The Well-Appointed Desk

That In-Between Feeling

AnaMarch 20, 2023March 19, 20239 Comments

Right now, in the Midwest, it is no longer winter but its not quite spring yet. This in-between weather is similar to my in-between feeling in my stationery world as well.

I am almost finished with a notebook, a Stalogy A5 that I’ve been using to journal. I’m not quite finished but close enough to consider what the next notebook will be. Do I stay in the same notebook cover (Curnow turquoise cover) and just buy another Stalogy notebook or do I try to mix things up? To be honest, actually being at a point where I’ve almost finished a notebook is a new sensation for me. I often get bored or lose momentum on a particular notebook far sooner than I reach the end of the book. It feels a little risky to mess with a formula that has actually had me writing just to try something new.

This is all the pages I have left in the A5 Stalogy — maybe 20 pages?

In my stationery cupboard, I have a few notebooks that I could pull off the shelf to be my next journal:

I am loyal to the Paperblanks heavyweight paper notebooks and any 68gsm Tomoe River I can find: in this stack are four Paperblanks MIDI sized notebooks (approx. B6) and five 68gsm Tomoe River from Endless, GLP Creations and Odyssey Notebooks.

Okay, many more than a few. I recently bought a several more Midi sized Paperblanks with the 110 and 120 gsm paper. Like so many people, when you find the paper you love, you stockpile it. We have all seen how quickly paper can change or be discontinued. I prefer the 68gsm Tomoe River paper and have been stockpiling it for sometime as well. I actually traded some of the lighter weight OG Tomoe River for the 68gsm because, as a lefty, I just can’t justify the dry-time/smear-likelihood of the lighter weight. I’ll sacrifice a little sheen not to have ink all over me, my notebook and everything else.

Inks swatched on Col-o-ring Oversize paper.

I’ve been on a purple ink trend all winter. Both my daily use pens (Don’t shoot me. They are both Sailor ProGear Slim fountain pens with EF nibs.) have been filled with purple-y inks (Monteverde Birthday Cake and Lennon Tool Bar Morning Glory which are almost identical and Monteverde Blueberry Muffin which is much more of a burgundy than purple). The Monteverde Birthday Cake is a seriously underrated ink. It has a great range of shading and it sheens under the right conditions too.

I’ve been using these three inks so consistently that that I have actually put a dent into the amount of ink in the bottles. Is this the year I actually finish a bottle of ink or am I ready to move to a different color family?

What’s your feeling on this mid-season malaise? Do you feel the itch to change things up or, if you’ve had success with a pen/ink/paper combo, do you stick with it? Do you have favorites you go back to time and time again?

In feature

Giveaway Winner: Enigma Stationery Nahvalur Exclusive “Brilliant Bunny” Fountain Pen

AnaMarch 20, 2023March 19, 20232 Comments

I cannot believe how many folks entered our giveaway for the Enigma Stationery Nahvalur Exclusive ‘Brilliant Bunny’ Nautilus Fountain Pen. Truly amazing and thanks to everyone for sharing their Chinese Zodiac signs.

I am a year of the dog, by the way. Really! A cat person born in the year of the dog?!? Craziness, I know.

Now, for our winner:

Congrats to Stephanie! May she embrace her inner rabbit this year with her new fantastic pen!

Special thanks to Enigma Stationery for providing this pen for giveaway.

In Link Love

Pennaquod

AnaMarch 17, 2023March 17, 202310 Comments

Do you love reading posts at the Desk? Do you ever wish you could find a ton of other pen and stationery aficionados you can follow? Do you want to search for specific topics or reviews? Then we’ve got the answer: Pennaquod.

Pennaquod is maintained by Ian and is a way to search through compendium of posts from a ton of fabulous blogs. You can search Pennaquod for a specific topic (my search here was for “Platinum 3776”) and get a full list of blog posts on the topic to browse at your leisure.

Or you can simply browse the list of blogs Pennaquod searches and check out the ones that appeal to you to find new reviews.

All the blogs included are produce genuine blog reviews, and Ian’s site is a resource to the community, and not a for-profit venture.

Happy reading!

In feature

Ink Review: Taisho Inks, Part 1

Jessica ColesMarch 16, 2023March 16, 20232 Comments

I get so excited when I find a new line of ink! The manufacturer of this line is Teranishi and I’ve come across two lines of their ink – Guitar and Taisho Roman. I have three of the Taisho Roman inks to show today. I picked these up from St. Louis Art Supply for $18.95 each which works out to $0.47 per mL.

The external packaging for the Taisho inks is almost identical to some of the Taccia inks, perhaps giving hints to the actual ink manufacturer. The bottle contains 40mL of ink and has a small tag attached with space for a tiny swatch of the ink although the paper used for the tag is too absorbent to show the ink color accurately.

The three ink colors I have here are Gentle Green, Smoky Navy, and Opera Rose.

Opera Rose is an interesting color – a bit under saturated terracotta or salmon orange/pink/brown. It shades but not dramatically.

Papier Plume’s 011 ink is a few shades darker than Opera Rose, but the color is a match.

Smoky Navy has some great shading and is a lovely blue-black ink. Occasionally a hint of sheen shows up but only in the swatch.

I had a hard time finding a match to Smoky Navy in my collection. The lightest portion of the swatch is a match with Diamine Prussian Blue, and the darker areas appeared to match Robert Oster Thunderstorm, but the camera brings out much more green in Smoky Navy.

I saved my favorite of the batch for last. Gentle Green. It immediately reminded me of Taccia Sabimidori with the way is wrote blue but dried to a definite green.

When comparing Gentle Green to Sabimidori, though, the colors were further apart than I had imagined. The heavier applications of Sabimidori are close to the color in Gentle Green, but the overall color is quite different. Wearingeul Mad Hatter is a good match.

The first page below is Tomoe River (TR7) paper

Next is Midori MD paper – this paper is cream rather than the white of the other two examples.

Finally, Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper.

Here’s another shot of the Cosmo Air Light paper, turned to catch the sheen in both Gentle Green and Smoky Navy.

Scrolling through the photos of the paper types, you may have noticed how different the Taisho Roman inks appear on each. Gentle Green is the most obvious, but all three colors change between papers. I’ve photographed pairs of notebooks to show how much they can change.

Tomoe River 52gsm is on the left with Cosmo Air Light 83gsm on the right.

Cosmo Air Light 83gsm is on the left with Midori MD on the right. These don’t even look like the same inks.

So which ink and paper combination is your favorite?

DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.

In Link Love

Link Love: Moving Right Along

AnaMarch 15, 2023March 15, 20233 Comments

I can’t believe its already the middle of March! Normally, this time of year, I’d be preparing to head to Little Rock for the Arkansas Pen Show but due to starting a new job, I don’t have the seniority to take as many vacation days as I have been able to take in the past. So, I sit in my studio, surrounded by cats and pack orders from here.

Many of these orders are for the sale pens listed in the shop right now. Laura and I culled our collections in a rash of spring cleaning. For me, doing a bit of collection culling leaves room to try new pens and to set some free to find better forever homes. With a collection as large as mine, many pens have sat un-inked for years while other pens get used on a daily or weekly basis. I also think that over time, I’ve found the size and style of pens that work best for me so the pens that don’t fit comfortably in my hands are ready to find their Cinderella hands.

Do you get bitten by the spring cleaning bug?

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In Tools

Did someone say pen sale?

Laura CameronMarch 14, 2023March 10, 20231 Comment

Ana and I are enormously lucky to be able to buy and try so many gorgeous pens. However, at times, we find that the pen stash has gotten a bit unwieldy, and some pens rise to the top of the ‘must-be-inked-at-all-times’ while others remain unused.

So what are we to do but have a pen sale and find forever homes for these beauties! A few notes about the sale going on right now over in the Well-Appointed Desk shop:

All pens are in “gently used” condition. At a minimum they have been inked and used for review, and they may have been used a little more than that.
All pens are listed at prices to sell. Many of these pens we bought with our own money but, regardless, prices are mostly well below retail.
All pens come as is in the listing (with or without boxes and converters included, with the nibs specified). We don’t like surprises.
It should go without saying, but these are all lovely pens in working order. We’re not getting rid of them because they don’t work. More like our pen cups runneth over and we’d like to see them get used and loved.

We hope you find a new-to-you pen and we’re thrilled to send it to a new home!

In Tools

Enigma Stationery Acrylic Sample Vial Display

AnaMarch 13, 2023March 11, 20232 Comments

I am not sure how to describe my utter delight when I opened the box that revealed the Enigma Ink Sample Stand ($40). It is a giant acrylic fountain pen nib with holes die cut into it to reveal spots to store ink sample vials. There are 31 holes, perfect for a month of ink swatching and sampling.

The design is an extension of Enigma Inkvent Set that was released at the end of 2022. The original Inkvent design only had 25 holes to hold ink samples so the new design, made out of acrylic and is shipped flat is perfect for anyone who likes to swatch an ink a day or just needs a great way to store the ink samples you still need to swatch or try.

The set does not ship with ink samples but I wanted to show how fabulous the display looks filled with ink vials.

The stand is about 4.5″ deep so it doesn’t take up much space on your desk and stands proudly at about 14.5″ tall and 6.375″ wide at its widest. I like that it gets my ink samples up off the table and easy to see. I’ve had other ink vial holders but they are wide and flat and take up precious desk real estate.

The holes are designed to fit the standard 5ml sample vials favored by most fountain pen retailers.

The model I was shipped was especially designed for me in a sparkly pink acrylic. For the initial release of the 31-Day Ink Sample Stand, Enigma will be offering them in gold, silver and copper shimmer acrylic. More colors may be available in the future. Head over to the web site to sign up to be notified when the product launches officially.

I think this is a brilliant concept and I can’t wait to see photos on Instagram of these sitting on desks throughout the pen community.

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

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