The Well-Appointed Desk

Link Love: Dicey Journaling!

AnaMay 27, 2026May 27, 2026Leave a comment

Oh, hell yeah, Mary! Her journaling is always inspiring but I am thrilled that she too is falling in love with Q-Less and has added even more was to gamify and play when journaling. YOu kow I love adding gaming components to my life planning and Mary has great ideas. Thanks for sharing and, as always, your journals are beautiful!

Link of the Week:

Dicey Journaling (via From the Pen Cup)

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In photo

GIVEAWAY: Second Verse, Kinda Like the First (2 Mystery Boxes)

Laura CameronMay 26, 2026May 26, 202649 Comments

A few weeks ago, Ana and I realized we were both interested in doing some “blind dates” or mystery boxes for all of you.

So today, I’m doing what she did about a week ago and offering TWO Mystery Boxes (only one box per reader). Inside these boxes you’ll find tons of different papers to try, along with a writing implement and some other fun items I’ve thrown in. They are all new, or were tested for reviews only. Some are still in the original shrink wrap! Mine are also loosely themed:

Did you head to the funnies page first on Sunday mornings? This one is for comic strip lovers!
Fancy yourself an ink master? This one is geared for swatching and trying all kinds of paper!

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell us which box you would like to win and what you might do with the mystery contents. 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 Sunday, May 31, 2026. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Instagram, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday, June 1. 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.

In feature

Happy Holiday Day!

AnaMay 25, 2026May 21, 2026Leave a comment

If you live in the US, I hope you are relaxing and enjoying today’s day off. I hope your weather is beautiful and you are reading by the pool, writing by the lake or hanging with your friends and family. No matter what happens today, take five minutes to sit outside, breath deeply and enjoy a moment or two of calm and peace. Unless its a tornado, then stay in your safe place.

The bottom line, I hope you are all having a good day!

We will be back tomorrow with more reviews, opinions and more!

If you need some stationery bliss, consider checking out our Patreon where you can get inspiration, gossip and free printables that include a biweekly podcast and more. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!

In feature

Shop Updates: Mark’s EDiT Notebooks are Back!

AnaMay 22, 2026May 21, 2026Leave a comment

The big news this week is that the Mark’s EDiT notebooks are finally back in stock! I received A5, B6 and B7 Semi-sized notebooks with clear covers as well as the refills. These notebooks feature amazing fountain pen-friendly paper and 320 sheets per book in these trim, lightweight books.

I wrote a review of these several months ago and when I couldn’t find anyone stocking them in the US, I stepped up and ordered them. At the Chicago Pen Show, I was bombarded with people looking to purchase these notebooks but I sold out on Friday so I placed a new order while on the show floor so I could get them as soon as possible.

The colored plastic covers still have a clear sleeve so you can store ephemera, stickers and anything else you want to use to make your Mark’s EDiT yours.

Light Latte cover with pens stored in the clear sleeve on the front.

I hope you all love these notebooks and covers as much as I do. They have been my go-to alternative to Tomoe River (I know! Them’s fightin’ words!).

I’ve always added out new sticker collection to the shop: The Retro Rainbow collection which is a set of 10 different color themed vintage sticker designs. If you like to theme your planner or journal by color, these stickers will fill you with color-specific vintage elements like birds, flowers, typewriters and a little weirdness. Can you spot the jello?

In feature

Giveaway Winners: FIVE Mystery Boxes

AnaMay 21, 2026May 21, 20263 Comments

Thanks to everyone who entered our epic Mystery Box giveaways! I’m so glad this giveaway got everyone excited. I can’t wait to hear what you all think of the contents.

Here our our winners:

I have emailed all the winners directly already and hope to have these shipped out this weekend before the Memorial Day holiday. Winners, if you didn’t see your email, check your spam folder. If I don’t hear from winners within 7 days, I will draw a new winner so don’t miss your window!

Happy mystery boxes everyone! This will not be the last time we do this so stay tuned!

Winners, if you share your haul on Instagram, please tag us @wellappointeddesk. Thanks!

In Link Love

Link Love: Permission to Rest

AnaMay 20, 2026May 20, 2026Leave a comment

I have been going full tilt since I quit my job in 2024 trying to make this work-for-myself gig actually keep us afloat. This is not a plea of any sort. It’s just me admitting that I’m exhausted this week.

Art by TinyFreaksUnit and sums up my feelings about this week

But honestly, everyone I talk to these days feels similarly. The world is chaotic and we wake up every morning not know what the next thing will be. Flat tire? Lost files? Sick relatives or pets? Frightening news cycles? Prices? AI taking jobs??!? It all has us living on edge.

So, knowing this weekend is a holiday weekend in the US, take some time for yourself. Sleep in. Nap in the middle of the day. Lay in the sun and read all afternoon. Order takeout. Leave the dishes in the sink. Watch your favorite movie. Dance to your favorite song. Lay down and close your eyes for five minutes.

Give yourself permission to rest and take it easy.

Recharging your battery will help your creativity, emotional health and your relationships. Be good to yourself this weekend. Even if you have to work, save some time for yourself. Your deserve it.

Pens:

Visconti Mirage Mythos Persephone Fountain Pen Review (via The Pen Addict)
Too many pens: Lamy Studio Orion (via Scribblemonboddo)
Too many pens: Diplomat Excellence Violet Rain (via Scribblemonboddo)
Meet Your Maker: Mark Storch, Fantastic Pens (via The Pen Addict)

Ink:

Platinum Classic Lavender Black Ink Review (via The Pen Addict)
Talking Stationery: Turquoise de Perse Fountain Pen Ink (via The Pen Addict)
Obsessed with Show Inks: ChiPS 2026 (via Dime Novel Raven)

Pencils:

The Best Colored Pencils (via JetPens Blog)

Notebooks & Paper:

Visit to Traveler’s Factory Airport, Japan (via Inkcredible Colours)
Guest post series – ‘Filohax’ No. 29 – Paul
(via Philofaxy)

Art & Creativity:

More of the same: how creative rituals can help you break free from the idea echo chamber
The Artist Who Treats Lamps, Glass, And Mixed Media As Narrative Objects (via Design You Trust)
Inside Google (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)
Tugboat Printshop Marks 20 Years of Making Meticulously Crafted Woodblock Prints (via Colossal)
People Drawing! (via Apple-Pine)
I bought a CCD scanner. Now I can scan paintings better (via Drewscape)
Birds Flock Amid Vibrant Blooms in Vasilisa Romanenko’s Acrylic Paintings (via Colossal)
Night Sketching (via Liz Steel)

Other Interesting Things:

Glimpse the Fantastical Animated World of ‘Wildwood’ (via Colossal)
13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol.773) (via Messy Nessy Chic)
Why a 53-year-old travel brand is going back to guerrilla print: Lonely Planet on its pocket-sized zine, Artifact (via It’s Nice That)
Opinion | The Revolt Against the Girl Bosses Has Finally Come (via The New York Times)
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains. (via Kottke.org)
What’s in the Bag for Stationery Park? (via The Pen Addict)
7 Stationery Items I Didn’t Know I Needed Until I Got Them (via Inky Imaginings)

In photo, Planners & Organizers

Mid-Year Journal Report – How am I doing?

Laura CameronMay 19, 2026May 18, 20261 Comment

Ana’s post about re-devoting herself to journaling made me want to take a look at my practice this year. This year I have been using three primary journals:

For my daily planner, I use the Effin’ Birds planner. This is my third year using it and it just meets all my needs really well.
For my journaling, I am using a Notebook Therapy bullet journal. I started my second volume this year (the previous volume covered the previous 2 years)
New this year, I started trying to track my craft projects in the 2026 My Year in Yarn notebook.

I’m going to skip my report on the Effin’ Birds planner because I love it, and I mostly use it to track work tasks and appointments. And frankly, that’s even more boring to you than it is to me!

So let’s jump into my Notebook Therapy bullet journal. I find my journaling ebbs and flows quite a bit depending on the month. I’m not a daily writer – in fact I’m lucky if I reach half a dozen entries per month. I do WANT to write more, but when it gets to individual days I often find there’s not as much to say as I want. I track what books I’m reading on Storygraph and my knitting projects in the knitting planner. Sometimes there’s a quote or something I want to remember and I’m trying to be better about including it, but really I’m not that good. I really have been making an effort to find more stickers and ephemera to add in there when I do write, and that has been creating far more interesting pages to look back on. But overall, I’d like to do more.

As for my 2026 Year in Yarn, I think this has quite possibly been the most successful of my new habits. I really am taking the time in the monthly spreads to track what I want to work on, what I accomplish, and with the habit trackers some other items too (like how many days I lift weights and exercise). I do add some stickers and “flair” to my pages, but I also use them. I use the project logs the way I wanted to, which is the real intent of keeping this journal: to take notes on my projects that I can refer back to again and again (what yarns, what needle sizes, how I modified the pattern, etc.) Also, though I haven’t shown you here I am tracking what materials I am buying and using in the bag (like a purchase log) which also helps me try to spend and use what I have more mindfully.

So overall, I’d say I’m not doing too badly, but there’s always room for improvement. How are your notebooks treating you this year?