Several months ago, the team that creates Formal Dept (illustrator Kate Pugsley and industrial designer Charlie McArthur) launched a Kickstarter to develop a watercolor dish and cup set. I was super excited to see the project reach it’s goal. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter launched in the middle of pandemic lockdown which affected the outcome and it…
Review by Tina Koyama A few months ago, I conducted a satisfying sharpener showdown between two hand cranks to beat my old Carl Angel-5. It was satisfying because both contenders came out equally good. Since I spend just as much time using pencils on the sidewalk as I do at my desk, it’s crucial to…
Galen Leather sent across some of their new products to the Desk crew recently, and their Zippered Pen Pouch (the 4-slot variation) ended up in my mailbox- and eventually on my desk. I hadn’t changed up the stationery I was carrying and using since March, and as soon as I opened the 4-slot pen pouch…
Review by Tina Koyama The corner rounder I’ve been using is an old Fiskars squeeze punch that is not very comfortable to use. I am also not fond of how the cutting scraps scatter all over the desk and floor. It was time to upgrade to the Sun-Star Kadomaru Neo 3-Way Corner Cutter ($13.75, available…
Last weekend, I went to Kansas for the weekend to hang out with two fellow pen nerds, Jesi and Jaclyn. We played with the Pentastic folded nibs a lot. It inspired me to show these to you, my lovely readers. I have been using the Toronto Pen Company Pentastic CxPO brass folded nibs (C$40.00) designed…
Review by Tina Koyama What is all the fuss about a “long point”? For this long-time colored pencil user, long points are not needed (or wanted) for most colored pencil purposes. So when I first began using graphite pencils more seriously for drawing and writing and became involved in the pencil community, I was fascinated…
Following discussions and suggestions from friends and followers of the blog, we are introducing two new rubber stamps in the shop this week. This post falls clearly in the category of shameless self-promotion so proceed forewarned. We created two different ink bottle rubber stamp designs. The first stamp is based on a classic bottle design…
