Pens and Ink: Favorites of 2017

Even though my pens and inks post were few and far in between this year, I still have been using and enjoying my fountain pens pretty much daily and wanted to share my top 10 faves similar to what I have done last year. It was tough to narrow it down but these made the cut. You can see most of them in action on my instagram account Present and Connected and half of them are made by small business owners and are handmade. They are not placed in a particular order,  I really enjoy using them all equally! From left to right: Momiji leafs in night sky made by 18111.com, TWSBI ECO turquoise (special edition), Mojito by Woodshed PenCo, Lecai with Twsbi stub nib, Franklin Christoph model 45 in blue pink black (special edition), Herbert Pen Company Pink seaglass, Sailor Sapporo Purple Cosmos with music nib, Pelikan M625 Ruby with BB nib and the Edison Nouveau Premiere Seaglass LE of spring 2017 (a collaboration of Goulet Pens and Edison PenCo). Let's take a closer look at them.

WIP: a nebula of sea glass (FPNL club meet edition)

So last weekend on Saturday there was a mini summer meet of our wonderfully growing Fountain pens the Netherlands facebook group. We called it mini as about 15 members attended (in contrast to last time where there was nearly 40 attending) It was a bit unsure if I was able to make it due to another appointment, but thankfully the day freed up! So I could happily chat with my fellow FPgeeks about our newest acquisitions on pens and ink and try each other's, not exactly Every day carry, but the pens they had inked up at the moment. The table shot above shows only a portion of the long table the group shared and the fun we had. The pen tray in the middle and the corner left pen pouch are mine, by the way. Oh and Janine (you can see her lovely handwriting at the right on the Tracing paper) had the brilliant idea of having a Pannenkoek for lunch (wish I had thought of that!) hence the sweet powder sugar and syrup on the table.

In preparation for the pen meet, I made a currently inked listing and made sure to include a special pen which arrived only a week before. The Edison Nouveau Premiere Spring LE Seaglass from Goulet Pens Co. You can see it on this desk shot, which I am sharing over at The Stamping ground for WOYWW #422, it's the blue and pink swirly pretty one! Let me show you a close up.

There... now ain't that a pretty one? I have inked it up with Robert Oster Cherry Blossom, as it's fitting to the pink swirls in the pen. I did have to smooth out the nib though, as it wrote quite scratchy out of the box (which was unusual because most of the time these nibs are 100% smoothed and ready to write) Fortunately I have a nib smoothing kit and it took me no time to get it tuned and ready to write :) Those swirls also really inspired me to make some mixed media goodness.

I made a little background for an art journal using a marble swirl stencil, Liquitex modeling paste and Lindy's Stamp gang magicals. So much Swirly goodness! I even took it one step further and played around with some digital overlays.

I am experimenting with some digital enhancements of my art and I really love the way this is looking :) A sea glass nebula!! Oh how i wish that pen material actually existed!! But now I think it's in need on some sparkly, shiny ink, don't you think? maybe the new Nemosine Blue Snowball Nebula sparkly ink? Or I should just "shop my stash" and find a Diamine shimmering ink for it :) 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to hop by your desk later this week. 

Have a wonderful day!