I don’t have any bottled ink - yet - but with any luck, I might soon :-) Brad over at The Pen Addict is giving away one bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku ink, in your choice of colors. Isn’t this a gorgeous photo? Just look at those beautiful bottles of inky goodness!
Click on over and throw your name into the hat, too. Click here to enter - be sure to enter soon, the giveaway closes on Thursday, June6 at 11:59pm Eastern Time.
Good luck!
I found this really inexpensive (less than $10) Manuscript brand pen set at Hobby Lobby and because the smallest nib looked smaller than the Schaeffer ones I have, I thought it might be fun to practice with. This nib is described as .85mm, as opposed to the normal 1mm or 1.1mm small nibs on a lot of other fountain pens, so it is a little more narrow. I am slowly learning that the paper makes a lot of difference, too. Paper that is too absorbent causes the ink to bleed more and the lines to be way too bold, so I needed to find a good paper for letter writing with this pen. I used the 28# paper mentioned in the previous post and it works pretty well.
It’s inked up with a J. Herbin Rose Cyclamen cartridge instead of the black ink that came with it. I’m not all that crazy about the color of this ink, either, but it’s more fun than plain ol’ black ink. This is the ink I mentioned in a previous post - I expected more of a rose color, but this looks like fuchsia to me. The pen is made with a pretty cheap plastic, and both the cap and the barrel are threaded. It would be easy to cross thread them if you’re not careful. The benefit to the cheap plastic is that it’s very lightweight.
The set includes 3 nibs. I haven’t tried out the wider ones yet, I’m still getting familiar with the small one.
It’s a fun pen to play with and a nice way to practice with an italic nib to see if I like them, before getting into more expensive nibs and pens. I didn’t expect to have beautiful calligraphic handwriting right off the bat…well, actually I did, but it didn’t work out too well. Practicing is not my favorite thing by any means, but I realize it takes a long time to get good at this. I don’t like it, but I’ve resigned myself to it.
In my ongoing search for stationery, I became a little frustrated at the lack of pretty writing papers out there. I found some cheap writing paper here and there, some printable papers online, and tried to create something cool on my computer, but it was way too much work. So…I took some smooth text weight paper and began to doodle. I am not an artist, which is why I love my stamps, but doodling is pretty simple. No rules, just play. With no real goal in mind and inexpensive paper, I couldn’t really fail. This is what happened:
I used a Pigma pen for the doodling and Copic markers for the coloring. Hubby scanned it, we color corrected it a bit, added some lines (not shown here, but I’m sloppy without them), and took it to a local printer to get copies made. Voila! Custom stationery! They used a 24# bond paper and I wish I had found the 28# paper before I had them printed. The 24# is not fountain pen friendly at all, I’m afraid, but the 28# is pretty good with fountain pens. I did print a few on our color printer, but ink for that thing is so pricey and the colors didn’t print as vibrantly, so I didn’t go too crazy with it. The paper is a Staples brand, Bright White Laser Paper. I was a little surprised at the quality, it’s a really nice paper at a reasonable price. If I need any more copies of this stationery, I will take my paper with me.
I’m looking forward to doing a little more doodled writing paper soon. You should try it. It’s lots of fun and you might be surprised what you come up with.
I have quite a few pen friends so I am always on the lookout for writing paper, postal themed stamps, washi tape, etc. I was lucky to find some stationery in Colorado, but I can always use more, so whenever I go to Michael’s I check the dollar bins. It’s not high quality paper, for sure, but if I can use it to write a letter, it’s good enough.
These little notepads were in the dollar bin, marked down from $2, I think. They are only 5 x 7 and the paper is fairly thin, but I love the covers. Strangely enough, they have lines on both sides of the paper. The lines are dark and really close together, too, so a fine line pen or nib is the only thing I will be able to use with them. Fortunately, I have plenty of those!
Here is the inside of the one with the sheep on the cover. Cows and sheep, with orange lines. Cute, right? Not exactly my style, but I’m flexible.
I apologize for the out of focus photo. This is the inside of the other ones – they are all the same. Really wide, black lines on both sides of the paper, decorated with tea cups.
While wandering around Staples one day (I love office supplies!) I found this beautiful paper, and matching envelopes. It was over in the letterhead section. Meant for computer generated letters or newsletters, I’m sure.
Because I tend to get sloppy without lines on the paper, I added some lines to some sheets with MS Word. I left most of them blank, and will see if I can improve my writing-in-a-straight-line skills. The paper is kind of busy, so a medium tip pen with black or dark blue ink is necessary. The design is a bit softer in real life, I don’t know why it looks so bold in the photo.
Anyway, For those of you who like to stamp on letters and envelopes, take a look at this lovely stamp set from Avery Elle. It’s appropriately named Air Mail. And look, there is even an Air Mail stamp along with the other wonderful stamps in the set. The Post Office is a little stingy with their air mail stickers, so I was glad to see this set! Besides stamping on envelopes, you could make your own “Just a Note” stationery or note cards. This set has a lot of possibilities, some of which I hope to feature on my other blog, Just Stamp It!, in the near future. Avery Elle is a small internet based business and their customer service is second to none. The stamps are excellent quality and competitively priced. I highly recommend them if you are in the market for stamps. I am not affiliated with the company, just a satisfied customer.
Washi tape - who doesn’t love washi tape? It’s all the rage right now, it’s everywhere. A friend sent me a link to this new washi tape by Freckled Fawn on the Simon Says Stamp website. It’s the next best thing to an actual official PO air mail sticker! I don’t have it yet because I’m not willing to pay $5.99 to ship one roll of tape. So I will wait until I need a few other things to make it worth the shipping cost. I wish online stores would offer different shipping methods for small items like this instead of having a flat rate. A roll of the tape is only $2.99, why would I pay $5.99 shipping? No one locally carries it, either, unfortunately. So, it’s on my wish list for now – and it’s a loooong list.
That’s all I’ve got for today, folks. I hope you found something useful here and will stop back again soon. Please leave a comment now and then so I will know I am not out here all alone :-)
The idea of a rollerball pen that uses ink cartridges was just too much for me to resist. I bought it from JetPens.com for a mere $9.00 a month or so ago and I really like it. It’s plastic, so it’s lightweight, and I love that I can use cartridges in it instead of either tossing it or scrambling to find refills when it’s empty.
The pen accepts standard J. Herbin ink cartridges or other short international fountain pen ink cartridges. Dimensions: 4.6 inches long, 0.4 inches diameter (11.7 cm long, 1.0 cm diameter).
I bought two sets of ink cartridges – Rose Cyclamen and Rouge Opera. I wish I had seen the color chart before I bought the Rose Cyclamen. I was expecting a more rose colored ink, but it looks more like fuchsia to me.
So I transferred that cartridge to my really cheap Manuscript fountain pen and loaded the J. Herbin up with a Rouge Opera cartridge, which I like much better.
There is a color chart on the J. Herbin website and you can download a .pdf version, too. The Rose Cyclamen is at the bottom – really bright pink. Not so much rose at all.
Ink colors aside, it’s a lovely pen. It writes well, if a little scratchy on some papers, and it feels good in my hand. Since I love to write long, rambling letters, it’s important to write with something that doesn’t give me hand cramps! It’s described as a medium tip, but it’s on the narrow side of medium, on most papers. I usually prefer a fine tip on my pens, but this one works quite well for me. It can be converted to an eyedropper pen as well, but since I don’t have any bottled ink (yet) I will be content with cartridges for now. Next time I think I will try Bleu Pervenche, Rouge Bourgogne, and Lierre Sauvage. Maybe even Vert Olive. Which colors would you like to try?
I apologize for being gone so long, but sometimes life happens. I was in Colorado for 5 days for my son’s wedding and it was a wonderful trip – even with 2 feet of snow on the ground, in late April! Here they are, Geoffrey and Lauren-ashley Oliver, newly married and obviously really, really happy! I love you guys!
I didn’t get a chance to see if there were any stationery stores in the vicinity, but I did find a box of Hallmark stationery at the local Kroger, of all places. Who knows how long it’s been there, I thought Hallmark quit making it years ago. Fortunately, stationery doesn’t have a sell by date, so it was perfectly fresh.
We went to Georgetown to do a little shopping and have lunch and I found some postcards – at last! Apparently hummingbirds flock to Colorado by the thousands and will even light on your finger if you are very still. Who knew? The postcard states that they pass through Colorado in July and August, but Geoffrey said they are already there.
This is the Georgetown Loop Railroad. 9178 feet above sea level, this is the original Silver Plume Depot building that was constructed in 1884. The railroad still operates today and takes you between Georgetown and Silver Plume, over 2 miles apart. The tracks scale an elevation of 640 feet over mountainous terrain, requiring trestles, cuts, fills, loops, and curves totaling 3.1 miles of narrow gauge track.
The once-thriving mining towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume lie two miles apart in a steep, narrow mountain canyon. To connect the two, the railroad’s builders designed a “corkscrew” route that traveled twice the distance, slowly gaining more than 600 feet in elevation. The route included horseshoe curves, grades of up to 4%, and four bridges across Clear Creek, including the massive Devil’s Gate High Bridge.
The Colorado & Southern Railway operated the line for passengers and freight from 1899 to 1938, when it was abandoned. It only operates May through October, so I didn’t get to take the trip this time, but I hope take a ride on it someday.
Lots more info here:
These postcards are pretty hard to come by, but the curator of the Silver Plume Museum was kind enough to get these fore me, even though the museum was closed for the season. I’m not sure I will actually send any of these rare treasures :-)
There is more information about the town of Silver Plume here. It has quite a history!
That’s it for today, but I do have lots more to show you soon, so please don’t give up on me yet.
