News: KC Maker Faire, Oster Inks & Pencil Subscriptions

This Weekend:

If you are in Kansas City, please come by the Maker Faire at Union Station. Not only is it tons of fun with all sorts of ‘bots and gizmos but there are also crafts and makers including Skylab Letterpress! There will all the wonderful Skylab goodies like posters, prints, coasters and some notepads you may recognize. I’ll be there helping out and we might even have some Col-o-rings squirreled away if you ask nicely. Don’t miss the epic experience including costumes, robots, 3D printing, crafts, food and more. Don’t forget sunscreen!

Blackwing 73: Lake Tahoe Edition

Blackwing unveiled its latest Volumes Edition this week, the #73 Lake Tahoe edition. This edition is a bright vivid blue with textural raised lines to mimic the topography of the lake. The number is the maximum depth of the lake in feet. The ferrule is plain silver and the eraser is white. The branding is white foil stamped. It’s a nice looking pencil overall but I see a striking California-centric trend following the John Muir, the Jade and now the Tahoe. I suppose that’s their focus with the California cedar as well. Maybe they are clustering their themes by year… this year California?

Baron Fig Archer Prismatic

Baron Fig also introduced its newest release of its pencil, The Archer Prismatic. This time the Archer comes in three bright colors: red, yellow and sky blue. Subscribers to the quarterly Archer subscriptions should be getting theirs in the post this week.

Retro51 Tornado Popper Play Ball!

Retro51 unveiled the latest Tornado Popper this past week. It’s the new Play Ball! edition and they are selling out fast. If you collect the Tornado Poppers and you like this one, you better hoop over to your favorite retailer quick and purchase it because they are selling out fast.

Robert Oster Signature Inks:

Robert Oster has been releasing ink colors faster than I can keep up. At the Chicago Pen Show was the release of Ryde Green and Tangerine. A couple weeks ago he released the new Blue Water Ice and then Plumb Nut and Sublime. Somewhere along the way Marrone Mustard and River of Fire were also released. And this week there’s more with Eucalyptus Leaf, Red Clay and Golden Brown.

While I appreciate the constant influx of new inks, I think the flood of colors makes it hard for consumers to appreciate the colors and hard for retailers to sell and promote the new colors. I would like to see releases from Oster in a more targeted manner.– maybe four to six colors released quarterly? That would give both shop owners and consumers a chance to appreciate the inks they’ve purchased to appreciate what they have and crave new colors.

Also, in the midst of all of these new releases, the price for Oster inks also went up. I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons for the price increase

And more new sponsors!

Federalist Pens joins the ranks this week. All readers can use the coupon code “desk” at checkout to get an additional 5% off at checkout! Federalist Pens already discounts 20% or more and offers “Daily Deals” that are at least 20% off so the extra 5% on top sweetens the deal a little bit more. Federalist Pens also offers free shipping on all orders over $99.

Appelboom has also come on board as a sponsor to offer great service and products to our European (and global) readers. Appelboom has a huge array of brands of pens, inks, paper goods and more.