The Well-Appointed Desk

Our first giveaway is a goodie! In honor of our 10th anniversary, our good friends at Pen Chalet are giving away one $50 gift card to help us celebrate. This gift certificate is good wherever Pen Chalet ships (which is most countries). Check their web site or email Pen Chalet if you leave in Bora Bora or somewhere else particularly remote to verify if you are unsure if they ship to your region before entering the drawing.

penchalet gift card — This is not a real gift card. The real one will have a secret code on it to activate it. This is just an enticing image to get you excited to enter the giveaway.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell me where in the world you’d like to take your pens when we can finally travel freely again. 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 Thursday, June 4, 2020. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Friday. 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. We will forward your email address to Pen Chalet and gift card will be sent digitally. Capiche?

In feature

Ten Years of The Well-Appointed Desk

AnaJune 1, 2020June 19, 202029 Comments

I started this blog over ten years ago. It’s as big a surprise to you as it is to me. Ten years!

Many of you have probably heard the story of the inception of this blog, but I’ll retell it anyway just in case.

In the dark days of the internet, I had a personal blog (back in the day when everyone had a personal blog like LiveJournal or Blogger) that I had been peppering with my opinions on various office supplies. I had even written a review or two for Pencil Revolution and befriended Brad Dowdy who had started his own blog all about pens. Then I went to a presentation by a woman who started a blog all about decorating her Berlin apartment all in turquoise called The House of Turquoise. She said if she could make a blog all about all-things-turquoise that the internet was big enough to have corners for all kinds of super-specific interests. So, I went back to my desk and launched my own super-specific blog on Tumblr and named it The Well-Appointed Desk. After a couple years, I focused less on desk accessories and office set-ups and I started writing a lot more reviews. At that point, I officially moved the site to WordPress and the rest, as they say, is history.

Over the last ten years, I’ve learned so much and met so many amazing people. Pens and the pen community have changed my life in so many ways.

First, I need to thank the ladies who help keep this site running: Laura, Tina and Jesi are an integral part of the everyday functioning of this site and I couldn’t do this without them.

Then I need to thank the sponsors who have helped keep this site running financially. I’ve always debated whether or not to discuss the costs of running the site. A couple years ago, our service provider required that we upgrade our hosting because our traffic was breaking the current server. So, our costs increased. We also require some additional services to protect us from the onslaught of spam that result from being one of the top search results. So, thank you to everyone, presently and in the past who has advertised on the blog or provided review products because you have helped make ALL this possible.

I also need to thank all the bloggers and vloggers in the pen community who have supported us, become our friends, allies and drinking buddies.

And finally, to all the readers of the blog today and in the future. Your comments here on the site, in the mail and in person at pen shows and meet-ups around the world have meant so much to all of us. We have been so happy that our insights, experiences and opinions have helped you in one way or another.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, we will be featuring two weeks chock full of Top Ten lists and giveaways that will blow your mind. Huge thanks again to all our sponsors for generously donating gifts for these giveaways. Please, if you can, support the sponsors. They are the reason we can continue to do this.

Now… on to the celebration!

In Art of the Day

Eye Candy: Lamy Safari Candy Fountain Pen Collection (and Giveaway)

AnaMay 29, 2020June 4, 2020153 Comments

The Lamy Safari Candy Collection ($29.60 for fountain pens) is their 2020 special edition collection. There are three new colors in this collection and what is unique to these pens compared to the regular line of Safari fountain pens is that the whole pen is colored to match the body including the clip: the Mango is a matte finish with the clip painted to match the grip, cap and barrel. The same color matching applies to the Violet and the Aquamarine pens as well.

The matte finish is not very common in the regular line, or at least it hasn’t been but Lamy has been making more and more of the Safaris in the matte finish. And up until now, the only all one color Safari has been the all-black model. Lamy does continue to mix it up. The Petrol Safari ($49.95) is a mix of black clip and matte finish body so never say never.

We have the fountain pen models here but there is also a rollerball ($20) and ballpoint ($16) version available.

I don’t have all the previous special releases of the Safaris or AL-Stars but I think the new Candy Collection colors fit right in with the other bright colors that have been released over the years. No teasing, I have a lot of lime green models and more AL-Stars than Safaris presently.

I thought you might want to see my wonky rainbow without all those distracting candies. Besides, I ate them.

The Lamy Safari Candy Collection we received had an array of nib sizes: EF, F and M. Above is a sample of what the writing looks like at each of those nibs sizes and a few non-fountain pens for reference if you don’t have a lot of experience with Lamy nibs. (That’s Rhodia paper, FYI.)

The Giveaway

So…now for the best part. We have not just THREE but FOUR of these amazing Lamy Safari Candy Collection fountain pens to give away. Big thanks to Goldspot Pens for providing these wonderful pens for us.

~~Mango (EF)~~
~~Aquamarine (F)~~
~~Aquamarine (M)~~
~~Violet (M)~~

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell me what your favorite candy is. ALSO, tell me which Safari Candy you’d like too (I’ll do my best to match winners with pens but if everyone picks the same one we’re gonna have to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to fight it out.) Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Thursday. Winners 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.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by Goldspot Pens for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Ask The Desk

How to: Make Ink Ring Swatches

AnaMay 28, 2020May 27, 202014 Comments

After my Ask The Desk post about sheening inks, I’ve had many questions about how to make ink ring swatches. I first saw these in a lot of the swatches from Asian pen enthusiasts and I wracked my brain trying to figure out how they did it. I made a mess of many pages of my notebooks while I worked it out. It’s actually really easy to do.

Making ink ring swatches

Most ink bottles develop a bit of ink on the lip of the bottle once they’ve been opened. By pressing this ring of ink on paper, you can get a quick sample of the color without having a cotton swab or paint brush handy. This can be done on a Col-o-ring or Col-o-dex card or right into your notebook.

Making ink ring swatches

For this demo, I used my Col-o-ring OVERSIZE and pressed it down on the top of a bottle of Sailor Jentle Yamadori.

Making ink ring swatches

The ring looked like this. Then with a dip pen or another pen, I can add the name and color of the ink to inventory it.

Making ink ring swatches

In this case, I used a vintage Mabie Todd dip pen. Voila!

In a notebook, the same page can be used to swatch several inks in an interesting layout.

Making ink ring swatches

Here is another bottle. This time, a small Monteverde California Teal bottle. Can you see the ink on the lip of the bottle?

Making ink ring swatches

I flipped the paper and tapped it on to the bottle. If you are trying this for the first time, it may be easier to do with a Col-o-ring card or some index cards since it will be easier to aim and get your process down before trying it with a 300+ page Tomoe River notebook.

Making ink ring swatches

So, here’s the results of my page with two inks sampled. Let’s keep going.

Making ink ring swatches

The next bottle is Pen BBS No. 224. There’s some ink around the lip. If, for some reason, you have a bottle without any ink around the lip. Put the lid back on and screw it down, then unscrew it a half turn and turn it upside down. I recommend doing it over your sink, just in case it leaks at all. Then turn it right side and unscrew it and see if there’s some ink on the lip. If not, try the half turn/upside down trick again.

Making ink ring swatches

With two rings on my page already, I needed to look carefully to aim my ring artistically.

Making ink ring swatches

It turned out okay.

Making ink ring swatches

The only true challenge is sample vials. Ink does not accumulate on the lip of plastic, sample vials like it does on glass vials.

Making ink ring swatches

The only way to get a good amount of ink on to the paper is to tip the vial on to the paper which can be messy if the vial is not in contact with the paper entirely and leaks. So…. did I cover everything?

In Paper Review

Product Release: Baron Fig Simple Observations Notebook

AnaMay 27, 2020May 26, 20201 Comment

Baron Fig collaborated with Shantell Martin to create the new Simple Observations ($20) guided journal. Utilizing their classic flagship Confidant size (5.4″ x 7.7″), the journal features a black cloth cover with white lettering on the cover. Inside the end paper reverse the colors with bright white paper and black hand lettering.

Inside, the journal features 375 prompts (192 pages), two on each page to write or draw your impressions. In our current world, it is the perfect time to reflect on some of our thoughts, simple pleasures, and inner dreams.

Examples of some of the prompts include:

Write the longest word you can think of.
How do you spend your days off?
Open a drawer and draw what’s inside.
What is privacy?
What does water taste like to you?

You can open the book and write or draw the first prompt that speaks to you. Then tomorrow, open the book to another page. No one says you have to start at the front of the book and work from front-to-back. Do whatever you want. Journaling doesn’t have to be epic or intimidating. It can be short, silly, fun, bite-sized, simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

We have reviewed the paper used in BaronFig notebooks and journals in the past and find the paper to be good for pen, pencil, ink and fountain pen.

The notebook comes in the same matte finish box that all the other Baron Fig Confidant notebooks ship in making them supremely giftable.

The timing for this product couldn’t be more perfect. I’m sure when BaronFig planned it, they couldn’t have predicted that so many of us would be housebound, stressed out and possibly unemployed and needing a way to think about the things that made us thankful and happy. Now, to open up the page in Simple Observations that says “What’s the purpose of life?” and write “to pick 4-leaf clovers, drink cheap beer and make waffles.” Sounds good to me.

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were provided free of charge by BaronFig for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: Squirrel Brain

AnaMay 27, 2020May 26, 20204 Comments

I have squirrel brain today so bear with me.

First, news that the Pelikan Hubs are officially cancelled for 2020 rolled out yesterday. It’s the safest decision but it makes all of us so sad. Just this weekend, Laura and I were talking about how, in order to orchestrate the Hubs, Pelikan would have to have staff in their warehouse right now boxing up magazines, ink and all the accoutrements now to get materials shipped around the world in time for the September event — and that’s assuming that there isn’t a terrible increase in the cases of COVID-19 in the interim.

Yesterday, Lisa from Vanness Pens asked me to appear on her weekly Instagram Live chat. We had a good turn out of people. If you’d like to watch it, we chat about what we are currently using, the possibility of pen shows this year and shipping issues.

Last week on The Pen Addict podcast, Brad said that he would unveil the urushi Lamy Safari/AL-Star pens that Jonathan at Carolina Pen Co. created for us in a YouTube video. He posted it this morning. There should be a link on Relay.FM if you’d like to see it for yourself. Jonathan outdid himself. I’m speechless.

Now that Memorial Day has come and gone… did you notice it? It is now safe to pull out your “summer whites” sweatpants and replace your slippers with your flip flops. Thank you, post-pandemic, social-distanced, fashion rules. At least we don’t have rules for what notebooks, pens and ink we can use, right?

Finally, next week is the start of our (hold on to your hats…. CAPS LOCK ON!) OUR TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! That’s right, The Well-Appointed Desk is turning TEN! I can hardly contain my excitement and we have WEEKS of extra special content planned including TONS of giveaways so get ready for it!! Are you excited? Humor me, okay.

Notebook and Pen Review: Rocket Book Everlast Mini

Laura CameronMay 26, 2020May 26, 20202 Comments

Review by Laura Cameron

I was tickled this year when my mother-in-law tucked a Rocket Book Everlast Mini, an erasable notebook, into my birthday package. I’ve found information about the Everlast Mini from the closed Indiegogo campaign from 2018, and it appears they are purchasable through Amazon ($16.00).

The Everlast Mini is a mini notebook measuring 3.5″ x 5.5″ and includes 48 pages of a polyester blend that feels close to regular paper and has a light grey dot grid. The special feature of this notebook is that the pages are erasable and thus reusable! The kit I got included a black Pilot FriXion ballpoint pen, but the packaging stated that any pens from the Pilot FriXion line would work so we picked up a FriXion 8-pack of 0.6 Fine Liners ($16.15) to test them as well.

I admit I was skeptical. I wondered if the pens would erase cleaning, but they did! They packaging notes that you should write on the pages as normal, and then allow approximately 10-15 seconds for the ink to dry and bond to the synthetic page. Wiping my finger across the writing after that didn’t smear at all.

To erase both the ball point and the fine liners, I simply wet the microcloth included in the package and wiped the page clean. The page did require two passes to be clear of color (the first easily removed the writing, the second removed any bit of color residue left behind). I don’t know how the pages will fare over time if heavily used, or if the ink remains on the page for days (weeks? years?), but they appear to work as advertised.

One other benefit of this notebook is that the pages all have QR codes and can be scanned easily into the app or platform of your choice for easy storage. I’ll be honest – I still haven’t embraced scanning my notes into electronica, but I do appreciate that they suggest you use any number of popular apps (Google Drive, Dropbox, One Note, OneDrive, etc.) rather than developing their own.

Overall this was a fun birthday treat and I suspect this notebook may end up living in my purse for brainstorming and on-the-go notes!

DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

The Giveaway

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things: