The Well-Appointed Desk

Ink Declutter, Vol. 1

AnaAugust 14, 2023August 13, 202312 Comments

I’ve mentioned it a couple times with my Patrons that I’ve been on a bit of a stationery and ink declutter this summer. I’ve been going through my 600+ bottles of ink and attempting to pare it down to a more manageable number. Over the past year, I’ve discovered that I tend to favor a couple bottles of ink over everything else. I’ve even considered purchasing new bottles of the ink when I finish these bottles.

Alternately, other inks have languished for months or even years. It’s not that they are not beautiful colors its just that I am likely to have three or more similar bottles of ink.

I’ve become aware, over the years, my penchant for fine nibs limits the usability of inks that are lighter in color. Some lighter inks are often too light to be usable in a fine nib pen.

Also, 600 bottles is a lot of ink to store. I had it in my head that I could get the collection down to 100 bottles but everyone who knows me has laughed at my optimism. While I appreciate a good declutter, I also love having all the things I might need to make or create.

Over the years, I have gone on various adventures to fine the “perfect” grey ink, the one-true lime green ink and a mission to find the finest plummy purple color. This has left me with several, close-but-not-quite-right inks that have sat idle in my collection. I have also made various attempts made to bring a red or orange ink into my collection. I am just not a fan of red and orange inks. They’re pretty but I never want to ink up a pen with them.

Each month, I have been selecting a few brands and attempt to edit out some of the many bottles I own. So far, I’ve gone through my Montblanc inks, Robert Oster, and Sailor inks along with a few random inks. Patrons got early access to these sale inks but now I’m opening it up to regular readers of the blog.

This ink declutter/purge means that if you love red or orange inks, have been looking for that perfect grey ink or just want to try a lot of inks cheap, my loss is your gain.

If you’d like to get early access to sales like this or to participate in our monthly pen and book chat, consider subscribing to our Patreon.

In Link Love

Link Love: No (Harry) Styles Here.

AnaAugust 9, 2023August 9, 20232 Comments

I will spare you any off-topic observations this week and take you straight to the links. I also spared you the freakish bounty of links about Harry Styles that came acorss my path this week. You’re welcome.

Don’t forget to join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!

In feature

Yarn & Ink: The Weekender and a fall ink palette.

Laura CameronAugust 8, 2023August 8, 20237 Comments

Normally July and August are not the time to knit a toasty warm wool sweater, but I don’t always play by the rules. Over the summer Ana and some of the folks in our knitting group decided to do an impromptu knit along of Andrea Mowry’s The Weekender sweater. Ana used a wool/cotton blend, but I decided to pull some handspun out of my stash of yarns (just like stash of inks!) and see what I could come up with.

The sweater ended up in a decidedly fall palette and today I thought it would be fun to try and pull some ink combos! My favorite is the following:

Clearly I could have pulled a million other colors from the sweater… What other ink colors do you see?

In Art of the Day

Colored Pen Artist: Kristin Nohe Juchs

AnaAugust 7, 2023August 7, 20233 Comments

Kristin Nohe Juchs is one half of the Etsy shop, Yellow Paper House that has been creating and supplying a rainbow of refills for Traveler’s Notebooks and other elastic-band notebook systems as well as Junque Journals and more. But Kristin is more than a notebook maker, she is an incredibly talented artist as well and she has been doing beautiful pen illustrations using gel pens and rollerballs in a mixed color, cross-hatching technique that is vivid and mesmerizing.

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As soon as I saw her amazing drawings I hoped that she would make it available for purchase. She is selling a variety of vinyl stickers featuring her art in her own shop starting at $3.50 per sticker with shipping in the US included in the price. I bought a bunch of stickers to embellish my laptop, water bottle and notebooks.

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I hope she will start offering her art as prints and on other merchandise. It’s stunning. Which one is your favorite?

In Paper Review

Notebook Review: Pen + Gear Gameboy Notebook

AnaAugust 4, 2023July 31, 202312 Comments

I had an unusual little visit to a nearby Wal-Mart this weekend and browsed through the back-to-school aisles. Much of the merchandise was standard back-to-school fare including massive packs of cheap wooden pencils, huge reams of 3-ring notebook paper and packs of multi-colored pens.

There were a couple little gems though including the Pen + Gear Gaming Journal ($7.50) that looks like a vintage gameboy. The cover is made from translucent yellow plastic with die cuts that highlight the silver foil on the soft cover.

Inside are three colored paper sections with 40 sheets each in aqua blue, lemon yellow and fluorescent orange. Each section features a different phrase in the lower corner: Keep Calm, Game On and Level Up.

Each page is also perforated for easy removal.

I did my initial writing sample with a Platinum Carbon Pen and to my great surprise, the paper seemed to take the ink well.

In further writing samples, I tried a variety of pens that I might use with a notebook like this: gel, pencils, markers and felt tips as well as fountain pens all with similar results.

To my surprise, when I flipped the page over, their was very little showthrough or bleed through. There was a bit of bleed through with the Pentel Dual Metallic gel pens but they are quite a specialty pen.

I did a close-up image to see the few little dots from fountain pen tests.

Overall, this notebook is actually pretty good and ridiculously fun. I hope that I can find another notebook that will fit into the yellow cover so that I can re-use it after the colored paper journal is filled.

I was delighted to find a little treasure in the back-to-school section.

Bonus Review: Mead Five Star College Ruled Composition Notebook

I also picked up a Mead Five Star Composition Notebook ($2.50). It’s college-ruled with a plastic flexible cover. I have always loved the size and form-factor of a composition notebook but, unfortunately, since these notebooks are exclusively targeted to school age kids, the driving factor is often price over quality.

When I saw the pretty marble-look cover in pastel colors with metallic gold paint flecks, I had high hopes that the quality of the notebook would be above average.

The notebook includes 100 pages and QR-style codes in each corner that will allow pages to be scanned with the Five Star App. Notes can then be synced to Google Drive to access them anywhere from any device.

With standard writing tests, none of the pens bled or feathered but the show-through and bleed-through was ridiculous.

From the reverse, the paper looks so see-through as to be tissue rather than actual paper stock.

I’m very disappointed in the paper quality. Why do we do this to children? Why do we give them sub-par materials and expect to succeed?

Sadly, I find this notebook is seriously unacceptable. Mead, “High quality paper”? My ass. Give this composition notebook a hard pass.

Pens used in the writing samples for both notebooks.

DISCLAIMER: Some items in this post were purchased with funds from our amazing Patrons. You can help support this blog by joining our Patreon. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: Platinum Chou Kuro

Jessica ColesAugust 3, 2023August 3, 20236 Comments

What is the blackest ink on the market right now? Platinum Carbon Black? Montblanc Permanent Black? Platinum recently advertised an ink that is significantly darker than Carbon Black. Platinum Chou Kuro.

The potential downside of Chou Kuro is the ease of cleaning. The first edition of this ink comes with its own converter and a bottle of “Cleaning Water”. Closer inspection shows that the water is purified or distilled water, not a cleaning solution.

The bottles of Carbon Black ink and Chou Kuro ink are the same, although I believe the Chou Kuro ink is darker even in the bottle. I could be imagining this, though!

This is is definitely a dark black. No trace of grey, blue, purple, any color other than pure black. Please note that the ink name is misspelled on the swatch below!

Another note – I have not included water resistance test with this review. Why not? Because there was nothing to show! Both Platinum Carbon Black and Platinum Chou Kuro are pigmented water proof inks. They both win the test because once these inks are on paper, they won’t move.

And the comparison. Platinum Carbon Black shows a slight reflection of light in my swatch above – more of a shiny surface than any kind of actual sheen. Personally, I believe Montblanc Permanent Black is the darkest after Chou Kuro.

Platinum Carbon Black and Chou Kuro on Midori Cotton paper:

Platinum Carbon Black and Chou Kuro on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:

Platinum Carbon Black and Chou Kuro on Midori MD paper:

Platinum Carbon Black and Chou Kuro on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:

The cost is currently high with Platinum Chou Kuro. The 50mL bottle set comes with a price tag of $60, although this includes the “Cleaning Water” (250mL) and a Platinum converter (usually around $11).

I have heard rumors that this ink will be available in the future as an individual bottle, but the information has not yet been confirmed. Does the matte surface and darker color make this ink worth twice the cost of Carbon Black?

Please check back for the follow up post when I try to clean Chou Kuro out of my pen…

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me because I can’t seem to say no to new ink and for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In feature, Ink Review

Ink Review: PenLux Mo Inks

Jessica ColesAugust 3, 2023August 10, 20233 Comments

Today I have a set of three inks that I recently found at a pen show – Penlux Mo inks, Amber, Pine, and Rouge. These can be difficult to find out in the wild. However, when your eyes are open to new opportunities, the ink possibilities are exciting!

My favorite feature of the Penlux line is the boxes. Each box is cut from a single piece of cardstock and folded in such a way that no glue is necessary.

Ok, I was wrong. My favorite feature of the Penlux ink line is the colors. They are fabulous! The three inks I have here are in the vintage line of the Mo inks.

Penlux Mo Pine is incredibly close to Sailor Rikyu-cha. to the point that it seems likely that Penlux may have been utilizing Sailor’s ink manufacturing skills when producing Pine.