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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Journalling | Bullet Journals

One of the things I really want to do is create journals/planners which add to my productivity (especially now embarking into freelancing) but also to jot down everyday events which I might look back on in the future. Since I seem to have difficulty keeping up with blogging sometimes I am trying to commit myself to this by having a beautiful planner (The Hobonichi Techo) and searching the net for inspiration and top tips from frequent users of journals.

I found this brilliant explanation of 'Bullet Journals', a great way to utilise a plain notebook.

The layout is very simplistic once you get your head around it and the indexing is neat for future browsing. I like that there is no pressure to write anything as it isn't printed, you write the dates etc. in yourself. I get the feeling this is a little too liberating for me and would take away my commitment to write daily but it seems ideal for planning. I hope some one might find this interesting regardless.

I'm away to read a bit of Michael Palin's memoirs about his journals during his Monty Python years, bring on some inspiration!

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