Shopping Highlight: a stationery tour through Berlin

Last month we had a little city trip to Berlin, Germany with my husband and in-law family. Of course I also had to look up some great stationery stores there and in this post I would like to share the ones I visited. It's going to be picture heavy visual tour from here out which I hope you will enjoy.

Shopping Highlight: Arturo Manuel Papeleria in Valencia

Last week I was going through the pictures in my phone and I noticed that I have not yet told you about the wonderful stationery shops I had found in Valencia while being on vacation there last March. Well, let me correct that mistake and share one of them with you today, Arturo Manuel Papeleria. This is a picture of the storefront and judging by the advertisement displayed, it looked promising and let me tell you it definitely was!

This is the view when you come in. It's actually quite a large store and they have a variety of items for sale, from from office furniture to luxury fountain pens and even art supplies!! Let me tell you, I was like a kid in a candy store!

The view from the opposite end of the entrance. The kind lady you see at the counter helped me a lot, showing me pens (there were a couple I wanted to see) and I found more of my fave turquoise ink ever and made it my Unicorn Ink!! Yep!! Ok, this is going to be picture heavy, so you can see more pictures of the store below and all will be revealed about the Unicorn Ink as well :)

Shopping Highlight: Papeleria Ferrer in Seville

A bit behind schedule, but I didn't want to keep this gem, which I found in my travels in Seville, from you any longer. A true paradise for fountain pen lovers alike, Papeleria Ferrer in Seville.

They are located on the Calle Sierpes #5 and it's really hard to miss with this gorgeous storefront. It's a small-ish store but packed full with fountain pens, craft supplies, notebooks and other fun stationery types. Pictures say more than words, so here follows a visual impression of the store.

And a glaring selfie. Yes, I'm wearing my doctor who shirt, one of many, actually. It was super bright when we came past it so all the window front pictures have a glare. Nothing can be done about that, but I do apologize for the lack of better quality pics of the storefront. Hopefully you can make out that it´s a well packed store and has very diverse stationery goods. There is a lot more to see on the inside too!

A variety of stationery and other fun goods

Kaweco and Cross display cases.

The Pelikan display case gave me pause...

I gaped upon this gorgeous LE Pelikan, The hanging gardens of Babylon, and it was impressive to see it in person. At 3500€ well it's definitely one for the serious collector.

After you´re done shopping, head out to the right side where you will find La Campana for some delicious pastries.

My husband just could not resist this cream filled puffed pastry... it looked a bit fishy to me ;)

Papeleria Ferrer also has a facebook page where they update the new arrivals and when you´re in Seville it´s definitely worth a visit. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

Shopping Highlight: Maspapeles in Seville

One of my fave things to do while I am on vacation is to spot some great stores (esp. stationery ones obviously) and I like to share a few I spotted in Seville when we were there earlier this month. There are a few so I'm doing this in a couple of posts. I am starting off with this gem we found while doing a 3 hour walking tour in the city.  By the way, the tour was via Feel the City and very informative and fun to do (but oh boy, we walked a LOT!)

So along the way in our tour to the Triana aria, we walked past Zaragoza street and on number 17 we saw this storefront of Maspapeles. We immediately took note of where it was on our map because it looked promising to return to. It definitely was as we returned to the store twice. The first time I was in awe of everything they had (incl. A very special Kaweco that went home with me, but more about that later) and forgot to take pictures. I corrected that the second time around though. Lots of pictures coming up:

It's a big store filled with a lot of fun stationery goodies.

A wall with journals, diaries and tools and boxes to help organize your desk.

Like this fun set inspired on the Real Alcazar motives.

Displays with pens (lamy, faber castell, kaweco to name a few) and even rubber stamps and craft supplies! This is like my dream store!!

They also sell handmade and unique jewlery.

And look at that beautiful wall of gift wrapping papers. They are also quite bike friendly, as you can see :) They allow customers to park their bike inside while they shop, how neat is that?

This is the view from the back of the store to the front. The employees are a super friendly bunch and have great customer service. The second time around I got to chat with a very nice lady, her name is Maria and I think she is the owner of the store (forgive me if I am mistaken...) She told me a lot about Seville, fun eating places and other stores. She was so kind to give us a "real map" of the city because she found the tourist maps to be really crappy and wanted us to have something proper :D The reason I came back to the store was to get more cartridges of Kaweco Summer Purple which I received with this pen 

The Kaweco Art Sport Samba. It's such a gem and I'll post more about it in a future pens and ink post, but this combo was golden so naturally I wanted to buy more cartridges. Well Maria actually gave me 2 packs of this gorgeous color for free, ontop of the one that I got when I bought the pen. I think it was mainly because of the fact I was so very enthusiastic of the pen and color combo, haha! SO very sweet of her to do so and I thank her and the other employees wholeheartedly for their kindness and time they provided us when we were in the store!

You can find more info, including opening times, on their facebook page and when you are in the aria, definitely stop by their store to have a look.

Calle Zaragoza is a fun street and here is another shopping tip for a vintage and scandinavian inspired clothing and housewares shop which is catty corner from Maspapeles:

It's called Hameväki and they sell clothes from Marimekko and Orla Kiely among others. I just love that style! If you're done shopping and a bit hungry, head further down the street to number 5 for an excellent lunch at La Azotea. Hopefully these tips were useful for you when planning a trip to Seville :) Next week I'll share more of my fave places.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

namasté

Disclaimer: This posts contain no affiliate links and nor have I been  sponsored in any way to write a review about these places. These opinions I shared here are my own.

Spotlight Stationery August 2016 Box Review

In my review of the July Box from Spotlight Stationery I mentioned I was eager to see the contents of the august box and then decide if I was going to subscribe to it (bi)monthly or not. It arrived a few weeks ago and finally have the time to review it here. If you are cleaver, you can guess the theme by the contents above :) Shown are postcards from artists at National Star and the note card is from The City Works.

On the appearance of the box: It actually fits through the mail slot which I really appreciate because there is no hassle to pick it up at the post office if the delivery was made when I was not at home to receive it! Also it's always so nicely packaged on the inside with the Spotlight Stationery logo sticker, slogan stamp and gorgeous blue tissue wrapping paper.

What I also definitely appreciate the personal touch with an envelope in my fave color addressed to me (also handwritten!) I am sure that using my fave shade of turquoise for an envelope was a total coincidence, as they used it (I think) because it's the second color in their logo :)

On to the content: This month's theme is, as stated on the explanatory note, Architecture with a emphases on buildings and skylines. The note with the theme and explanation of each item in the box speaks a lot about the care and effort they take in curating it. It's definitely not just randomly thrown together! 

This time the box was stuffed with two really cool pocket notebooks: The City Works Debossed notebook on the left and the Riba Museum Pocket Journal on the right. Let's take a closer look at them below.

The Southbank Debossed Notebook from The City Works has such a beautiful and unique cover! It has a raised "debossed" hand pressed cover which is fun and pleasing to the touch. The notebook is A6 sized, blank notebook with 144 pages in it, which lays flat in use so it can be great for sketching on the go. I'm really liking the look of this notebook! The Kensington greeting card, which you have might have noticed on the first picture in this post, is from the same makers as this notebook. 

The other book is a "Museums and Galleries" pocket journal, published by RIBA Publishing, which stands for the Royal Institution of British Architects. It's has 178 lined pages, with a storage pocket in the back and a magnetic closure "flap"on the front. The cover design is adapted from a drawing by Charles Robert Cockerell "the most famous building in the world" and is in the collection of RIBA Archives and Libraries. Now being Archivist/Librarian myself I know you can find amazing treasures from the past in unknown archives, like this beautiful drawing! I'm glad that RIBA is making these accessible for us and the sales of these books benefits the RIBA Architectural Library as well. And helping Archives and Libraries stay open and free of use for public is something I fully support!

About the pens that were included: on the bottom you see the uniball eye roller ball pen in fine with black waterproof ink. It's an instant fave! I had used these before a long time ago and happy to get reacquainted with them again :) New to me is the uni ball air on top which I received in blue and with a broad tip.  It doesn't say it's waterproof on the pen, but in the product description it says it is when dried. I should test it before I try it with watercolors, though! It also has a fun tipping, you can write thick or thin depending on the angle you write with. So sorta like a fountain pen or a pentel tradio, but this has a round tip. I could use them both in my art work for sure. 

FYI: The London city silhouette bookmark you see below the pens was not listed, but have seen in other pictures of the box that they all have it and I suspect it was just thrown in there as a fun extra :) 

In conclusion: The content of the box is worth more than the 25£/30€ subscription fee for sure. This month we have received not 4 but 6 postcards (9,50€ for the set), 2 uni ball pens (2,50€ each), a hand pressed greeting card (3,50€) and two notebooks (blank - 13€ and lined 10€) The prices are based on what I found for each item upon searching the products through google. Bringing the total value of the august box 41€ ex. shipping. 

That is definitely not bad a bad deal at all! I also really liked the contents of this box and like the July box, this one is also sold out. But Spotlight Stationery still have a few of their past boxes for sale and they recently added the postcards sets to their shop as well. And if you so desire you can always subscribe to the Stationery box on a monthly or bi-monthly basis (the september box ships on the 23rd this week!). 

So the question remains, will I or won't I get a subscription. I have really thought about it and even though I really liked the content of both the July and August boxes at this time I won't be getting a subscription. This is purely because of 1) Budgeting reasons (there is a Penshow coming up in Tilburg later this month which I am saving my pennies for...) and 2) my stationery hoarding is getting WAY out of control! While I like getting new products to try, I actually need to TRY and USE them as well and not just get new stuff all the time. Like these pocket notebooks, I have like 5 different ones sitting in my closet to use. Now it's 7... Sigh, it's been an ongoing issue with me and trying to get better at using and not hoarding. So for these personal reasons I am not indulging getting a subscription (at this point in time) but I DEFINITELY recommend it as the Spotlight Stationery team surely do a great job in curating these boxes!

Hope this review was useful to you if you have been thinking about subscribing to the Spotlight Stationery box. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

namasté

Disclaimer: I was not in any way compensated by Spotlight Stationery for this review. There are no affiliated links and the opinions reflected above are completely my own. 

Spotlight Stationery July 2016 Box Review

Yes, the above pic may or may not contain spoilers ;) But July box is sold out and the August boxes have been shipped, so this review has been a little bit over due but I wanted to share it and my thoughts about it with you at any rate. 

I've been following Spotlight Stationery (a (bi)monthly stationery subscription box service based in the UK) on Instagram for a while now and then they posted a while back that they still had one July box left, I grabbed that chance with both hands (also because the spoiler photo had something Turquoise in it and yeah how can I let that pass me by?!) Mary from Spotlight Stationery crew kindly let me buy the box as a one-off, which I really appreciate as I was on the fence to get a subscription right away. So thank you again, Mary! The boxes are 25£ plus postage and packaging (UK: £2.00 Europe: £5.25 Rest of the world: £7.50) So I paid the equivalent of 36€ including PP and a few days later I had this waiting for me in my mailbox:

It looked well stuffed and I was beyond excited to open it!

The goodies came in nicely packaged in tissue paper and looks very stylish with their logo and slogan "Indulge your passion for stationery" which I certainly did!

And these are the contents of the July box; I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Rhodia themed!

The set included (pricing is based on uk webstore prices upon googling the items): 2 staple bound small pocket notebooks (grid) (2£ for both), triangle orange pencil (1,50£), soft black leather pencil case (10£ but a seemingly hard item to find as it's out of stock in most stores...) and the turquoise thing I was so curious about is a soft cover Rhodiarama A5 notebook in dot grid (13,75£) which I always wanted to try out! So I was super thrilled to find that in the box. Also I have to note that this was a departure from their usual boxes as they made it themed based on a brand. I definitely like this idea and I hope they will do that again in the future!

What I also like about this subscription box is that you get an assortment of postcards by young/up and coming artists along with it. There are some really talented people out there and I always love to support indie illustrators and by getting a Spotlight Stationery box you are also helping a charity. For every box they ship they will make a donation to National Star, a charity working with young people with disabilities and acquired brain injuries. I don't know about you, but for me this does lessen the guilt of buying or as they put it "indulging" in buying more stationery. Well played Spotlight Stationery team, well played!

I am definitely happy with the content of my first ever (no I kid you not!) surprise stationery box purchase. (I haven't done subscriptions ever since I stopped with the Inkdrop offered by Goulet pens back in the day) I definitely think that the cost of the box is well worth the content in this case. The summed up amount is 27,50£ and that isn't even included the postcards. Lets say those are 2£ each and then the total would be 35,25£ which what you pay for the box incl. shipping to the EU! So if you like the content of the box as much as I do it is definitely worth it IMHO. 

The question I am struggling with though is will I get a subscription? Will I indeed subscribe to indulge in my stationery needs? The thing is, while I do like surprises, I also like knowing what I will get and what I like about Spotlight Stationery they also offer their past boxes as a one-off buy. I have not made up my mind about this yet, but as I typed this I have noticed they still had one of the August boxes left! Which is a total surprise as I have not seen any spoiler pics of the content yet. So I went ahead and got that one as well and I'm going to wait and see the August box content before I do subscribe. 

If you want to subscribe, when you register for their email news letter, you will get a discount code for 15% off on your first box. Yeah I also have no idea what I am waiting for really, it's such a good deal... maybe it's the fact that I am still thinking - do I really need all this stationery as my closets are overflowing with notebooks I have not even used yet. Well maybe I should make a conscious effort to do so and do some more stationery related reviews!

At any rate, I hope this review was useful to you if you are considering to subscribe to the Spotlight Stationery box yourself. Thanks for stopping by and have great day!

namasté

Disclaimer: I was not in any way compensated by Spotlight Stationery for this review. There are no affiliated links and the opinions reflected above are completely my own. 

Shopping Highlight: Traveler's Pop Up Store at Misc Store Amsterdam

From october 24th to november 24th there is a Traveler's Factory pop up store at Misc Store Amsterdam. With great goodies from Traveler's notebook and other midori items some of which are exclusive to Japan only. The picture above gives you an impression of what you can find there and you can browse through my flickr album to see the close up pictures of exclusive goods there. 

This weekend 7th and 8th of november they have a special "Traveler's Company Caravan make your own spiral notebook" event!  An array of delicious papers to choose from to make your very own unique notebook! It's definitely fun to do and I'm planning on standing in line tomorrow :) 

Maybe I'll see you there? 

namaste!

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