WIP: the ongoing struggle of an inkophile

Yes friends, take a good look at my desk in all its messy glory. To some this might be a nightmare, but for me it's a victory. First let me explain what you see here, though for fountain pen people visiting my blog, this is a familiar sight. These are test tube vials filled with fountain pen ink. Samples of ink which were either bought at various pen sites (the main one being Goulet Pens Co.) or swapped/given to me by friends. Yes, there are thousands different ink colors of there by hundreds of different brands. It can get overwhelming, to choose a color to buy a full bottle in. Where to begin and where to stop? Having a sample of an ink you are interested in does help. You can swatch them out, see if it is the shade of color you like, if it has sheen or if it's waterproof... but even a small vial of 2-3 ml of ink (times 50 per tray) has proven to be hard to fully use up. And for a hoarder like me, it's a tough challenge. But I am slowly getting there, with the help of Konmari this year.  From 6 full trays a few years ago and to now 3 is a victory! Let me tell you, it felt soooo goood to decommission that ink tray, I had to photograph and share this momentous occasion with my fellow deskers at WOYWW this week :) So plan is to keep using up those ink vials either in my art work or in my fountain pens, of course. For instance the ink below was sent to me years ago by a dear friend.

Last week I made an art journal with this quote from a stamp and I had to write it down in my Stalogy B6 which I use for quotes. I hardly ever buy pink inks, but they are fun to enjoy once in a while. This Rose rage is a super powerful shade of pink and fun to use in my new pen from Herbert Pen Company. I know I won't be buying a full bottle of this ink but it's an on going struggle of an inkophile, not to continuously buy more and not use what you have. I am trying to be better at that. 

By the way, the work aria of my desk now is cleared of the trays 

What are you struggling to use up in your stash?

Thanks for stopping by and check out more desk stories at Julia's blog this week and play along if you want :) 

Have a great day!  

Art Journal: Amazing Diva

It's such an amazingly fun challenge to create pieces using project left overs aka 'tovers only. This piece was intended to be a postcard but I loved it so much I decided to adhere it to my art journal as I couldn't part with is. I used all sorts of scraps and left over pieces here but what started it off was the top. It's a color coded row of double ink sample swatches! I keep ink samples in trays and have it organized by what I have done already but for some reason I made an oopsie and made swatches of one row twice. Well of course it's too pretty to just throw out and if you see my scrap boxes you will know I have trouble to throw out anything!  I then looked for trims in the same color family to adhere to the page. Instead of vertically like I did with this journal page, I went with horizontal lines to see how that would go. And I absolutely love the outcome here! The Frida image is a left over print from this journal page and is a stamp from Lost Coast Designs - so are the words I used. I felt like I needed a POP of color and in my scraps I found that colored in whimsical seed pod from Viva Las VegaStamps! which I had used from this journal page almost a year ago! So very cathartic to use up all these scraps and seeing how all these elements come together as one :) The "frame" is just ripped out magazine pages from FLOW magazines. Yes, I have had a TON of them due to my 3 year subscription and those are all "free game" now - ripping stuff out feel SO GOOD! LOL! 

I would like to enter this journal page in the following challenges: 

The WaterCooler Wednesday #121 - Anything goes challenge   

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything goes 

Time Out Challenge #84 - Inspired by Words 

'Flowers and Friends make life a garden' 

The green and seed pod reminds me of a garden... it could be Frida's garden :)

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #37 - A year of choices

Wow, has it been a year I have been participating? 

I really loved this past year's themes esp. what's your super power and put a stamp on it. 

I feel like this journal page combines the two :) 

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend!

Giveaway: InCoWriMo letter writing starter packs! (open until january 24th!)

The month of February is slowly but surely approaching and that means that InCoWriMo is nearly upon us! To celebrate this fact, I am doing a little letter writing starter pack giveaway for my followers here and on Instagram :)

First, what is InCoWriMo? The International Correspondence Writing Month, for short Incowrimo is a phenomenon that started in 2013 and the goal is to connect with people through, as they call it "vintage social media" - ie writing a letter, postcard, note etc the old fashioned way and mail it to that person. And the pledge is to do this for 28 days, so the whole month of February! Yep, 28 letter/mailings in 28 days! See more on how to participate on the official site. It's all about using your stationery, pens and inks more and of course connecting with people the old fashioned way!

Seeing I have waaaay too much stationery I will ever use up in my lifetime, I wanted to share some with my followers here and on IG. I have compiled, not one, but two starter packs to giveaway! That's right, two lucky people will receive a starter pack from me so you can participate along with so many others (including myself :) The starter packs contain one letter set with sheets of paper and envelopes, a vintage fountain pen (a piston filler) and 5 different ink samples.

Set one consists of midori letter set, Herma 56 piston filler vintage fountain pen and ink samples: Montegrappa bordeaux, Platinum mix leaf green, Pilot Iroshizuku Tsustuji, Pelikan Edelstein Amethyst and Montblanc Blue Hour.

Set two consists of kamio Engrish letterset, Liberty piston filler vintage fountain pen and ink samples: Pilot Iroshizuku Kiri Same, Organics Studio Join or Die, Omas Turquoise, Platinum Mix free earth brown and Diamine Grape.

What you have to do to win one of these packs: 

Set one will be given away to one of my blog readers and all you have to do is comment on this post and let me know who you would write a letter to and why. That is it! Set two will be given away ion my instagram and you can also enter there (same question) if you want to try to win that set. Just look for the giveaway picture on my instagram and answer there. 

RULES of the giveaway:

Open internationally, Only one entry per person per set (so once on instagram and once here) and the giveaway closes on January 24th at midnight CET, I will announce the winners (which will be chosen at random) shortly after in the following day or two so they can get the starter pack just before International Correspondence Writing Month starts. 

So what are you waiting for? Leave me a comment and tell me who you'd write to :) 

Also if you'd like to be on my InCoWriMo mailing list; leave your address here at my POSTABLE. (disclaimer: While I will do my best to send mail to people on my list, which is now half full, but if there is a high demand I might not be able to respond to everyone's request.)

Thanks for stopping by and looking forward to read your answers below :)  Have a great day!

Inky Goodness: Montblanc Miles Davis Jazz Blue

On a recent visit to Akkerman in the Hague I noticed the new Montblanc special edition ink on their shelves, Miles Davis Jazz Blue ink. I was super excited to try it out as I love blue inks esp if they lean toward turquoise hues so I bought it. Sadly, this is one of the very few times this ink is not the color for me and am disappointed with the special edition MB has released. Though the color on the ink swab looks like a nice saturated rich blue, it isn't. I had to swab it twice over to get some richness of color showing. The ink has a very watery consistency, almost looks like a diluted turquoise ink. Swabs on the left are done on Herma sticker paper, the top is swabbed with a q-tip once over, here you see the normal saturation and the bottom is heavily saturated. It could look good in writing with a flex nib as my test writing with the Swan flex pen looks nice on the maruman word card. Let's take a closer look at the ink. 

Here Montblanc Jazz Blue is flanked by Noodler's revolution blue on the left and Toucan royal blue on the right to show you similar ranges of blue in the same color tone. Jazz blue is lighter than both but in color tone it leans more toward Revolution blue, but the ink has the same watery consistency as the Toucan inks have. I inked my Sailor Sapporo Haruzora Sky Blue fountain pen with MB Jazz Blue to test how it writes in a medium nib.

This pen in particular is a dry writer. I don't often use this pen, in fact this may be the second time I have inked this pen. And even though this pen and ink combo does match nicely, the ink itself does not really "wow" me like say Dandy Turquoise does. In writing the color also looks a lot like Diamine China Blue. Writing is done on 70gms Lyreca office paper.

I also did some tests on tomoe river paper to see if there is some sheen in this ink. This is the cream colored tomoe river and you can see that the ivory color does dull down the blue color of the ink ever so slightly. The ink is definitely better looking on stark white paper. I suspected this ink doesn't have any sheen and after drying time (this took a looong time to dry!) my suspicions were confirmed.

It does dry up with a nice blue halo, but no signs of redness caused by sheen of any kind. The drops look a bit pastel blue and with heavy saturation it's a high shading ink, but without any sheen. I do see a lot of potential for this ink in artistic endeavors, it definitely looks like a spring sky blue to me. Perhaps this would make a beautiful combination with Montblanc Pink in a sakura sky setting. Looking forward to test that out :)

Hope this was helpful to you, should you consider getting this ink for yourself. Let me know your opinions on this ink should you have tried it, I would love to hear it. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

Inky Goodness: The life of an inkophile...

This is what my coffee table set up looks like on a random sunday evening:

On the couch next to me a tray of inks waiting to be swabbed on Maruman Mnemosyne wordcards. The tray included lot of older Sailor inks which are discontinued now. 

Swabbing away while binge watching "Being Human" episodes. Used a waterman 12 to write the make and color of the ink. Lots of pretty and saturated colors in this swab round! Such a shame those bright, happy Sailor Jentle colors are no longer regularly available!

The Q-tips after one swabbing session leaves a pretty "Q-typical abstract art" and it's such a fun sight to see!

I still have about 3 full trays to swab and 3 more seasons of Being Human to watch... and a few new inks are coming my way soon too... so much to look forward to! 

What are your ink swabbing habits? 

Thanks for stopping by!

namasté 

Pens and Ink: Pelikan M620 Athens and PE Amethyst

Last year I got to participate in the Pelikan Wanderlust/box and had a chance to sample the LE ink of that year, Pelikan Edelstein Amethyst. I paired it up with my Pelikan M620 Athens.

I love the "wanderlust" sign on the bottle! I think they have repurposed their bottles from their last project ;) So the idea was to write a letter on why you love/use fountain pens and stick it back in the box and send it on to a fellow enthusiast.

Hmmm... I have not purchased the M200 Amethyst yet... maybe I should get on that.

The ink is a nice lavender color and looks good on ivory paper. The shading looks better on white paper though.

An excerpt from my mindfulness meta-meditation journal (a.k.a the loving kindness meditation). You can also see the pretty translucency the pen has. 

So the wanderboxes are still out there (I passed this one on to my friend Tania a while ago) and I am curious to see the end results like in the Wanderlust experiment Pelikan had put out there. 

Thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Pens and Ink: Pilot Namiki Resin Falcons & the Blue Hues experiment

During my Chistmas break from work I was catching up on Goulet Q&A (where Brian Goulet from the Goulet Pencompany answers FP and stationery related questions on a weekly basis) and in episode 106 a reader asked him

"Can the Pilot Falcon (resin) be converted into an eye dropper?" 

Which is something I have wondered about myself seeing I have 2 of these resin falcons. Brian tests them out with water and it seemed to work! But he also said it needs to be tested with inks and see if it leaks in the long run /during storage. He then asks to anyone whom owns a resin falcon to help and test this out as well. So I thought, why the hell not and satisfy my own curiosity?!

As I said I have two Falcons: an older Namiki branded one with Medium Soft nib with gold finish and a newer Pilot branded one with Soft Extra Fine nib with rhodium finish. I converted these falcons by using silicone grease and a spare O-rings I have from my TWSBI's. I put the O ring flush against the section's metal ring above the thread ends and applied a liberal amount of silicone grease on the treads of the section. With a pipette I 'droppered' the ink from the vials in the pen bodies. Then screwed tight.

I used to have a monthly  Goulet Inkdrop  subscription for over 2 years and still have SO many ink samples to try out in pens. Wanted to test some blue hues and used the following samples in my Falcons: Diamine Presidential Blue (kinda fitting with the whole election race going on in the US at the moment) and De Atramentis Atlantic Blue which is darker than I expected it to be. Both are fun alternative choices if you want to have a different work-safe Royal Blue ink tone in your pen. 

I used the Falcons in my daily mindfulness meditation journal and the ink flow in the writing kept up nicely. No blobs of ink gushing out of the pen as sometimes with eyedropper conversions can be the case (something to do with the heat of your hands that can build up an air bubble in the section and causes to blob ink ... or so someone told me, I flunked chemistry in high school...) I've had that in my Pilot preppy and 78G happen before, but nope not with these birds. I was very pleased with their performance.

They are quite pretty Birds too. But the real questions remains, do they leak? Well I am happy to report, no they do not! I've had them lying horizontally on my desk overnight on my notepad and no leakage. I've had them stored upright in my pen cube for a night too and no leakage. 

Pretty sweet! Now I can keep using these babies to test more samples with :)

The X-Files are back, baby! Sorry, super random, but I am loving the season so far!

So I think it's definitely safe to convert your resin falcons to an eyedropper. What you do have to consider though that it is tough to gage the ink levels in the pen as it's a solid black body and no ink window. Not really a solution for that except to write with your pen until it runs dry. Or maybe carefully unscrew the section and place the body upright in an ink tray and peek in the barrel with a bright flash/phone light? I would only test this when you are at home though... ink spillage may occur.

Comparison shot of the SEF pilot branded falcon and the older SM namiki falcon nibs with different Rhodium and Gold finishes. To me this is serious nibbage though some may or may not agree. Also check out Gourmetpens review with more facts, flex comparison and sexy nib shots! 

Hope this info helps when you are considering to eyedropper convert your Pilot/ Namiki Resin Falcon fountain pen. 

Thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Pens and Ink: Waterman 52 with PR Naples Blue

As you may or may not know (it's hard to miss really!) I really like blue inks, esp. turquoise and teal blue. In a recent visit to Akkerman in the Hague I found this gorgeous blue ink color which I did not have yet. I corrected that mistake immediately!

It's Private Reserve Naples Blue (yes, yes I know I made a spelling boo-boo on my sample card, But to my defence that's how you spell Naples in Dutch ;) and by luck they had a large bottle of it and it was on sale! Double score!! The samples above are done with a Q-tip and on Maruman Mnymosyne wordscards cardstock and the wash out next to it on 80gsm Office Supply grid paper. The maruman card shows the deep saturation and man it has some gorgeous sheen to it! It's best seen in wet writers and flex pens like below.

This was for a flexnib friday post on Instagram and it's written with my Waterman 52 with Ideal nib #2 which has a really nice flexibility to it. The glare on the writing is wet ink, and it dried up with an amazing sheen!

Check out that red sheen! Nice deep saturated blue color with amazing sheen and and even some shading... Private Reserve really made a gorgeous color here!

What is your current fave pen and ink combination?

Thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Paper Goods: Maruman Mnemosyne Word Cards

Last week I got ill with a really unpleasant flue type thing and was stuck at home for a good while. So I thought I'd spend my time doing what I like to do best, organizing and cataloging stuff. Yeah it was almost like being at work ;) I wanted to make a better and more comprehensive chart of all the inks I have in samples and bottles. The color chart wheels I made with Le Typographe ticket books are fun, but limited to the set of pages in those booklets. When I heard about the Mnemosyne Word Cards on the Goulet Q and A while back, I knew these would be perfect for what I had in mind.

This was my set up: In front of the telly, while watching some Graham Norton episodes on you tube... And then it was swabbing time! 

The cards hold up ink really well, great drying time, no bleed through and minimal feathering!

Q-tips are great for swabs, and I made sure I hit the edges of the cards and used a vintage semi flex pen, by Onoto de La Rue to dip and write the brand and ink name.

The booklet has 100 sheets with 156 grams of water color like paper. Because there is no bleed through, you can also opt to use the back of the cards. I will use it to write information on the type of ink on (ie if I have just tried a sample or a bottle) 
And three ink sample trays in, I already filled one of these booklets! I am currently busy with booklet number 2 and the sad news is that I heard these word cards are being discontinued, so I stacked up on them to make sure I can still use them for future swabs.

Hope this gave you some idea's on how to make your own ink swabs.

Thanks for stopping by!

namaste