Stationery | TOMBOW Ladies Pen in Orange

I stumbled upon a little store on Magdalen Street in Norwich yesterday which I'd never been in but walked by so many times. In the store there was an eclectic selection of goods, with small stock levels of a variety of general office stationery. While looking in a little cabinet I spotted this quirky white box with scalloped edges with that familiar TOMBOW logo and this excited my interests. The sweet little man working in the store got it out for me and as I opened the box a beautiful bright orange leather case appeared with a copper orange pen with silver details inside.

The size of the pen was ideal, it is about three inches long and has a ballpoint nib which extends out when you pull at the silver top. It fits snuggly into the leather case which has a luxury feel and a strap which adjusts and fits around my notebooks perfectly. I'm so pleased with this and it only cost me £5, when checking Amazon I noticed it retails for almost £40!

The pen is available to buy here.

Stationery | LAMY & TOMBOW

When I got my Tombow fountain pen I didn't think it had a cartridge with it so I checked online and found the ones on Amazon had awful reviews but a British website, The Pen Company, had a pack of 6 with very positive feedback. Although the price difference is quite big I wanted to have something which wouldn't mess up my new pen. The postage was free if you spent £10 so I picked a reasonably priced rollerball pen to make it up. 

The LAMY Safari rollerball in Charcoal is slick with the black all over and they even sent the box flat packed so you get to experience the full luxury without it getting crushed. The box seems influenced by architecture with its ribbed cut-outs and as a designer I appreciated this beautiful but non essential aspect. The pen itself is OK but I found it initially was a bit hit and miss when writing, the ink was a tad blotchy but I think this is likely just first time use. Physically it is comfortable to write with and I'm sure I'll get used to it. The ink it came with was blue which isn't ideal for me as I'm fond of consistency, so I will likely refill it with black. 

The service from The Pen Company was exemplary, the items were well packed and arrived swiftly. I'd definitely use them again.

Stationery | Beautiful Object

It is no great secret that I am a stationery hoarder. I have so much of it after years of studying creative subjects (Textiles, Fashion, Art & Design), I thought it would be fun to share some of my newest pieces. I got the Rose Gold Pen from Paperchase, I adore rose gold as a finish and have lots of jewellery like it. I really hope it is refillable as it is beautiful and very comfortable to use, writing very smoothly with black ink. 

The TOMBOW Object Fountain Pen in black matte is also from Paperchase. Unfortunately this is discontinued but I got it in the sale so if you're lucky you may find one in store (it is available from other sites though). I had been looking for a nice fountain pen online then this one jumped out at me whilst browsing the sales, the matte casing and generally minimalist style is so sophisticated and wonderful to touch. This is another pen that doubles as something beautiful to look at as well as use. I must admit, I haven't used a fountain pen since school so this should be an interesting new way to write in my Hobonichi. 

I went a bit crazy in MUJI, their sale was just too good to miss. Their gel pens never feel scratchy when used, unlike a lot of the general Western style gel pens so I picked up a few of these and a tin to store them in on my travels. The colour of the pens are very vivid, great for making important notes easily visible, they also come in different nib widths (0.5 pink and 0.38 green shown below). Aside from the pens they had some amazing stamps for an absolute bargain, just £1 reduced from £9.95 a set. I love using stamps in my journal, the space ones made me think of how we only recently got a British astronaut on the International Space Station (hurray). 

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