I remembered seeing the Everyday Explorers table in San Francisco last year but never got a chance to purchase anything so I was delighted to see Christine and her wonderful rubber stamps while I was in LA. I grabbed the Currently Inked set (3″x4″ for $10.99) and Pen and Paper set (4″x6″ for $19.99) for myself.

The stamp sets come in a sturdy clear plastic sleeve and each sheet has a thinner clear sheet on the front and back. The thinner front sheet is printed with the design below. The stamps are sticky so they stick to the plastic. To use, just peel the design off the backing sheet.

Each set comes with wonderful, well-written instructions on how to mount it onto the sturdy acrylic block to  use the design. Then, it acts as a regular stamp that can be pressed onto and ink pad and then onto your paper.

I used an old acrylic block that I had in my stash so for longer stamps, I had to turn it sideways to fit on to the block.

They print very crisply with very little pressure. Clear stamps are a bit softer than red rubber so you don’t need to push as hard to get a good clean impression.

I mixed and matched the stamps to create a little testing page for some of the inks I purchased at the show.

Then I added some “currently inked” pens to  the page.

The stamps are super easy to use and the design is A+. The biggest issue you’ll have is choosing which stamps to purchase.

The Giveaway:

Christine at Everyday Explorers provided us with two stamp sets to giveaway: New Pen Day ($19.99) and At The Pen Show ($10.99) plus a 3″x3″ acrylic block ($6). I threw in the new Ranger Archival Ink Pad in Jet Black ($8) (this ink is permanent so once the ink is dry, you can apply fountain pen ink over it and it will not smudge). We will pick one winner who will get all four items.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us which set is your favorite. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

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 Friday, March 8, 2024. 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.

The post Product Review (& Giveaway): Everyday Explorers Rubber Stamp Sets appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Several months ago, we reviewed the new Monteverde Color Changing Inks. We’d liked these inks so much we wanted to share the fun of these color changing inks with one lucky reader.

We will select one winner who will receive the full box set (brand new!) including 9 inks and one bottle of color changer in a magnetic closure box.

Thanks to the whole gang at Yafa Brands for providing this prize pack.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us what you plan to do with these color changing inks. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

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 themonkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. 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.

The post Giveaway: Monteverde Color Changing Ink Set appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

For some absurd reason I got it in my head that I’d like to pare down my ink collection to 100 bottles or fewer. This random number, 100, seems like more ink that I could ever use in my lifetime or need, right?

Thinking about the ROYGBIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) color spectrum — that’s seven colors and if I add brown, black and grey to this, then that’s 10 color groups. If I select 10 bottles in each group (and really, who needs 10 blacks and 10 greys?!!?) then surely 100 bottles  is enough to have a wide variety of shades and hues while, theoretically, making my collection a bit more manageable.

I thought, at first, that that wouldn’t be too difficult as I’ve already done a bit of culling over the last few months.

No. I have some serious work to do. Step One, for me in this process, was to get a sense of just how many bottles of ink I currently own.

I have an entire Ikea Alex filled with bottles of ink. Many of these inks I don’t use or even remember that I have. Some are inks I reach for over and over (I’m looking at you, Birthday Cake!).

To start, I just counted how many bottles are in each drawer and made a list of the totals per drawer. I didn’t count all the mini bottles from the Diamine Inkvent calendars (those don’t count, right?). I also didn’t count the little refill/sample sized bottles from Ferris Wheel Press because they are basically samples and that’s a whole separate category of inks I’m not even ready to talk about yet.

I also have a shelf of Colorverse inks still in their boxes (22 boxes x 2 bottles per box… oof, that’s another 44 bottles!). And several Colorverse sets (I think there’s three sets). Then there’s the random bottles of ink tucked here and there. I’m actually starting to feel shamed by the enormity of this task.

So, the sloppy total is over 350 bottles (oops, I found a bottle on my desk and another in the “to be reviewwed pile”, etc). To get down to 100, I will have to cull out 250 bottles! Maybe this task it too ambitious?

My next step is to choose an approach for the process. I considered collecting all the reds together, regardless of brand and then orange, and so on. However, my drawers are organized by brand rather than color so I might start by pulling all the swatches so I can arrange the swatches by color and start making my selections that way.

Getting this far, just counting all the #$%^! bottles of ink, took me a whole afternoon. This project is going to be a lot more time consuming than I initially thought.

If you were going to cull your ink collection, what criteria would you use? Stay tuned for Phase Two!

The post My Ink 100: Part 1 – Admitting I Have a Problem appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

My phase two of my Ink 100 destash project is not going AT ALL according to plan.

I needed to pull swatches for every color ink I own from my numerous Col-o-rings and sort them by color in an effort to streamline the sorting process.

This was a slow process which required pulling ink out of the drawers so that I could see all of them and align a swatch with each bottle. This lead to the discovery of two things: the first was that I have many bottles that have not been swatched. AND… I found over 25 more bottles of ink I had hidden in a closet like an ink hoarding gremlin. Oh, the shame!!!

I have spent HOURS culling through the collection and still have at least two drawers left to pull swatch cards and verfiy if the color has been swatched.

Of the inks I did have swatches for, I was able to start paring some down. Below is the keepers at this point after going through three drawers of inks.

While I know it will feel good to have my stash down to a more manageable number of inks, the process right now is chaotic and messy and feels like an uphill battle. Are you trying to destash inks? How’s it going for you?

The post My Ink 100: Part 2 – Color Inventory is Hard appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I have moved on to the “swatch the unswatched” phase of my Ink 100 Project. Check out my previous posts including, Part 1: Admitting I have a Problem and Part 2: Color Inventory is Hard.

I needed to swatch 37 bottles of ink in order to move forward in my Ink 100 project. It was a whole afternoon project to just get all the inks swatched in order to move forward with this ridiculous project.  As I was swatching, I realized I have WAY TOO many blue-greens, turquoise and teal inks. I also buy a lot of grey and dirty purple colors.

How do I pick which one stay and which ones go?

I swatched seven different greys and blacks. I person, the Colorverse Under the Shade and Dominant Industry Downpour look almost identical. Sailor Ice Gray shipped with my Sailor First Snow fountain pen and is very light. Each of these groups will get compared with the inks I’ve already chosen and then pared down.

I sampled the Manyo and multichromatic Sailor inks … the ones in the grey boxes. Do those have an official group name? I had a bad case of FOMO  when the Sailor multichromatic inks came out so I bought them all. Now I realize that was a rash decision. I need to stop buying ALL the inks and think about which ones I’ll actually use. I prefer fine nib pens so, as much as I get enticed by light, bright colors, they often do not work well in my pens. They end up being too light to be readable. These multichrome colors are so pretty to look at but I’m not sure if I’d ever actually use them in a pen. These might be good candidates for one of those inky journals Jesi reviewed.

Above are the few purples in the “need to be swatched” pile. Delightfully, they were all notably different from one another. Next step will be to determine how different they are from the inks I’ve already put in the “to keep” pile.

The above two images are the shameful number of swatches of even more blue and green inks. I need to be stopped!

The last grouping was the orange and green inks. Despite loving green more than any other color, I have a hard time finding the perfect pea green ink. Folks always recommend then to me but I am still on the hunt.

Of the 37 inks I swatched, about half of them will be leaving. Kicked off the proverbial ink island.

My box of “keepers” has been added to but I’m not done yet. I still have another two drawers to review. Then I need to review the selections I have made and see if there’s any additional inks I can let go of.

I already have 77 inks in my Col-o-ring and I’m sure to exceed my goal of 100 inks — and probably by quite a bit– I will have to do a final culling to reach my goal. Ink brands still left to review: Pen BBS, Kaweco, Pelikan, Ferris Wheel, and a lot more. Stay tuned for Part 4 where I end up in a puddle on the floor.

I think Marie Kondo would have classified my ink collection as personal items to be culled last and not like clothes which she feels should be the first thing to be weeded. Where do inks fall on your hierarchy of tidying?

The post My Ink 100: Part 3 – Swatch-a-thon appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I am continuing my planner/journal/diary set-up the same way each month this year (check out my March and April set-ups, if you missed them). May will continue this process and each month my process is getting a little more streamlined and easier to do.

I start by pasting in a monthly overview calendar. The last few months, I’ve been using both a two-page spread monthly overview that I cut out of a planner I was not using and a Midori single-page, self-adhesive diary stickers. I use the Midori sticker calendar to track habits and the 2-page calendar for events, birthdays, pen shows — you know? important stuff.

I pick a theme for each month — maybe a color, maybe something else — to be a jumping off point for any flourishes I add to each page and then search through my sticker and washi tape stash to cherry pick items that fit with the theme or maybe match somehow. For May, my theme is strawberries and mushrooms. I picked strawberry and mushroom stickers from my stash and I even found a roll of washi tape printed with strawberries. I supplemented these with red, pink and green washi tapes and a handful of pens to coordinate.

I made a video this month to share my process. Links for products are listed below. I hope that watching me fumble around with setting up my monthly planner will give you the confidence to try this yourself.

The Supply List:

• Stalogy B6 Grid ($24)
• Bassy & Co custom B6 leather cover (no longer selling! Booo!!!!)
• The Botanist Sticker Anthology ($14.49)
• The Forest, Fairies and Fungi Sticker Anthology ($17.46)
• Monthly Date Stickers ($6.99)
• The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Bibliophilia (The Antiquarian Sticker Book Series) ($17.98)
• MAXLEAF 120PCS Multi-Colored Vintage Plants Flowers Fairy Washi Stickers ($9.99)
• Muji 0.25 gel (Pentel Slicci is the same pen in a different barrel) ($3.25)
• Pentel Brush Sign Pen in Olive Green & Burgundy ($2.50 each)
• Marvy Le Pen in Red ($1.80)
• Faber-Castell PITT Brush Color 126 (part of a larger set for $28)
• Sakura Pigma Micron 05 in Grey ($2.50)
• Zebra Mildliner in Pink (from the Natural Set of 5 for $8)
• ZMLSED Vintage Washi Tape Set,  Antique Mushroom (8 Rolls for $8.99)

Sadly, my stash of washi tape is old and most are no longer available or I don’t remember when or where they were purchased. I recommend MT brand above all others but I’ve been known to buy small sets of themed tape from Amazon.

For my fountain pen selections, I continue to use my matched set of Nagasawa/Sailor Pro Gear Slim Fountain Pen in Gakuen-Toshi Fresh Green (no longer available) with fine nibs. I’ve filled one with Pen BBS 224 Match Ice Cream and one with Callifolio Andrinople ($13 for 35ml bottle). I also have a clear TWSBI Eco with 1.1mm nib ($35.50) filled with Diamine Olive Swirl (Inkvent Green Series)($22 for 50ml bottle).

Above are a few of the pagesI set up so you can get a better look at them.

I’m still using my vintage-inspired lap desk from the now-defunct Victorian Trading Company. It’s great to store my pens, washi tape and stickers inside and then just grab my planner and plop down on the couch with it for instant desk! The closest comparable item I could find is the Schoolhouse lap desk ($49.99) on Amazon. Just paint and decoupage it to simulate that dark academia vibe.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of my process. Please let me know in the comments here or on YouTube if you liked seeing a video.

DISCLAIMER: Some items in this review include affiliate links, some items were provided for the purpose of review. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.

The post May Planner Update: Strawberries & Mushrooms appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

This is Part 4 of my Ink 100 series. If this is the first time you’ve seen these posts, check out Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3 first to catch up on my inky adventure. Now onwards…!

The Ink 100 project is reaching its conclusion (thank the ink gods… it feel like this went on forever!). While I had some large collections from specific brands left, some of the inks left were onsie-twosies and other oddball inks.

Some ink bottles only had a dribble of ink left and those were culled immediately. That eliminated six bottles. I also had some inks decanted into nagelene bottles from an ink purchase Jesi and I did a few years ago. Sadly, any inks that were decanted into the nagelene bottles developed cracks in the caps and the inks have started to evaporate changing the consistency and fluidity. Those all got chucked too. Sad but they were no longer functional. I also had a bottle of older Birmingham ink that changed color DRAMATICALLY. Originally, Canterbury Raisin was a beautiful shading lavender purple but for some unknown reason, the ink is now 100% pale turquoise. Weird, right? Also, garbage now.

This leads me to some of the true lessons of this Ink 100 project. Owning more ink than I could possibly use in several lifetimes can result in inks that shift in color, evaporate or suffer from other ink-tastrophes. I need to keep the inks I love and use the inks I own.

I need to keep the inks I love and use the inks I own.

As I worked my way through all six drawers in my Ikea Alex unit, I was able to start getting more ruthless as I reviewed colors across brands that fill a similar space in my collection. I don’t use certain color categories a lot — like golden yellows — so I only need one option in this color range.

In other cases, I had several options that were quite close in color so I needed to decide which one would be better for me. For example, the lovely Bungubox Kaoru and Vinta Karnival 1908 are quite similar in hue. As much as I love the tiny little  shoe bottle that the Bungubox uses, the Vinta Karnival is just a bit darker and will be better for me in the long run.

Many of the light, multi-chrome inks are not used frequently (see previous comments about FINE nib pen preferences) but they are so pretty its hard to let them go. I have a couple stub nibs I use so I will keep a few of these colors but I did make some cuts if the colors were close.  And shimmer inks? I slashed 90% of the shimmer inks I own. I just don’t use them no matter how much I find them pretty. I only kept seven shimmer inks.

Colorverse Culling:

Just when I thought I was done, I realized that I forgot about the Colorverse inks that I had on a bookshelf. Sigh… more culling!

Since these Colorverse inks were still in their boxes, I laid all the swatches out on the boxes in their sets. Since I’d gone through the other ridiculous volume of inks, and despite my sentimentality about many of these Colorverse inks I was ready to hit my goal, feed my cats and be done with this part of my project.

Hitting my goal:

After culling the Colorverse inks, I did a count and my total counts was… drum roll, please… 94 bottles of ink! Woot!

Rule breaking:

So, there was a bit of breaking my own rules so I will ‘fess up to those now.

In the end, I didn’t count my special, limited edition ink sets. I think of them more as collectibles than daily use inks. I have three sets from Colorverse, all space themed, a couple sets from Vinta and then two very rare, unique box set ink collections. I may change my mind on some of these sets in the next few months but for right now, they are bookshelf sets so they are not clogging up my ink drawers and therefore do not count in the final tally.

I also did not include any samples or the minis included in the Diamine Inkvent sets. Again… sets, right? I would like to verify that I’ve swatched all the Inkvent colors before I let those go or maybe, purchase full bottles of favorites (I have 6 slots open before I have to start doing the “one in, one out” game).

The Final Selections:

Would it be fair not to give the final list and not show EVERY SINGLE COLOR? Of course not, so stay tuned. The final Ink 100 selections will have a whole post dedicated to my selections. Stay tuned, that post will go up next week. I might even trim a few more colors before then…

The post Ink 100: Part 4 Hitting My Goal appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

This is the final part of my Ink 100 series. If this is the first time you’ve seen these posts, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 to get caught up on this journey.

Since I started this project, my goal was to keep at least one or two bottles of ink across the ROYGBIV spectrum. For the sake of organziation,  I am going to reveal my final “ink keepers” in that same order. What I didn’t consider was some of the more unusual inks like the multi-chromes and shimmer inks. I have separated out the multi-chrome inks but I left the shimmers within their color category.

The biggest surprise in the process of this project was how sentimental I would become over certain inks. Some were purchased at specific events or when I was with a friend. Maybe a bottle was my first swap or remind me of a specific pen? I am glad I went through this process. I was able to make my ink collection feel a bit more manageable and it is easier for me to see what I have. Will I add new ink to my collection at some point? Probably. Will I pare down what I own a bit more? That might also be a possibility. Either way, I am happy to be able to sort through my collection more efficiently.

Now, on to what made the cut!

Red:

For the red category, I groups red-purples and pinks so its a much bigger category than I anticipated. I went into this project thinking I’m not really a red ink person so I’d keep one or two specific bottles. Instead, I ended up with 28 inks in this category.

Colorverse #31 Electron, Bungubox Lycoris Red and Sailor Jentle Irori can look orange or red depending on the paper and nib width.

There are two shimmers in the red group (No Fixed Address by Robert Oster and Pen BBS #140 Bloom Ink) and a couple super sheenrs: J. Herbin Rouge Hematite and Sailor Jentle Grenade, .

If you bet me 100 bottles of ink at the beginning of this project that I’d have more than 10 red/pink/red-purple inks, I would have taken that bet. You win! I had so many more. HA!

Orange/ Yellow/ Ochre/ Brown:

When I first planned this project, I forgot about browns and ochre colors so I am lumping orange and yellow together and it encompasses the brown, sepia, ochre colors as well. I ended up with 11 colors in this category. This included one shimmer ink (Pen BBS #111) and one pigment ink (Platinum Sepia Pigment Ink) and way more brown inks than I would have imagined I would need. Who knew I wouldn’t be able to part with brown ink? Not me.

Green:

Shockingly, I ended up with only 10 green inks and one is a shimmer ink. There are three inks which are very similar (Sailor Waka Uguisa, Pen BBS #342 Match Green Tea,  and Pen BBS #Tolstoy) so I need to probably ink these up and figure out which one or two will stay but they are all the closest to my dream green. I didn’t dave any kelly greens or bright green which, while I love them in general, I never use in a pen. The other greens I saved are unique and provide a nice range of hues.

Aqua/ Teal/ Blue/ Indigo:

I knew this would be my biggest group and it totals at 25 inks. This includes bluish greens, greenish blues, aquas, turquoise and tumbling into deeper blues.

As I got to the end of the sorting, I hit decision fatigue. Some of these inks are quite similar in color like Bora Bora Waters by Robert Oster and Inspired Blue by Waterman but they serve different purposes within my collection and therefore both are staying. Waterman inks are great for vintage pens and the Bora Bora Waters has slightly more sheen and safe for modern pens.

In my blue category, I have three shimmer inks: Pen BBS #338 Guardians of Good Fortune, J. Herbin Emerald of Chivor, and Van Dieman’s Parrot Fish.

Violet:

I ended up with nine violet/blue-violet inks. I love Monteverde Birthday Cake so much I was surprised that I kept any other violets but I found some violets in my collection that are similar but different from Birthday Cake. So, yeah! I have more inks to try and experiment with and I’m excited about that. Only one of the inks in this category is a shimmer: Colorverse #89 Mystic Mountain.

Neutrals:

This category is my grey and black inks.

I figured I’d only have one black ink (Platinum Carbon Black) but I forgot about Kyo-no-oto #1 Nurebairo which is a dry but sheeny black and I also kept the Colorverse Office Series Permanent Black and the Colorverse Pigment Black, Selectron. So, three out of four blacks are waterproof or water-resistant. I want to do more painting and multi-media work, so I’m keeping the additional blacks to see if they are a good alternative to Carbon Black.

I love grey inks so I should have guessed I would end up with eight different greys ranging from purply-grey, blue-grey and a neutral grey from Dominant Industry called Downpour. The last ink in this category in Colorverse Vortex Motion which is such a wonka-doodle sheening dark ink that is almost black but lean purply with a green sheen. Its also a bit sentimental to me.

Multi-Chromatics:

These seven inks are those color shifting colors and can look different on different papers or is a different color when wet than when it dries. I separated these out since they are hard to fold into the standard ROYGBIV rainbow. I saved seven inks in this group and they are mostly greens, blues and purples because that’s how I roll.

Final Thoughts:

The final count? 97 bottles of ink. I can’t believe I actually did it. And honestly, I don’t feel like I am at a loss for choice. I still have FOUR different blacks!

I was fairly ruthless in saving only the colors I truly loved rather than making decisions based on having “all the Sailor inks” or some other brand. If I were to break the inks down by brand, I kept about 23 bottle of Colorverse, 17 bottles of Sailor and 13 or so bottles of Robert Oster. Every other brand I kept less than 10 bottles. In some instances, I now have just one or two bottles from some brands and, other brands, I didn’t keep any of their inks.

My final selections are not a reflection on any brands. My decisions are entirely based on my personal preferences for color. In some cases, a color I particularly liked but had more than one bottle meant the decision came down to flow and usability for my particular pen preferences. I prefer fine nibs and drier inks so I based my decisions around those needs. Hence, more Sailor inks survived in my collection for their easy flow in fine nibs. With Colorverse, its a very dry ink but I keep a stash of White Lightning handy for just such moments.

Are any of the inks I kept on your favorite list? Are there any inks that you are surprised I kept?

The post Ink 100: Part 5 The Final Reveal appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I’ve gone through all my inks in my Ink 100 series and chosen selections and now is your chance to acquire all my overages. Inks are priced at approximately half of retail. And there are several rare and limited edition inks too!

The inks have been used for reviews, swatches or a fill or two so most bottles are almost completely full. They have all been stored out of the light and at room temperature.

Shop here and don’t delay. Patrons got an early preview of the sale so many items are already gone. If you want to be “in the know”, you can join our Patreon too. We’d love to have you part of the Patron family!

US Shipping only. No returns on inks.

The post Shop News: Ink Sale! appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

I was able to pick up the Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive ink somewhere along the Pen Show Trail this year and finally had a moment to uncap and check out the color. The label suggested a yellow-undertone dark green so I was stoked to give it a try.

My initial swatch card was so dark — almost black with a slight green undertone. The swatch showed very little shading and no sheen.

So I decided to play with a brush and some other swatching tools to see some of the color depth.

With a Pilot Iro-Utsushi Dip Pen ($11), the color was much lighter with more of the green tones evident. With a paint brush, I was also able to see more of the color variation. The Kakimori dip pen (starting at $58) put down a lot more ink and was therefore very dark again.

I played more with a folded nib, eye dropper and the Kakimori and made some fun color marks and saw a lot more variety in this ink.

When compared with other inks, Diamine Salamander is probably the closest in color. The Sailor Jentle Miruai is more of a bluish-green. The other colors were lighter, more saturated greens.

Overall, the Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive ink is a quite dark, dramatic ink. A lot of its most interesting characteristics are lost until water is added (like a water brush) or its used with a fine nib. There was not a lot of shading until it was used in a finer pen and no sheening on any of the papers I used.

So, if you didn’t make it to a pen show to grab a bottle of this ink, I don’t think you really missed anything.  I may try to ink a pen with it and use it to see if I warm up to it but honestly, I am not crazy about this ink. Do you have a bottle? Do you like it?

Tools:

• Paper: Col-o-ring Folio ($40) & Elia Note Tomoe River A5 notebook (RM120.00 MYR) with 6mm guide sheet
• Pens: Pilot Iro-Utsushi Dip Pen ($11), Kakimori dip pen (starting at $58), Sailor Compass Hocoro 1.0mm ($16), Zebra G Dip Nib (10 for $10) & Tachikawa T40 Nib Holder ($8.25)
• Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Book ($10) & Col-o-dex Rotary Cards ($15)
• Brush: Blick Synthetic Round #0
• Ink:  Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive (available at US Pen Shows only)

DISCLAIMER: Some 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.

The post Ink Review: Sailor 2024 Pen Show Exclusive appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

A new player has come to light recently in the pen world – Tom’s Studio. This is a pen maker in England who broke into the scene with calligraphy tools and is quickly expanding into fountain pens, refillable fiber-tipped pens, and most recently, Tom’s Studio ink.

I ordered a Lumos pen from Tom’s Studio months ago when I saw a stainless steel special edition of the pen – I love the extra weight from the material. While ordering it, I noticed that the store offered ink samples of their 20 ink lineup.

Or at least there are inks numbered up to 20. There’s actually no number 13.

The ink samples came packaged in individual sleeves of heavy paper with a swatch of the actual ink on the paper.

The bottles themselves are adorable.

Each bottle comes with a dropper. Which is good because it’s a very small vial – the same size as the Ferris Wheel Press sample vials – too small for most fountain pens but fine for most dip pens and converters.

I chose the most interesting 10 inks from the line up and when the package was delivered, I found an additional sample (Stainless Steel) had been included – I assume it was included because the pen was a special edition in stainless steel.

The shape of the Tom’s Studio ink bottle plus the location of the store made me wonder if these were inks produced by Diamine – many inks are manufactured by a large ink maker and repackaged for a retailer – so I thought I’d take a shot at comparing these inks to existing Diamine inks.

Since there are ten inks here, I’ll let the photos do most of the talking.

Tom’s Studio Marmalade is a touch lighter than Diamine Autumn Oak

Tom’s Studio Dove Grey is a bit darker but very close to Diamine Grey.

Tom’s Studio Deep Black is nearly identical to the base color in Diamine Solstice which is probably Onyx Black (of which I do not have a swatch!).

Tom’s Studio Iris is close to Diamine Majestic Purple but a bit darker.

Tom’s Studio Strawberry Jam and Diamine Wild Strawberry are very close (AMAZING red ink – either of these choices are wonderful).

So that’s the first 5 inks. Now for the remain 6:

Tom’s Studio Raspberry Sorbet and Diamine Deep Magenta are a nearly perfect match. My Deep Magenta swatch has seen a bit too much sunlight, it seems.

Tom’s Studio Sunny Teal is close to Diamine Soft Mint but a touch darker.

Tom’s Studio Neptune reminded me of Diamine Marine but it isn’t quite as blue. It is nearly identical to Diamine Helen which is a Cult Pen’s exclusive color.

Tom’s Studio Cassis is close to both Diamine Syrah and Diamine Burgundy Royal from their 150th anniversary inks. Beautiful color.

Tom’s Studio Damson is somewhat close to Diamine Purple Dream from the 150th anniversary collection but much closer to Monteverde Rose Noir (another gorgeous color).

Finally, Tom’s Studio Stainless Steel. This is a touch warmer than the Dove Grey from Tom’s Studio, but still a close match to Diamine Grey. It’s a bit cooler than Kala Spring Rain, an ink that is no longer available.

Here are all 11 inks from Tom’s Studio on Midori MD paper:

Cosmo Air Light paper:

And Tomoe River 52gsm paper:

I’m fairly certain the Tom’s Studio ink line is made by Diamine. However, that’s amazing news for everyone interested in these inks – Diamine has such a long history with ink. We know that they understand quality control, packaging, distribution, and supply. I wasn’t able to show the swatches of the inks I did not purchase, but there are several colors that I’m not certain have equivalents in the current Diamine line – Peaches and Cream and Lemon Yellow are two of those.

The Tom’s Studio line is a solid offering for a first round of inks from a new company. The price is amazing – $16 for 50mL glass bottle ($0.32 per mL), the packaging is minimal and recyclable, and the colors on the labels are accurate to the color of the ink (since they use a swatch of the ink as the actual label). Diamine inks themselves are packaged in either 30mL plastic bottles or 80mL glass bottles.

I started this review thinking it would be some kind of exposé about how these were just repackaged Diamine inks. But I don’t think it matters if they are. They are still very well priced, amazing colors, and the packaging itself offers new choices for size and color label clarity. I’ve seen great innovation from Tom’s Studio so far with the felt-tipped refillable pens and I’m excited to see what else they have in store for the future.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me the purpose of my own use. Please see the About page for more details.

The post Ink Comparison: Tom’s Studio vs. Diamine appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Following a Pen Addict Twitch stream, the supremely contagious refrain “Ink Pony Club” got stuck in Lisa of Olive Octopus Inks‘s head and lead to her creation of the an actual Ink Pony illustration that she has made available for you to download and print.

She has run many types of paper through her trusty printer including Tomoe River and Cosmos Art Light so you can ink your very own pony on your favorite papers.

Once you’ve completed your inky masterpiece, snap a picture of it and submit it to Lisa via social media, or Pen Addict Slack or Discord. She will add it to her site.

The post Have You Joined the Ink Pony Club? appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.