Last minute correction, I didn’t match the comments to the email addresses for one winner. Luckily, she caught my mistake and everything is A-OK! Sorry for the confusion!
What are the odds that the random number generator would pick 3 winners all requesting different sized Endless Pen Companion cases on the first try?!?!? Today, the odds were 66%. So I had to toss a coin for who got the 5-pen and the 3-pen case. Pretty amazing!!!
So without further ado, drum roll for our winners:
Jen and Theresa, I had to toss a coin as to who would get the 3 and 5-pen sized. I hope the coin chose correctly!
And (correction!) the final winner was Lisa S. who chose the 2-Pen Companion:
Thanks again for everyone who entered and a big thanks to Luxury Brands USA for supplying the cases for our giveaway.
I have such a soft spot for multi-pens. I decided to try a dedicated Pilot Frixion 3-Colors Slim in pearl green ($9) with three different color options and came with 0.38 tip size (which is my favorite gel pen tip size).
The Frixion 3-Color Slim hanging out with all the other mult-pens I’ve accumulated. I think I have one from each of the Japanese brands: Zebra Sarasa, Pilot Coleto, Uni Pencil and Pentel Slicci. All from JetPens.
The Frixion 3-Colors Slim came with the standard red, blue and black erasable gel refills. Being spoiled by the endless variations in color in fountain pen ink, I get really pouty if I have to use “boring, standard” colors in any writing tool. So, I was delighted that many alternate color refills were available for the Frixion multi-pen (individual refills start at $2.30).
I tested the Frixion pen and inks on two paper types: a standard big box store composition notebook and my fancier Tomoe River as well.
I’m really happy with upgraded ink colors though it did make the multi-pen exponentially more expensive than using the stock inks. I did not find a Frixion multi-pen option that came empty though so if you are hoping to upgrade the ink colors in the Frixion multi-pen the final price will come in at about $15USD. While the refills might fit into a different multi-pen body, the “frixion”-specific multi-pen bodies are the only ones that include the built-in eraser. It is possible to get a stand alone Frixion eraser ($1.65) if you want to mix it up.
On the very porous composition book paper, the Frixion eraser erased adequately. It was a lot of ink converage and probably not the same as erasing a couple words of text so, depending on your paper YMMV.
Next up is the Tomoe River paper. Overall, the Frixion multi-pen performed similar but there was a noticeably longer dry time for the ink on Tomoe River.
The color and line weights all looked similar on the TR paper and the ink erased quite easily. I would even say that it erased better and more completely than on the composition book.
Overall, the Frixion multi-pen is a lot of fun and the erasability is a really great feature that I always forget how delightful it is to be able to erase ink.
Other sizes and configurations are also available with 2- to 4-color components. See the full collection here.
DISCLAIMER: The 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 the spirit of Autumn, I wanted to add some fall-inspired colors to my stationery cupboard. I bought a set of Zebra Mildliner Highlighters in a 5 Natural Color Set ($8). I’ve been inspired by folks on social media who have been posting about annotating books with stickie notes, page flags and highlighting. I am reading some more research books and thought trying out this epic “book defacing” project would start with highlighters and I will work up to the full effect shown in the photo below:
The concept of this technique is to assign a purpose to each color you use. This was a lightbulb moment for me — a human who always just thinks “Ooo, I want to use the peach highlighter today.” No, silly woman, peach highlighter is for thought-provoking quotes, the green is for tips or short cuts, grey is for …. you get the idea. In fiction, annotators pick colors for specific characters so they will highlight the best Mr. Darcy quotes with green and Elizabeth with grey, etc.
The same can apply for adding page flags — assign a color to the flag based on what you are marking: sections are in one color, individual chapters are another and then important passages in another. Then you can add sticky notes with questions, ideas or thoughts that were inspired by the text.
So, now you know the impetus for purchasing the Mildliner set, now let’s look at the actual set I bought.
The pens feature a chisel tip on one end and a bullet-shaped tip on the other. Some of the colors are too light to really be functional as a writing tool but knowing that you can flip each marker around and get more use out of most of them is handy.
The colors included in the set are: Mild Beige, Mild Cool Gray, Mild Cream, Mild Dusty Pink, and Mild Olive. Since the individual pens are labelled in Japanese, I made up names when I was testing which you will see in a photo below.
The color I listed as Peach is the Mild Cream and is quite light, to the point of almost being unusable. All the others are acceptable in both highlighting chisel mode and writing bullet mode. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the Mild Olive and Mild Dusty Pink are my favorite colors. Most colors appear to be available as individual pens ($1.75 each) so if you would like to pick and choose, that’s an option too.
So, this was my first attempts to annotate a book (its the Bullet Journal book, in case you’re curious). The peach color (AKA Mild Cream) is a bit light on this off-white paper. I just randomly tested the colors as I was highlighting passages I liked. I will be a bit more precise about color options for specific purposes. A lot of people who annotate books are often annotating after doing a thorough, first read through so they have a clear idea of how to organize the annotating. I may need to apply this technique so I can put these Mildliners to good use.
DISCLAIMER: The 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.
Do you ever have one of those weeks that is so chock-a-block full of meetings, lectures and presentations that you do not remember what the outside world looks like? If not, let me be your cautionary tale. Go outside, feel the sun or rain on your face and the scent of unfiltered air, if only for a couple minutes. Take a few deep breaths, in with fresh air and ideas, breath out and release you stress and anxiety. The five minutes you spend breathing in some fresh air will make heading back in for that meeting or lecture better.
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Chubby Checker has been crooning in my brain since the Pelikan Hub. Why? Because Endless Pens was generous enough to send our hub some “new old stock” of Pelikan Twist fountain pens from the 1980s. Since I was lucky enough to get one of them, I figured why not order the newer Pelikan Twist ($20) and do a little side by side comparison? Here goes nothin’!
The “old school” Twist and the “new Coke” Twist are quite different in aesthetics! The older Twist is brightly colored (it came in a variety of hues), whereas the new Twists tend to have slightly more muted colorways. But the really big difference is the pen body!
Whereas the older version is a round barrel and cap with a slightly tapered section, the new Twist is all angles. I have to say that on aesthetics, the new Twist wins for me. Despite its slightly less vibrant colors, those angles are so appealing! It also has a slightly reduced tapered section.
Both models are plastic barreled. In the case of the older Twist the pen comes in weighing a cool 10g; the newer pen weighs 21g coming in closer to a Lamy Safari or TWSBI Eco. Both pens feature snap caps that are postable. The older version has a clip; the newer version has an angled body to keep it from rolling away so they haven’t added a clip. They’re relatively close in length, with the newer TWSBI running about 1/4″ longer.
There is some difference in the nibs. Both are steel and marked with a single bird. The nib on the older version is slightly smaller than the newer one. The older nib is unmarked, whereas the newer nib is a medium (no options on it as far as I can tell).
Both take international cartridges. The older pen came with a long one, and the newer one came with two short ones.
So let’s get down to the details. Which one do I like better? Going into this, I was convinced that I was going to be a fan of the new Twist. As I said before the aesthetics made it much more appealing to me. It’s fun, it’s cool, it’s so different (reminds me a bit of the fun shapes of the BENU pens).
But the writing experience was definitely the deciding vote for me, and I just didn’t care for the newer Twist. In the older Twist I had assumed that the nib was a medium, but it was actually a crisp writer and wrote more like a western fine nib. Pelikan nibs are somewhat known for being wet writers, and this wasn’t at all. The smaller girth of the pen was super easy to hold in my hand with zero fatigue.
The newer Twist was simply harder for me. While I don’t hate the triangular grip as much as I hate the Lamy Safari’s angled grip, it just wasn’t comfortable in my hand. I think the pen might just be too big for me (do remember that I have super special tiny hands so it might be a me thing.) The thing I disliked the most was the nib. While it wrote softly with no friction, it was kind of all over the place. It felt much more like writing with a Pelikan medium firehose.
This was a superfun comparison, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be using that old Twist a lot!
DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge by Endless Pens. Please see the About page for more details.
Endless, known for its notebooks, has added a new line of leather pen cases called the Companion Pen Pouch. These full-grain leather cases are available in three sizes: 2-Pen, 3-Pen and 5-Pen that range in prices from $40 to $50 depending on size.
Shown here are the 2-pen and 3-pen pouches
The Companion pen pouches all ship in sturdy boxes. The largest, 5-pen size includes a pocket notebook that fits into the slot on one side of the case. All cases include elastic loops that have a pull tab that makes it possible to adjust how wide or narrow the loops are to accommodate a wide array of pens.
The zippers are metal and slide smoothly. The leather is smooth but will show scratches but can be rubbed out with your fingers or you can just let it get rough and worn with age.
The 2-Pen Companion
There are minor feature differences in each design. The 2-Pen Companion has no pockets on one side but there is an elastic loop in the spine area designed to hold one extra ink cartridge but I found that it would also hold my Traveler’s bullet pen that I use for ink testing.
Inside the 3-Pen Companion
The 3-pen Companion includes a secretary pocket with three business card slots. It also has the loop along the spine for a cartridge.
This close-up image above shows that I was able to put two very slender pens (sometimes the most difficult to keep in a pen case with elastics) as well as a big, chonky BENU Skull & Roses pen and they are all snug and safe.
The 5-Pen Companion
The largest case is the 5-Pen Companion and, being the largest, its easier to see how imperfections or scratches will show on the leather but its still lovely.
Once again, I made an effort to fill the case with pens that are of widely different widths. It took a few minutes to pull the elastic snug on all the pens so once you have it set up, you will want to remember which slot the skinny pens goes into versus where the wider pens are placed. So, for me, the Pilot Cavalier will always need to be on the outside and the Carolina Pen Co. (pale pink) will need to go closest to the spine. The 5-pen Companion also has the loop along the spine for a cartridge but could be used for a slim pencil or other tool as well.
The 5-pen Companion includes the small Storyboard cahier with dot grid and Endless’s Regalia paper.
The design of these cases are excellent, the materials and the functionality. They are a bit longer than what I need as my pens tend to be on the smallish side but I do think these cases will accommodate most pens in your collection. I think the Platinum Desk Pen was a bit too long for it but that’s on the outside edges of sizes.
GIVEAWAY CLOSED
So, now, its your turn. All three of these cases are up for giveaway. One case per winner, three winners chosen. Please read the “how to enter” below. If you don’t play by the rules, your entry will be disqualified. US only. (Giveaway for cases only. No pens or accessories are included.)
TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and indicate which style Pen Companion you like best. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person. Winners will be randomly selected and we will be giving away all three styles (so there will be THREE winners).
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. 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 October 6, 2023. 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 review were provided free of charge by Luxury Brands USA for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway. As always, I wish I had enough for everyone. But alas, I can only pick one. The random number generator says Lea:
