Note to self: When ordering a Kuretake Zig Letter Pen from Jet Pens, remember to order the cartridge too.
The Letter Pen body is $2.50 and available in thirteen colors and cartridges are $3.30 and available in nine colors. Make sure to order at least one of each, trust me.
Do you need a desk? Why not make your own. Thanks to Strawberry Chic, it looks pretty easy to make a vintage looking table. All the materials necessary can be found at your local Home Depot and the whole project can be completed over one weekend.
(via Strawberry Chic)
Last weekend was the annual Ric Rac Roundup hosted by Bon Bon Atelier here in Kansas City. The event features lots of local artists and craftsman in the nearby parking lot and I got a chance to meet Chuck of Craft Boy Workshop who makes exquisite handbound blank books. I was so smitten I purchased two books. This will be the first of two reviews in the coming week.
I’ll start with his take on the classic Moleskine notebook. Its available in both a comparable pocket size (approx 3.5×5) and large size (approx 5×8.25) sizes. The prces on his books are competitve with a Moleskine which makes them hard to resist. Craft Boy hand stitches his books and covers them in Japanese linen textiles and papers. All his books contain unlined paper (which is my personal preference anyway).
I picked this lovely Japanese linen covered book with a green apple print. It has coordinating brown elastic and page marking ribbon.
The Craft Boy books have a slightly flexible cover and do not include the Moleskine-style back cover pocket but the paper is a warm white felt paper with decent tooth and weight.
I love the easy way that the pages fall open and the classic hand stitching is visible between the signatures. He even seals the ends of the ribbon marker to keep it from fraying — the true sign to his attention to detail and craftsmanship.
Of course, the big test is how it performs under the pen tests. Every tool I applied to the paper performed smoothly with no drag.
The view from the reverse side of the stock show only slight bleed-through from the Pilot Envelope Pen and the noticeable bleed from a standard Sharpie. Most notebooks I don’t even attempt a Sharpie because the paper is so thin I just know it will bleed but the Craft Boy books paper was toothy enough I thought I’d give it a shot to see how well it did and I’d say quite well.
If you are interested in purchasing one of his notebooks, I would recommend emailing him via his website.
The Staedtler Pencilmaker Set is a DIY pencil kit in the historical style in honor of their 175th anniversary. The set comes in a commemorative tin, not the coolest tin but not a cardboard box.
Included in the kit is two slats of wood, stick of graphite, string, seal and glue along with instructions to walk you through all the steps.
Though the seal is a piece of molded plastic, I like the Trojan warrior cameo embedded into it.
When completed, the pencil will look like a carpenter’s pencil basically but I still think its a cool bit of history. How often do you get to day, “This thing? Oh, I made it!”?
The kind folks at Staedtler sent me, not one but, two Pencilmaker sets and I’d like to share. Leave a comment here on the blog on Tumblr before Friday, August 5, 2011 at midnight central US time and I will select a winner by drawing and send a Pencilmaker set to the winner. Contest has ended. We have a winner! Thanks!
Its never too soon to think about 2012 and your next planner acquisition. Jenni Bick Bookbinding just announced the new Cavallini 2012 Daily Planner is in stock. These substantial leather-covered planners are available in over half a dozen colors with elegantly printed interior pages. There is one page per day with soft grey lines on cream stock.
I’ve been using the 2011 edition and I can recommend it as a good solution for keeping notes, projects and meetings organized. The size is manageable, the paper is durable and not too thin with little bleed-through and the fonts used for the date and calendar is a simple, clean sans serif.
(via Jenni Bick)
Lots of people have attempted to do Julia Margaret Cameron’s The Artist’s Way morning pages at some point in time. If you’re not familiar with the concept, the idea is that by writing three pages every morning, you can clear the mental clutter and get down to the core of your “real work” whether that is a new business venture, writing a book or getting the laundry done. 750 Words attempts to create a private, online option for doing your morning pages, or by their best guess, 750 words. If you type faster than you write, this may be a good option.
Either on paper or digitally, if you’ve been wanting to write more or mentally clean house, try writing three pages every morning or sign up on 750 Words for a week and see if it helps.
(via 750 Words)
