, an online paper goods shop located in Colorado (not really Europe at all!), have taken some of my desk and office pins from Pinterest and combined them with some of their lovely paper goods and featured them on their blog. Click on the images to see EP’s product recommendations that coordinate with these work spaces.

And stay tuned, their shall be more collaborations between The Desk and European Paper. Are you excited? I am!

In photo

Pumpkin Decorating with Office Supplies

AnaOctober 16, 2013Leave a comment

Use colored brads to decorate a white pumpkin for a confetti look or use gold brass brads or thumbtacks to decorate a classic orange pumpkin. The supply closet will never know what hit it.

(via A Subtle Revelry)

In feature

Lucky Office Indeed

AnaOctober 15, 2013Leave a comment

Not to usurp the awesomeness of Lucky Magazine’s editor-in-chief Eva Chen’s new office but the once hallowed home decor magazine Domino is back as an online magazine and shopping portal. Just so you know.

Now, back to Ms. Chen’s office. Its a lovely light, bright, colorful space complete with sofas to lounge upon and flowers galore. Its a bit of an ideal ideal but I do love the nice clean, white desk for all the computer equipment. And I really need to keep more flowers and greenery in my workspace. I do think it cheers things up immensely.

I would, however, have put a large wooden table and chairs where the couches and coffee table are. I prefer a good working area to meet or spread out all those pages for review and editing, then couches to veg out on.

farm table — I’d recommend a good work table like this wood table with vintage metal school chairs. (via Alison Milne)

FarmTable_Chairs_00 — Or this beautiful blonde wood table with Bend Lucy side chairs (via The Place Home)

(via Domino)

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: Noodlers Zhivago

AnaOctober 14, 2013September 18, 2014Leave a comment

I was lucky enough to receive a sample of Noodler’s Zhivago in the mail a few weeks ago. I have so many ink samples, its hard to pick which ones to review first so I did a random grab and this one was the one to go next.

I am not normally inclined to fill my fountain pens with black ink because there are so many great colors to choose from so I started off a little crumudgeonly about this. “Hmmpf. Black ink. Big whoop.” But then I started writing with it and there are subtle hints of green in the black. Its not a deep black-hole black but a deep, grey-green black. In fine nib pens, Zhivago appears pretty black but in the swab test (and I suspect wider nib pens) the subtle greenishness becomes more evident.

It was a fun ink to use for doodling since it repels water pretty well. It’s not bullet proof but its fairly tolerant of water and dark enough to scan drawings later if needed.

I’ve heard it described by others as a “green black”. If you are looking for black-hole black, I would not recommend this ink but if you’re looking for black with a green heart or something a little different, than I highly recommend this. Its black for the green lover.

In Book Review

Book: A Collection A Day

AnaOctober 11, 2013November 25, 2018Leave a comment

Lisa Congdon’s book A Collection A Day has lots of beautifully composed photos and drawings of the many bits of ephemera she collects including vintage office supplies.

I thought I’d share a few pages from the book that I found particularly inspiring.

The erasers and pencil leads are probably my favorite spreads. I wish there was a poster available of these. They would make lovely office decor, wouldn’t you agree?

(Book is available through Uppercase Magazine and comes in a tin, perfect for starting your own collecting. $25)

In feature

Nib Tuning, The Amateur Approach

AnaOctober 10, 2013Leave a comment

Remember a few weeks ago I was a little sad about the fabulous Esterbrook #2442 Falcon nib that Cliff sent to me because it was scratchy and didn’t always put ink on the paper? And then remember last week I posted the FPGeeks Nib Tuning video? Well, I decided it was time to marry up those two things and I would attempt to tune that pesky nib.

I own a few folding loupes which are not as high-end as the ones shown in the video but at least I could get a look at the tines and see if there was anything wrong. There was! The tines seemed a little twisted, like crossing your fingers. Using the technique demonstrated in the video, I press the tines to the feed and used my nails to gently bend the tines. Then I tested on paper and noticed an improvement in writing already, but it was still scratchy. So I peeked with the loupe and pushed a bit more with my fingers and tried again. Ink was flowing much more consistently but still scratchy.

I confess that I immediately recognized the buffing block in the video to be a high end nail salon product. So I grabbed the nail buffer I had in the bathroom and decided to use the smoothest side first marked “Shine Nail” to cause the least damage. I did that a couple times and tried on paper again. Still scritchy. I went to side #3 “Buff Nail” and did a few more strokes and then applied it to paper again.

Voila! It’s now a fully functional nib. Its not quite as smooth as my age old #2442 but its light years better and completely usable. I plan to do more writing with it now that the flow is good and consistent and if it need more smoothing later, I feel confident I can solve my issues.