Doodle-tober?

This year instead of participating in Inktober, where I try and use different inks during the month, I decided to do my own “Doodle-tober.” So I took all the supplies I had at hand (more about those below) and started playing. I took lots of inspiration from Instagram, and I’m hoping to develop my own style. Here are a few of my doodles!

Now since this is a pen and ink and paper blog, here are the supplies I’m using.

Paper:

Pens:

My new favorites:

Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen Hard Black – I think I got this one in a sampler pack from Jet Pens a while back. It is now my FAVORITE black pen. It’s a brush pen, but the line it puts down is thin enough to almost me a liner for me. Edgings? Details? I love this pen.

TriC Art Performance Dual Brush – I don’t know what these are. A quick Google returns a set on eBay. When I started doodling my husband said, “I have some markers you might like.” He’s right. I love them. They’ve got a fine liner tip and a brush tip, and I think they’re basically Tombow knockoffs… I guess I’m saving my pennies for a set of Tombows?


DISCLAIMER: Some of the items included in this review were provided free of charge for the purpose of review, others I purchased with my own money. Please see the About page for more details.

Fountain Pen Review (& Giveaway): Laban Rosa Fountain Pen in Lilac

Fountain Pen Review (& Giveaway): Laban Rosa Fountain Pen in Lilac

Laban is Taiwanese-based pen company that I’ve had a lot of experience with using so I was quite excited to get a chance to test one of their fountain pens.

The Laban Rosa Fountain Pen ($140) in Lilac with the Medium nib is an acrylic resin pen with gold tone hardware. The Rosa line includes several other color options. The cap bands on the other designs look like a Greek Key repeating pattern while the Lilac has an etched branded cap band. Its a medium-sized pen, similart in overal dimensions to a Leonardo Momento Zero in size and shape.

The pen ships in a simple paperboard drawer box and includes the pen and a converter.

The colors of the Lilac are a swirl of green, grey and a periwinkle blue violet. It’s accented with the warm gold hardware and a two-tone nib.

The nib is a smooth writer with a bit of bounce. It’s not flexible but does have a gentle spring when used.

I attempted to match some ink colors to the pen. Which color is your favorite?

I chose the Ayame originally since it has a similar color range. But it ended up being a little too light for the medium nib so I went with the Pen BBS No. 224 Tolstoy.

Because of the bounce in the nib, it doesn’t lay down a lot of ink for an over-handed left-handed writer.

When I switched to underwriting (the middle sample) the color was much deeper and the line weights were a bit thicker. There was even a little bit of line variation as a result of the bounce in the nib.

I was a bit surprised to discover the bounce in the Laban nib. Sadly, it’s not a pen that works with my writing style. The resin is very pretty and its quite comfortable in the hand.

So, my loss is your gain. I am giving this pen to one lucky reader.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell me what the colors of this pen remind you of. 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 Friday, October 25. 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.


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

Paper Review: Yamamoto Paper Tasting Silky Vol. 3

Paper Review: Yamamoto Paper Tasting Silky Vol. 3

Over the years, I’ve tested several of the Yamamoto Paper Sampling Kits. I recently saw the Yamamoto Paper Testing Silky Vol. 3 ($11) which includes three 25-sheet pads of papers: B7 Yamaoto Bank Paper Takasago Premium, A6 Smooth Art Paper and B6 Sheep Clouds Bond.

Both the Bank Paper and the Sheep Clouds is indicated as friendly with every pen according to the slip sheet included with the tablets. The Smooth Art paper is listed as good with gel and ball point pens but we are going to test it with the same pens that we use with every other paper.

In the back of the packet, there is an information sheet that gives details about Japanese papers and paper sizes.

The Yamamoto Bank Paper performed well with all the pens I tested but had a long dry time and appeared to have a slightly different texture or coating on the front and back so I test both sides of the paper. The dry time on the back was a bit faster on the back of the paper but overall it was a good performer.

I did notice that the Bank Paper is pretty translucent if its in a stack as you can see in the above image.

The Art Paper appeard to be a matte coated stock so colors appear vibrant and too a long time to dry. You can see the washy effect in the brush pen lettering at the bottom of the page. It’s interesting but I’m not sure how useful it would be in day-to-day use.

Only a little bleed through on the back of the Art Paper but this paper, as anticipated was a little weird.

The last sheets in the packet were the B6 Sheep Clouds. Despite the somewhat goofy name, this paper is pretty fabulous. Shading and sheening showed clearly, all the pens I tested worked well and there was little to no bleed through or show through.

I would definitely be happy to have a whole notebook of the Sheep Clouds paper. The Bank Paper is a close second and while the Art Paper is interesting, I might try playing with paint markers or other creative materials to use it.

DISCLAIMER: The 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.

Notebook Review: Nakabayashi W/U B6 5mm Grid

Notebook Review: Nakabayashi W/U B6 5mm Grid

I grabbed a small B6 notebook called the Nakabayashi W/U ($3.20) while I was at the Dallas Pen Show. It is filled with 40 sheets of dotted line 5mm grid paper with a natural white color. The book is stitch bound with a glossy paper board cover. It’s a classic “cahier” style notebook.

I wanted it as a supplement in my planner journal for additional notes and projects.

I tested a variety of pens. On the left hand side I tested all my currently inked fountain pens  and on the right, I tested gel, brush, felt and ball point pens.

There was no evidence of feathering on the front and, from the back, there was only a little bleed through with the widest nib and the Pilot brush pen.

I took a a close-up to show the dotted grid and the bleed through of the Oster Campfire ink in the wide stub nib.

Overall, for the price point and the niche this notebook fills in the market, I would recommend this notebook as an option for anyone looking for a good B6 notebook. It’s also available in a horizontal format.

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

Link Love: By the Power of Tomoe River!

Link Love: By the Power of Tomoe River!

The debate has continued about the overall consistency and quality of the 2025 Tomoe River planner papers. Following my post on Monday. I received emails and comments that many folks have run into issues with the Tomoe River paper in the 2025 planners bleeding, feathering and causing general heartache. So, I recommend that you test your planner, if you have one that utilizes the 52gsm Tomoe River paper. From what I understand, the issue may not be limited to Hobonichi but other brands of planners using Tomoe River paper (the Sanzen produced papers) have also had some issues.

The plot thickens….

Pens:

Ink:

Pencils:

Notebooks & Paper:

Art & Creativity:

Other Interesting Things:

Thanks for reading this week’s Link Love. If you love Link Love, you’ll love our  Patreon, where we have an exclusive podcast called TL:DR, full of stationery products and community news.  And thanks, current Patrons! Without you, we could not continue to do what we do.

Giveaway Winner: Notegeist Bindery Everydays

The monkeys at the desk are having a bit of a rough go today so we apologize that this drawing is a little later than normal! The two lucky winners of the Notegeist Bindery Everydays are Christopher and Heather.

Congratulations to both!

And we apologize to Heather in advance that this is a dangerous blog for your wallet. Sorry, not sorry?

Winners have been notified by email. Stay tuned for further giveaways soon!

 

Tag Team Pen Review: Tom’s Studio The Wren Refillable Writing Pen

Tag Team Pen Review: Tom’s Studio The Wren Refillable Writing Pen

Ana’s Review:

The Tom’s Studio Wren ($45) is a beautiful brushed aluminum pocket pen with a refillable Japanese-style fiber tip. The Wren comes in a variety of colors and contains a cotton fiber reservoir that can be filled from any bottle of fountain pen ink.

Above are images of the paperboard box packaging which include lots of helpful information about the pen and luckily is recyclable if you don’t keep your pen boxes.

Inside the box is a small bottle of ink and instructions for filling the pen.

There is a streamlined, ergonomic grip area on the barrel that tapers gently to the tip.

My first goal was to find an ink color that would best match or coordinate with the pen. I decided to go with a color a little bit darker than the pen since the fineliner tend to write lighter than when the ink is used in a fountain pen.

I chose Colorverse Able (No. 43) for the ink for the Sage Wren.

It took just a second or two for the ink to travel up the ink reservoir.

I stuck it back on to the nib end and it took a minute or so for the ink to use the capillary action to soak the nib tip.

 

In writing, the Able ink ended up looking MUCH lighter than I had hoped.

When you look at the swatch next to the writing you can see just how much lighter the ink appears in the Wren. So, if you decide to invest in the refillable Wren, plan on picking an ink color much darker than you want as it will appear lighter.

I decided to try to rinse the ink out of the cotton reservoir and refill it with a darker color. It was not difficult to rinse the ink out but I am not sure if I needed to let the reservoir dry overnight before refilling. But who has time for that?

So I refilled the pen with a darker more saturated ink: Colorverse Pillars of Creation (No. 88). It seemed like a good complimentary color to the light sage color of the pen barrel.

It took awhile to work out the green ink from the tip but eventually, with some scribbling I was able to get it to write.

The Wren did not show any sheening from either of the ink colors.

I did decide to compare the Wren to the more budget-firendly Kuretake Karappo Felt Tip pens (there’s another review of the Karappo here too..

The nib tip on the Karappo is a little bit wider than the Wren but they are quite similar. They both use the same capillary filling reservoir and the ink flowed with a similar color and coverage. The Karappo is sold in a set of 5 for about $15. Aesthetically, the Wren is much prettier but beyond that the two pens are quite similar.

Overall, I really wanted to love the Wren. Its pretty, pocketable and a clever idea but the ability to swap ink colors is pretty limited (it would probably be better to purchase new reservoirs than trying to reuse the old ones and it would probably also be more efficient to replace the nib tip as well.

I think the Wren is better suited to be used with one ink color like black, blue or blue-black rather than trying to get all fancy with it, especially at the price point. I would definitely be inclined to swap out the ink with a Platinum Carbon Ink so that I could use it with mixed media.

Now, its Laura turn!

So without knowing the Ana was going to come home with pens from Tom’s Studio, I decided to try out the Wren as well! I haven’t tried the Kuretake, but I did previously review the Meister Felt Tip Point, which was a roughly full size pen adaptable for cartridge or converter. I’m always a fan of pens that allow me to use up my ink stash (mostly likely stocked up beyond my life expectancy!)

I think I liked the Wren a little bit more than Ana did. Or maybe I just liked the concept a lot? I found the pen easy to use, and I loaded it up with Colorverse Photon ink. I did expect it would be a bit lighter than when I use it in fountain pens, but it still gave me enough color to be satisfied. I did notice that there’s no shading in the writing though.

I do think the pen writes nicely. The ink flows consistently and I do like the tip and how it feels on the page. I agree with Ana that it’s probably not the most convenient for changing out inks frequently. I did order more of the spare ink reservoirs, and I’m not too fussed about the changing color in the tip. I’m interested to see how long the tip lasts – Tom’s Studio suggested it’s about the length of writing up to 50 A4 pages.

I do like the pen, and I think I’ll get a lot of use out of it. But I do think the Wren has a few potential detractors. One – it is tiny. I don’t think there’s any way to use this pen comfortably without posting it. I have small hands and it’s “right-sized” for me, but I think those with larger hands might find it uncomfortable. Also related to size – that bit on the end of the barrel where you pull the pen apart. That section is really small and hard to grip, particularly if you don’t have small fingers!

The second detractor is the price. Don’t get me wrong – I love the anodized aluminum body and I’m not arguing that the pen is priced incorrectly. However, for what it is – a small EDC type pen that will need to have the reservoir and tips replaced on a semi-regular basis, I think it might be a bit pricey compared to some of the other offerings in the marketplace.

Your mileage may vary! (as a note I purchased my Wren with my own funds directly from Tom’s Studio. Shipping was prompt, but took a few extra days from the UK).

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