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!
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)
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.
(via Domino)
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.
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)
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.
On my recent hunt for a new A5 notebook, a friend recommended the Palomino Blackwing Luxury notebook. It was one of the notebooks on my epic grid so I figured it was worth a shot. I chose the lined version over the blank of grid paper option. The book is 5×8.25″ with a black ribbon bookmark. There is no pocket in the back of the notebook commonly found in notebooks like these.
Embossed on the cover is the Blackwing logo. The branding is a little heavy handed. I would have preferred a silhouette of the pencil that inspired the notebook embossed on the cover with its iconic flat eraser rather than the large branding.
The cover is a leatherette that looks similar to other notebooks at first glance but its much more flexible than other notebooks. Its not flimsy like a kraft cover but not stiff like a classic hardcover either. Its a nice compromise between the two.
The book includes a black satin ribbon bookmark. The end of the ribbon have not been treated so it may fray. I’d recommend dabbing a little clear craft glue (like Elmer’s or Alene’s) on the end or heat sealing it (hold a flame near enough to melt the ends) to keep it from fraying.
The lines are comparable to college ruled at about 6mm and the lines are very fine gray color which I don’t suspect would interfere with most ink colors or pencil writing for legibility. The paper is not a yellowy cream like Moleskines but its not bright white either. In the paper industry, its called soft white or warm white. Its a pleasing shade and very similar to the color of the Piccadilly notebook I’ve been using.
In writing samples, everything seemed to write smoothly. The only issue was the Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku in my TWSBI Mini EF. In the Nemosine Singularity 0.6mm, the same ink was fine but the wet ink in the wet pen caused a little feathering and squishiness in the lines. The only show through was the 1.1mm Lamy with blue black ink and it was minor enough I’d be comfortable using both sides of the paper in most instances. Its a vast improvement over a Moleskine in regards to paper quality as you would have guessed.
Overall, its a good notebook. The more flexible covers make it a bit different than other books which might be a make or break feature for some people. The absence of a pocket in the back is a bit of a bummer for me but I have enough paper skills that I think I could make one. The Blackwing Luxury notebook does not have any kind of closure on the book like an elastic which may also be a deciding factor for some people. The paper quality more than makes up for the absence of features I may or may not need but have grown accustomed to having.
(via Jet Pens)
