Rants of The Archer

Notebook Review: The Northerly by Field Notes

2012-01-17T17:45:00.007+08:00

I have been reviewing pen and paper products for almost four years now. I've reviewed notebooks from Asia, Europe, and mostly from the United States, but I have not had a glimpse of a Field Notes pocket notebook yet. Back then, I didn't like small notebooks, and Field Notes was not available here in the Philippines. Last December though, a local online shop announced that they are selling the Field Notes Brand, beginning with the Winter 2011 Colors Release, The Northerly. I knew I had to get my own set the moment I saw the bright white notebooks. Never mind that I don't like small notebooks.

The Northerly by Field Notes. Winter 2011 release.

Thirteenth in the Field Notes Colors Series, The Northerlies, like other Field Notes notebooks, measure 3.5 inches x 5.5 inches. Small by my standards, but large enough for my notes. My notebooks (each order comes in a pack of three) came before the New Year and it was definitely drool at first sight. The bright show-white Kromekote cover printed with "Icy Silver" soy-based ink on the embossed Field Notes logo is sooooo beautiful. Even the silver-coated band holding the notebooks together is beautiful.

The back cover of The Northerly bears Field Notes' logo, including the proud declaration of where the notebooks were made.

The inside cover of the notebook is for its owner's personal details. I haven't filled out this page yet because I'm still searching for a pen that will write permanently on the shiny, coated Kromekote. Perhaps I'll use a Sharpie here.

The inside back cover, on the other hand provides extensive information on Field Notes' story, the notebook's specs, and some suggestions on how to use the notebook. I like that. My favorites are 'Things Done Right', 'Resolutions, As Yet Unbroken', and 'More Reasonable Resolutions'. The specifications part is a marvel to read. As a publications designer, I'm in the printing and publishing business and I understand all the printing lingo written here. As I read on, I can see tall stacks of Kromekote and Finch paper and hear the mechanical noise of the press, the Heidelberg stitchmaster, and the round corner machine. I can even smell the 'smell' I get when I'm inside a printing press.

Another beautiful thing about the Northerlies: round page corners! All Field Notes notebooks have round page corners, including The Steno. I've always preferred round page corners for my notebooks, especially those with thick cardstock for cover. Square, non-round page corners can sometimes cut into my fingers and palm while I'm writing, or get caught in the fabric inside my bag.

Unlike other pocket notebooks with the usual two staples for binding, Field Notes notebooks are saddle stitched in three staples to provide extra durability.

The Northerlies have the usual Finch paper that Field Notes use in their notebooks, except for a nice 'twist': the inside pages have 4.5mm x 4.5mm white graph lines on a cool, blue-gray background. I like this graph lines, except that I wish they were a bit thicker. The thin lines can sometimes be hard to see, especially when lighting is not very good.

A new collection? This is all your fault, Field Notes.

This is my 'test page' for my first Field Notes notebook. Notice anything new? The Pilot G2. But of course! I've always tested notebook paper using my fountain pens, and I did that with my Northerlies too. Initially, I was disappointed when I saw the amount of feathering and bleed on the Finch paper (see photo below). I put away my notebooks, not knowing what else to do with them. Then I realized that I could still make use of them — using other pens that will not bleed. That's why this notebook review has a Pilot G2 instead of a colorful Lamy Safari.

The Northerlies are clearly not for fountain pen use. I don't care. It's still cool, hip, and fun!

So now I'm going to wait for the next limited edition Colors notebooks by Field Notes. I wonder what color they'll come in next. Purple? Black? Gold? I can't wait!

Now, who else can think of a really cool slogan like this one? Everybody, come on! Let's all write everything down to remember them now!

Notebook Review: Banditapple Carnet

2011-12-12T19:15:00.008+08:00

I first read about Banditapple Carnet notebooks in June when my friend Julie wrote a review in her blog. Out of curiosity, I sent an email to Banditapple's creator and owner, Arnie Kim, to ask for sample products to review on the blog. Three months of waiting and chasing the guys at our Post Office, I received the lovely notebooks that Arnie sent to me.

Banditapple Carnet notebooks are sold by its creator and owner, Arnie Kim from Seoul, South Korea, though they are all hand-made in Vietnam. Arnie said that his notebooks are now available in stationery stores not only in South Korea, but also in selected stores in Japan.

The notebooks come in three sizes (Peewee, Handy, and Tablet) and two cover colors (Hanoi Red and Saigon Black). All Banditapple Carnet notebook sizes are available in either blank or ruled paper with 64 pages of acid-free, 80gsm off-white paperstock. The cover used on the notebooks is plain cardstock which makes them look very simple, and almost anonymous and unbranded. But I like that. I'm also glad that Arnie sent me samples of all available notebook sizes and covers, and that he sent me notebooks with both blank and ruled pages.

Peewee in Saigon Black cover with my first generation pink Lamy Safari.

Peewee is the smallest among the three available notebook sizes of Banditapple Carnet. It measures 3.5 x 5.5 inches, sized like a pocket Clairefontaine notebook, Venzi, or Field Notes. The photo below shows the Peewee on top, and all the notebooks I mentioned underneath it. All notebooks have the same dimensions, they just differ in either their binding (stapled or stitched) or corner cuts. Since I received the Banditapple Carnet notebooks, I've made the Peewee my 'ink diary'. It's the perfect thin, small, black notebook I can carry with me anywhere because it fits in the plastic zipper pocket of my Midori TN. When I need to see how a certain ink behaves in a particular pen, I just pull out my Peewee.

Handy in Saigon Black cover with my yellow Lamy Safari.

Handy, the 'middle' size, measures 4.25 x 8.25 inches. This notebook made me very happy as soon as I saw it. Why? Because it's the same size as my Midori Traveler's Notebook's refills! And what's better, the Banditapple Handy have round page corners.

Banditapple Handy in Hanoi Red cover on top, Midori Traveler's Notebook refill below.

See? Banditapple's Handy fits my Midori TN perfectly!

Tablet in Hanoi Red cover, with my LE orange Lamy Safari.

Tablet, the biggest Banditapple notebook, measures 5.125 x 8.25 inches. It is sized like a large Moleskine or Rhodia Webbie, or as shown below, a soft cover large Venzi notebook. I got a blank Banditapple Tablet, and I may just turn it into a sketch/doodle/calligraphy notebook later.

Banditapple Tablet in Hanoi Red cover on top, soft cover Venzi below.

The other wonderful feature of Banditapple Carnet notebooks is their binding — the pages are stitched — not stapled, not glued, but stitched. A single signature is stitched to the cover, and the notebooks' stitching match the color of their covers.

Neat stitching on spine...

...and on the notebook's pages.

And now, the best part about these wonderful notebooks: the paper. Banditapple uses 80gsm off-white (read: not-so-white), acid-free paper. Dr. Matthias Meckel, blogger at Bleistift, wrote that Arnie spent more than two years to find the right paper for his notebooks. And his efforts paid off. Banditapple Carnet notebooks have one of the best papers I've ever tried with my fountain pens.

Banditapple uses a .25 inch page ruling; top margin of .75 inch, and bottom margin of .625 inch. Ruling has been printed using soy type ink.

The pages have no side margins, though. The ruling extends to the edges of the page spread.

And I saved the best for last: the pen and ink tests on Banditapple's Handy notebook. Because the Handy is a tall notebook, I was able to test a couple of pens on a page, including fountain pens, a rollerball, gelpens, and a permanent marker. I like using different pen types to test a notebook's paper because it shows me instantly how the pens and inks react to it.

Banditapple uses paper that is not smooth and shiny white. But it is very excellent for fountain pen use, especially to very broad and wet nibs such as those on my Esterbrook pens. The Esterbrook LJ and Trans J pens below both have 9968 (firm broad) nibs and I did not see any feathering or bleed at all. Even the badly notorious bleeder called Noodler's Midnight Blue behaved so well on this paper. I also noticed that some ink types even showed better color in Banditapple's paper, like Edelstein Jade and J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis. Drying takes a longer time compared to other paper types, but that is just fine.

All in a page: 21 fountain pens, 1 rollerball, 9 gelpens, 1 permanent marker.

Banditapple paper up close. Ink is J. Herbin Café des îles. I love the pure, cottony goodness of paper on a close shot like this. And even at a very close view, I just don't see the ink feathering on paper.

This is how the back of the pen and ink test page looks like. Not one of the 21 fountain pens bled or feathered, but the Sharpie permanent marker just had to bleed very badly. But that's how Sharpie behaves on almost all of the paper types I have ever tested.

Lastly, here is the Peewee notebook that I have made into an 'ink diary'. Very cool. I like keeping an 'ink diary' because it's a way of keeping an informal inventory of my inks and pens. And I am very strict with myself that whenever I fill a pen, I have to write down the date, ink type, and pen used so I have an ink/pen reference.

If you need more information about these wonderful notebooks, Arnie Kim's contact details are on his site, http://www.banditapple.com/. Or you can email him using this email address: owner@banditapple.com if you want to discuss notebook orders. You can place orders for his notebooks in bulk and he will gladly give you a good price and a choice of whether to ship by air (faster), or water/surface (slower by 2 weeks, but then, the package gets to you). This is the best way of ordering from Arnie at the moment.

I am not affiliated with Banditapple Company, I am just a very satisfied owner of these wonderful and amazing notebooks.

The Banditapple Carnet notebooks used in this review are from the Banditapple Company through its creator and owner, Arnie Kim. The other notebooks, pens and inks used in this review all belong to my personal collection.

Notebook Review: Quo Vadis Keith Haring Artist Series

2011-11-20T21:15:00.000+08:00

I have a lot of notebooks. I actually have an insane number of them inside my 'notebook cabinet'. While some are from my impulse buys, most of them came from my silent sponsors, as samples for review. I'm fascinated by colorful things, but I have always been fond of plain-covered notebooks. I like using any black-covered ones for journal writing and note taking. I also use a small black notebook for the 'ink diary' that I keep (more on that on the next notebook review).

When I received the Keith Haring Quo Vadis Habana notebooks that Karen Doherty (Exaclair's USA VP for Marketing) sent to me a few months ago, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. Late last month, while I was sick and recovering at home, I saw the notebooks again and decided to try them out. That time, though, it was definitely love at first write.

Keith Haring Habana notebooks are the most recent addition to the Quo Vadis limited edition Artist Series that include the art of Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse. Picasso's "Portrait of Dora Maar" and Matisse's "Icarus" and "The Creole Dancer" are the selected cover designs of their respective series.

Keith Haring's "Earth Day" and "Baby" on small Quo Vadis Habana notebooks.

These Keith Haring Habana notebooks, as with the other notebooks in the Quo Vadis' Artist Series, are made in France, with leather-like cover material which I love because they are soft, not very smooth, and not shiny either. This leather-like material is wrapped on what I assume is thick board, making the cover solid. The firm, solid covers of Quo Vadis Habana notebooks are made to provide writing support. Photo below shows the notebooks' back covers, printed with Keith Haring icons in the middle, while the Quo Vadis logo is etched in the bottom.

Quo Vadis made Keith Haring Habana notebooks in four designs and two sizes. The four designs are: 'Baby', 'Heart', 'Earth Day', and 'La Ronde'. They are available as either small (4" x 6") or large (6¼" x 9½") notebooks. Both Haring Habanas used in this review are small notebooks.

"Earth Day" is only available in small (4" x 6") size.

"Heart", though, comes in small (4" x 6") and large (6¼" x 9½") sizes.

The Keith Haring Habana notebooks have the same features as their regular counterparts: they have the elegant page ribbons/markers and elastic closures in matching colors. Soon I'll be tying the end of the page ribbons into knots to prevent ugly fraying.

Keith Haring's signature is printed in white on the notebooks' front covers. How elegant.

The small Haring Habana notebooks have 96 sheets of very smoooooth satin ivory paper. The pages have 5.5mm ruling, a welcome change from the wide 8mm ruling previously used on both large and small Habana notebooks. The pages have round corners too, which is great. I prefer notebooks with round corners because sharp page corners can sometimes cut into my fingers and palms when I'm writing. Round corners also look more elegant and stylish.

Round page corners of the Haring Habana notebooks.

Another wonderful feature of Quo Vadis Habana notebooks, including the Haring Habanas, is their sewn binding. This ensures more page security and flexibility, and also (again) adds to the notebooks' elegance. Sewn binding is so much better than most punch and bind methods because the pages are more secure and also tidy.

Sewn pages of the small Haring Habana notebooks.

These special Habana notebooks have lovely spines printed with Keith Haring's signature and icon. Definitely a welcome change from the old, plain spines of my previous notebooks.

The Haring Habana notebooks have printed spines.

The Habana's "small" is not the same in size as the "pocket" of other notebook brands, which is always misunderstood by many users who think that the two sizes are interchangeable. "Small" and "pocket" sizes are not the same. Several brands share the same "pocket" size, such as Moleskine and Rhodia, and Scribe here in the Philippines, while Quo Vadis uses the "small" size alone.

Size comparison: Two pocket notebooks on top, Moleskine and Rhodia.

The two notebooks below are small regular and Keith Haring Habanas.

I mentioned earlier that the Haring Habanas have smooth satin ivory paper. It is really very, very smoooooth but I did not have any difficulty writing on it. In fact, the smoothness made writing very easy and comfortable, compared to other overly smooth paper types that make writing uncomfortable. I also noticed that while the ruling in the old Habana notebook pages went all the way to the binding, it has a certain margin in the new notebooks.

If paper can make people happy, the Haring Habanas' paper will.

I know because the smooth satin ivory paper made me happy.

Unlike the previous Habana notebooks with continuous lines, the Haring Habanas have dotted lines. But that's fine. The dotted lines didn't get in the way of my writing, or with the readability of what I've written. I actually think this is cool.

Haring Habana page up close. See the dotted lines?

Below is a page devoted to pen and ink tests, and I included gelpens, felt markers, and a permanent marker in the list to fully test the paper. All the fountain pen inks I tested on the Haring Habana fared very well. I did not see any serious feathering or bleed, even with the notorious bleeder, Noodler's Midnight Blue. I also used a couple of pens with broad Esterbrook nibs such as the Transitional J with Private Reserve Black Magic Blue and J pen with J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage. This is good news, and it made me very happy.

The "non-fountain pen" pens I used in the pen and ink test include Pilot G2s, Stabilo felt markers, Zebra Sarasas, and a Sharpie Ultra Fine Permanent Marker. All the other pens wrote well without feathering or bleed, except for the Sharpie which feathered and bled like an open faucet. But that's just okay. Sharpies bleed bad on most papers.

Inks on the Haring Habana up close: Waterman South Sea Blue, Pelikan Blue Black,

Private Reserve Black Magic Blue, and Pelikan Edelstein Jade.

The "non-fountain pen" pens: Pilot G2, Stabilo, Zebra Sarasa,

and Sharpie Ultra Fine Permanent Marker.

Shown here below is the back of the pen and ink test page. It's almost clean, without any ink bleed, except for the one on the bottom part of the page. which is the Sharpie pen.

Sharpie pen bleeds at the bottom of the page.

Overall, I am a very happy recipient of these notebooks and I am beginning to think of how to use them soon. A small journal? A notebook for my daily notes? Who knows? Being the fanatic that I am, I'm sure I'll find a way to use them sooner than I thought I would. Now you know where to get yours, right? All information about these lovely Keith Haring Habana notebooks are posted Quo Vadis' site here: http://quovadisplanners.com/notebooks, and also at the Quo Vadis blog here: http://quovadisblog.com/

The Quo Vadis Keith Haring Habana notebooks used in this review are from Exaclair, Inc. through Karen Doherty. The pens and inks used in this review all belong to my personal collection.

Notebook Review: Midori Traveler's Journal

2011-10-22T18:46:00.029+08:00

The Midori Traveler's Notebook has been one of my grail notebooks for the longest time. When I started collecting (and using) high-quality notebooks, I read about it at Patrick Ng's Scription site, and instantly fell in love with it. I wanted it, but I knew I could not have one. Yet. It was expensive and not available here in the Philippines. So I just continued to ogle at the thousands of Midori Traveler's Notebook photos on Flickr.

Unknown to me, the Philippines' biggest seller of fountain pen related stuff, Scribe Writing Essentials, has began stocking up and selling this highly coveted cultish notebook. After talking to its owner, Marian Ong, a notebook set was sent to me for review, pronto.

Marian sent me a large black Traveler's Notebook (TN) and I was instantly amazed by its Japanese packaging style, which is both presentation and function. Midori's packaging is minimalist and simple, yet elegant and classy. The notebook is packaged very well inside what looks like a thin box made from kraft paper, held together by a firm black elastic band. A small flyer about the notebook is also included in the packaging.

Inside the box are: large black leather Midori TN, cotton slipcase for the notebook, blank notebook refill (003), and a spare red elastic band to hold the notebook cover and refills. The soft cowhide leather of the Midori notebook/journal (sourced from Chiang Mai, Thailand), and the wide variety of changeable inserts, embellishments and other accessories give it a unique charm and magic.

The first thing on my mind when I saw my Midori TN is the paper used in the notebook refill. Paper is very important to me as I am a regular user of fountain pens. And I am ready and willing to forego any notebook if the paper cannot tolerate my very wet fountain pens and very saturated inks. Would it stand fountain pen use? Or would ink feather and bleed through its pages? Luckily for Midori TN, I knew that I can make my own refills, so paper is not an issue, but I'll discuss that towards the later part of this review.

The blank notebook refill has a kraft board cover and 64 pages of cream-colored paper . The inside cover page is printed with an upright rectangular box and the Midori logo.

As soon as the notebook was out of the box, it's customization galore!!! The first thing I did was to change the elastic bands. I opted to use the red band to give the notebook some contrast and brightness. The tiny round thing on the upper left corner of the notebook cover holds the elastic bands that keep the notebook inserts in place.

I rummaged through my boxes of stuff and found a small glass bead charm I could use to secure the end of the Midori TN's thin bookmark. Lovely, isn't it?

Next, I made my own refills using pages off my large Rhodia dotPad. I went to a printer, had them saddle-stapled several notebooks, and trimmed according to the Midori TN refill size. I recycled Starbucks paper bags as covers for my new refill notebooks. I had fun making Dymo tags for them too.

The first notebook is for lists of everything I have done and finished the whole day -- an inverted 'to-do' list.

The second refill is for my notes. Any notes. Blog ideas, project concepts, sketches, hand drawn maps, phone numbers, pen and paper stores, ink notes, restaurant bestsellers, etc.

Refill number three is a microjournal, called so because I have a full journal already. I just want to have a journal in my Midori TN. I have small writeups in this notebook about places I visited, postcards I received, books I've read, or movies I've watched.

I have also included Midori's plastic zipper pocket refill. This refill has one large zippered pocket and another pocket without a zipper. The zippered pocket can hold a lot of stuff, especially small pieces of paper such as receipts, stamps, business cards. Sometimes I put a pen or two inside and still manage to zip it. The pocket without zipper can accommodate bigger sizes of paper like postcards, prescription notes, etc.

Perhaps you've noticed that I've added another bookmark to my Midori TN with a new charm. I made one more bookmark for my "Finished/Done" notebook, as the original bookmark/charm is used on my microjournal. I love these charms!

But the customization does not end there for my Midori TN. It's now full of stickers and stuff (stamps, tea bag tags, postcards, etc. I know there will be more of these as the leather ~~gets more scratches and scuffs~~ softens with use and becomes more beautiful.

Finally, the paper test. The refill that came with my Midori TN is blank. As I have difficulty writing on blank pages, I went ahead and ordered a ruled/lined refill which is what I used in the pen and ink test below. The cream-colored paper used in the ruled/lined refill is Midori paper. There are two types of paper used on Midori's notebook refills. One is Midori Diary (MD) Paper, the other is Designphil Pocket Book (DP) Paper. A note in the Midori website (here) gives a full explanation on the differences of the two paper types.

Midori Paper is smooth and thankfully fountain pen friendly. Some ink types showed feathering, but not one of all the inks I tested here bled.

Below is the back of the pen and ink test I did. There is not bleeding at all. The tiny blob of orange is show through, but it is very mild and not very noticeable. I say I'll be using this refill for another microjournal when my own refills ran out of pages.

I've kept the red elastic band for now and rotate several black bands with different combinations of trinkets and charms. One band has a small pewter elephant, another has a series of different color beads with a drop of olive green Swarovski stones, rescued from an earring without a matching pair. I've also changed charms since, and I have ordered a batch of lovely charms from a local supplier. I have stocked up on black elastic band from a local crafts store and just yesterday, I got a set of vintage letterstamps I'll use for more fun of notebook customizations. Will I use this notebook for how long it will be serviceable? Yes. With a notebook as versatile as the Midori TN, who wouldn't? The possibilities with the Midori Traveler's Notebook is excitingly never-ending!

The large Midori Traveler's Notebook used in this review is courtesy of Scribe Writing Essentials, and the regular, passport size notebooks and their refills are all available in their Eastwood City Mall store. A regular/large Midori Traveler's Notebook set sells for PHP2,595 (~US$61), while a passport-sized notebook costs PHP2,295 (~US$54). If you are somewhere in Asia, and would like to try the possibility of ordering from them, give them a call at +63 2 487 6339.

On Review: 12 Red Inks

2011-10-14T12:00:00.008+08:00

Can you guess how many red inks are here?

I know I did not reveal the answer as soon as I have promised, but did you make a guess? Did you get it right? If your guess is 12, then you got it! There is a dozen red inks in this doodle and in this huge red ink review. Twelve! Some of them are inks I have reviewed here before, but most are new.

I remember that the first time I did a combined ink review was for my first set of J. Herbin inks – Bleu Pervenche and Rouge Opera. That was ages ago, and recently, I felt like doing one again. This time though, I got more than two, as my ink stash have grown quite a bit. And I love red inks, as much as I love brown and dark blue inks. So here are the 12 red inks in my current collection.

The 12 inks here are J. Herbin Rouge Opera; Diamine Poppy Red, Red Dragon, Syrah, and Oxblood; Parker Quink Red; De Atramentis Fuschia; Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink; Camel Scarlet Red; Styl' Honoré Cocktail ink Rouge Amaryllis; and Mont Blanc Bordeaux.

A group pic of all 12 inks.

And all of them again in swatches on Clairefontaine's Graf It Sketch 90g white paper.

PARKER QUINK PERMANENT RED

Parker Quink Permanent Red has a pale red hue that appears more like pink when used with fine nibbed pens. This ink looks better on pens with wider nibs such as the stub on the Parker Jotter I used here. It has very minimal shading, not saturated, and flows well. However, it is not colorfast, and fades after some time.

CAMEL SCARLET RED

Camel Scarlet Red is brighter and redder than Quink Red, but still leans on the pinkish side. On fine nibs, it appears more as bright pink than red, as it is on the writing sample above, written using a Pelikano Junior with a fine nib. On wider nibs, however, it looks better, brighter, and redder. Camel Scarlet Red is a saturated ink, but shows very minimal shading. It dries fast, though.

DIAMINE POPPY RED

Diamine Poppy Red is a bright, vibrant, 'orangey' red. Like most Diamine inks I’ve used and reviewed, this red ink is highly saturated, but has surprisingly excellent flow and is quick drying. I have tried it on several pens with different nibs - including a Waterman Phileas with a wet medium nib - and the results are the same – it has no shading at all. It is very flat, like Diamine Orange, but that's just fine. If I ever need a red ink for editing and correcting, I’ll choose Diamine Poppy Red anytime.

ROUGE HEMATITE/J. HERBIN 1670 INK

I’ve read almost everything that has been said and written about this ink, and it’s still one of my favorites. Never mind that J. Herbin’s 1670 Anniversary ink is way, way too saturated and slow drying. Never mind that it stained the converter of my Waterman Hemisphere. Never mind that it gives any pen filled with it with an ugly and horrible nib creep and dried yucky caked ink on the nib and feed. Never mind. Rouge Hematite, the correct name of this J. Herbin ink, is, and will always be a favorite. Its unique color of bright orange and earthy blood red with tiny gold specks is just wonderful. The gold specks give it the most amazing, and most unique shading.

STYL' HONORÉ COCKTAIL INK ROUGE AMARYLLIS

Rouge Amaryllis is among the very limited, highly coveted Styl’ Honoré Encre Cocktail Ink series. This ink has a lovely dark red color with strong hints of purple that makes it look almost like burgundy. It has excellent shading, especially in wide-nibbed pens such as the wet medium Parker 45 I used in this review. Rouge Amaryllis has medium saturation which ensured excellent flow and good drying time. The cocktail ink series were sold in a fountain pen boutique named Styl’ Honoré in Paris, made by the store owner Patrick Arabian. The cocktail inks have been described as the ‘best ink’ ever, but Patrick Arabian has stopped making them.

MONT BLANC BORDEAUX

Mont Blanc’s Bordeaux ink has the typical red wine color, but it’s not as dark as I want it to be. Still, it’s a unique red color with hints of purple, though not enough purple is present to darken it a bit more. Most inks are not colorfast, and Mont Blanc Bordeaux is sadly one of them. It easily fades after drying and fades even more after some time. It is not as saturated as my bottle of Mont Blanc Black, but it has excellent flow and dries fast even when used on a wet medium Parker Rialto.

DE ATRAMENTIS FUCHSIA

Fuchsia is a coveted color for me. It reminds me of little girls’ dresses and the long silk ribbons in their hair. De Atramentis Fuchsia has a vivid, strong, and deep reddish-purple color that looks lush and rich at the same time. It’s the perfect companion to my first run limited edition pink Lamy Safari with a smooth medium nib. This ink is very saturated and thus, takes a lot of time to dry, but it has excellent shading and a consistent flow.

J. HERBIN ROUGE OPÉRA

Herbin’s Rouge Opéra is among my first two inks from Exaclair. It was magical to finally get a taste of a non-Parker, non-blue, non-black ink for the first time. I was instantly drawn to Rouge Opéra’s dusky rose color, and the shy hints of purple is just perfect to give it a unique and balanced red-purple hue. Like most of J. Herbin inks, Rouge Opéra has excellent flow because of its medium saturation. On the Pelikan M205’s super wet medium nib, it’s like turning on a tap as soon as the nib touches paper, but it dries fast on most paper types. The most unique thing about this ink? It smells nice.

PARKER PENMAN RUBY

Parker’s Penman ink series has long been discontinued due to complaints that it tends to clog and eventually destroy pens. What a shame. Penman Ruby is one of the few unique red ink colors I’ve seen, and for that, I’ll try to forget its flaws. At times, it looks like reddish brown, but sometimes, it appears like burgundy. Both unique beautiful colors, and the shading is just excellent. But it is a very saturated ink and writes dry on a medium Parker 25. I have not experienced any issues regarding its flow, but the dryness makes writing uncomfortable for me. Then again, at times when I'm in the mood for a different red, I’ll pop a cart of Penman Ruby onto one of my Parker pens. Pronto.

DIAMINE SYRAH

Diamine launched Syrah, together with Red Dragon, Oxblood and seven other colors in 2010. Syrah's color was derived from Binder Burgundy, the famous ink color that Richard Binder developed on his own by mixing specific parts of Sheaffer Red and Waterman Violet. News said that Binder worked with Diamine to make a color that will exactly match his mixture, and that became Syrah.

Syrah and the two other reds are absolute favorites in my ink stash. Who wouldn't be attracted to Syrah -- to its wonderful deep red/burgundy ink color? The blue, purple, and red combination is perfectly attained in this mixture to produce an excellent burgundy that does not come strong as red or purple. (Yes, somewhere there's blue in this ink.) It dries a beautiful burgundy, (which is how I hoped Mont Blanc's Bordeaux would turn out to be when it dries) and shows beautiful shading, especially in wide nibs such as the medium nib on my TWSBI 530. It’s a very saturated ink too, and not fast drying (but it dries). For more details about this beautiful ink, watch out for the full review which I am soon to finish.

DIAMINE RED DRAGON

Diamine Red Dragon is a deep, dark red ink color that has similar qualities as Herbin's Rouge Hematite. The 'orangey' red and earthy tones make a red-blood color. Like Syrah, Red Dragon is a highly saturated ink, which is perhaps the reason why it has minimal shading only. It has excellent flow, and thankfully writes wet and smooth on the fine nib of my Pilot Non-Self Filling pen. Yet again, like Syrah, Red Dragon takes longer time to dry, especially on high quality papers such as Clairefontaine and Daycraft.

DIAMINE OXBLOOD

Diamine Oxblood is one of the few available inks in the market today to resemble the true color of fresh blood. It is a lovely deep dark red - darker than Red Dragon - with more brown in it. Oxblood is another highly saturated ink from Diamine with minimal but beautiful shading. On my Pelikan M205's medium nib, it does not show a lot, but on the 1.1 Lamy Joy nib, the shading is simply awesome! Oxblood, despite its high level of saturation has excellent flow. It just takes a while to dry, though.

I've been lucky enough to have all these 12 red beautiful inks. I'm drawn to the darker ones and my obvious absolute favorites are Herbin's Rouge Opéra and Rouge Hematite; and Diamine's wonderful triumvirate of Syrah, Red Dragon and Oxblood. I always have these beautiful inks in my rotation.

I love group shots! Here are the 12 pens I used for the review. Most of them are regulars, I just added the rest. For a glimpse of how the inks behaved in different pens, here they are:

Parker Jotter (stub, courtesy of Pentageli) with Parker Super Quink Permanent Red;
Pelikan Pelikano Junior (fine) with Camel Scarlet Red;
Waterman Phileas (medium) with Diamine Poppy Red;
Waterman Hemisphere (medium) with J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink;
Parker 45 (medium) with Styl' Honoré Rouge Amaryllis;
Parker Rialto (medium) with Mont Blanc Bordeaux;
Lamy Safari (medium) with De Atramentis Fuchsia;
Pelikan M205 (medium) with J. Herbin Rouge Opéra;
Parker 25 (medium) with Parker Penman Ruby;
TWSBI 530 (medium) with Diamine Syrah;
Pilot NSF FP (medium) with Diamine Red Dragon; and
Pelikan M205 (medium) with Diamine Oxblood

Lastly, I just want to acknowledge the kind friends who gave me the inks in this huge review. Diamine Poppy Red, Syrah, Red Dragon, and Oxblood are all from Diamine of UK, sent by Phil Davies; J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink and Rouge Opéra are from Exaclair's VP for Marketing Karen Doherty; Styl' Honoré Rouge Amaryllis is from fellow FPN-P member Carl S. Cunanan, and De Atramentis Fuchsia is from my best buddy in the western hemisphere, Tom Overfield. The rest of the 12 are mine.

Reds! Lots of Red Inks!

2011-08-19T00:00:00.000+08:00

Can you guess how many red inks are here?

The answer will be revealed very, very soon. :)

Go Online to Buy All Your Office Stationery!

2011-08-16T14:36:00.005+08:00

If you’re running a business and own an office space, then you will definitely need a wide range of office stationery items to ensure an organized operation. Such office supplies include desktop stationery, desk accessories, bags and envelopes, pens and pencils, diaries, calendars, labels, notebooks and notepads, packaging items, files and folders, etc.

With the advent of the internet, the best way to buy all these items without any hassle is to go online, where you will discover a number of trusted stationery stores such as Euroffice, an online store that offer all the office supplies you need at the most reasonable prices. Some of them provide low-cost delivery alternatives, while others give freebies such as free deliveries when you purchase products over a certain price limit.

Online shopping provides you with greater alternatives for your office supplies and lets you get them in amounts that not only match your requirements but meet your budget as well. Beloware some guidelines to make the most of your office supplies on the internet.

Make sure that the company you select is trusted and reputable in its field and has been in the business for a long period of time. In this manner, you are assured that in case you have any difficulty, or seek any recommendation, they have the knowledge and experience to assist you.
In the event that you need stationery items fast, you can always choose a company that facilitates quick delivery within 1-2 business days. Some may ask for an additional fee for this option, but you must be aware of it before your order is processed and even delivered. However, Euroffice always ensures next day delivery free of cost.
In addition, make certain that the online store you choose offers the products of the brand names you desire. If you have been using a particular brand for your copier paper and pens, then just persist with that brand name without being enticed with a low-priced product. If they don’t provide the brands you need, it is advisable to get in touch with them and ask first if these products can be delivered. Always keep in mind that other retail stores may accept your request.
Thousands of products from brands like Avery, 5 Star, Emgee, Leitz and Concord are on sale at Euroffice. So, make your selection for office stationery now!
This may seem like an obvious one, but check that you’re buying products at the best prices available in the cyberspace. Furthermore, ensure that the company you choose is offering excellent customer service. There are many web-based stores for stationery supplies and even if some may charge a bit higher than others, you may notice that the product delivery is without charge, making the ultimate difference in the product price.
If you own a big office and need huge amounts of office stationery, make certain that the online store is able to fulfill that need. A lot of stores do not maintain a large inventory, thereby resulting in non-fulfilkment of your order, particularly if you have to place one more order after a week or month.

When purchasing over the internet, you should know that if you need any suggestion or have a trouble with any item, there is competent customer support in place. An online contact form or an email address is not going to be sufficient; there must be a telephone number that you can call in case of urgency.

Ink Review: Diamine Orange

2011-08-01T20:45:00.007+08:00

When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out ~ because that's what's inside.

- Dr. Wayne D. Dyer

(Internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development.)

The past several weeks have been gloomy and dreary from where I am. A number of typhoons and tropical depressions have continuously dumped enormous amounts of water on most parts of the country; for days, dark rain clouds shadowed us in. But as I stayed indoors, I took out my box of inks and found Diamine Orange -- I got a bright, happy ink color for company!

I received Diamine Orange from the first batch of ink samples that Phil Davies sent to me. I didn't like it at first because it's too bright. Then again I realized, what orange ink won't be bright? Point taken, I found a use for it: underscoring my notes and lesson modules. I began filling my wide-nibbed pens with it and Diamine Orange became one of my two favorite ink colors for underscoring.

Diamine Orange is a bright, brilliant, vibrant ink. It is very saturated, like all Diamine inks, but has excellent, smooth flow. Despite its high level of saturation, feathering and bleeding occurs only on a few types of paper (but note that feathering and bleeding are affected by a number of factors). This Diamine ink is very bright orange while wet, but becomes just as bright when it dries.

Named after the ripe orange fruit, orange is a color between yellow and red in the visible spectrum. After several comparisons, Diamine Orange looked to be having just the right amounts of yellow and red, making it an almost-perfect orange color.

True enough, this ink reminds me of ripe oranges, tiny juicy clementines, fragrant satsumas, freshly squeezed OJ, and cold orange marmalade on top of hot, buttered buns.

I tried very hard to capture this ink inside the plastic 30ml bottle. These tall, rectagular plastic bottles are spill-proof because of a simple mechanism inside the cap. I carried Diamine Syrah in a similar bottle in my bag for a day and though it got jostled and tumbled, the ink did not spill at all.

I also noticed that this ink clings to the inside of the plastic bottle, unlike Woodland Green and Majestic Blue that just runs off. The lovely amber-like, orange liquid is just lovely.

In the photo below, the ink looks almost like a fragrant, sweet syrup waiting to be tasted.

Below is Diamine Orange on Kokuyo graph paper. I love Kokuyo paper and use it specifically for my Diamine ink reviews (here and here) because it is resistant to feathering and bleed. For this review, I used a Manuscript 1.5 crisp italic pen for calligraphy and my cadmium yellow Sheaffer No Nonsense with medium nib for regular writing.

When I did the shoot for this review, I needed to pull down the shades in the room to underexpose the following photos. I had to do that to capture the ink color properly. When shot under normal or bright light, this orange ink glows!

I wrote the quote using a 1.5 crisp italic nib, and though I noticed some very faint shading in the end strokes, I cannot say that Diamine Orange has shading.

And it is just the same in my alphabet set. There is very faint shading in the beginning and end strokes of the letters.

But with or without shading, isn't this the most vibrant, happy orange ink in the world? Here is Diamine Orange from my cadmium yellow Sheaffer No Nonsense with a regular round medium nib. This is a very saturated ink, but flows surprisingly smooth on the pens I used for this review. It also dries fast on Kokuyo paper.

Aside from Herbin's Diabolo Menthe, Diamine Orange is only the other ink I use for underscoring. It's such a joy to see my notes and module pages come alive with the different ink colors I use for underscoring and highlighting, though I mostly use my Pelikan M205 ink for highlighting.

I only have two orange fountain pen inks aside from Diamine Orange, and they are J. Herbin Orange Indien and Caran d'Ache Saffron, all happy colors! Orange Indien has more yellow and I use it to color some of my drawings. Caran d'Ache, on the other hand, has more red, and sometimes I use it to write entries on my diary.

Diamine Orange has just the right combination of yellow and red that makes it a bright, happy orange. On a page of white paper, the color just pops out! Aside from underscoring, I also use Diamine Orange to write headings on my notes and comments on my modules. If I need to write something for emphasis, I'll grab a pen with Diamine Orange!

And just because I got a Zebra Sarasa and Pilot Frixion gel pens with orange ink, I included them here too.

Among the Diamine inks I have reviewed, this is the fastest to dry. Both Woodland Green and Majestic Blue took around 26-28 seconds to dry on Kokuyo paper. Diamine Orange took only 13 minutes to dry, which is just half the time it took for either of the two inks to dry.

I like write-testing an ink on different papers. Doing so makes me see how the ink behaves on different masses of pulp.

Up close, here is Diamine Orange on Kokuyo paper.

There is slight feathering here but the ink did not bleed at all.

On Venzi paper. I'm happy to see how beautiful and neat the letters are. There is no feathering, and definitely no bleed! (Must get more of this notebooks.)

Lastly, here it is on Whitelines paper. It's my first time to use Whitelines paper and though there wasn't any feathering, I noticed that the ink bled.

I don't have favorite ink colors, and as I am drawn to brown, and dark shades of blue and red, I also gravitate towards bright, vibrant colors because they brighten my notebook pages. Diamine Orange is a bright, happy ink that I enjoy a lot and brings a smile to my face every time I use it. It makes reviewing fun for me! And though its brightness prevents me from using it for regular writing, I will always find ways to use it.

Fountain Pen Review: Lamy Safari Aquamarine

2011-07-16T10:00:00.002+08:00

The 2011 limited edition Lamy Safari Aquamarine is now in Manila! The wait is finally over.

I read about the new 2011 Lamy Safari color from Goldspot Pens' announcement in early February. Like many avid collectors of this line of fountain pen, I was more than happy to know that another pen will join my collection. Fortunately, Charlene Ngo of Times Trading has kindly sent me one to review here on the blog.

The 2011 limited edition Lamy Safari Aqumarine comes in a neat and well-designed packaging. The pen is inside two boxes: an outer box and an inner box. The outer box, shown below, is made of silver-gray board paper without any fancy design. All it has is the Lamy logo printed on the lower right corner of the box. It is so simple and minimalist, yet very stylish.

The inner box, below, is made of gray plastic that splits open from the middle when the two sides are pulled apart, as indicated by the arrows.

The top sides are pushed under the bottom part of the box, and a hard plastic pen clamp holds the Aquamarine Lamy Safari fountain pen in place. This packaging is a lot better than those slim gray paper boxes that my earlier Lamy pens came with, as it offers more protection for the pen.

The Aquamarine Safari is the newest and youngest member of Lamy's Safari line of fountain pens. Designed by Wolfgang Fabian, the first Safari was introduced in 1980 and has stayed in Lamy's regular production since then.

The Aquamarine Lamy Safari fountain pen measures 5.5 inches while capped, 5 inches uncapped, and 6.5 inches when posted. It feels very light on my hand when I write with it, but then I don't post my pens.

Lamy Safari pens are made from sturdy ABS plastic, more technically known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, a common thermoplastic that is widely used in a variety of products. You wouldn't believe it, but the Lego blocks you played with as a kid has the same material as the Lamy Safari you may be holding now. And did you know that the inner walls of your refrigerator has the same plastic as that of the Safari?

Below is the Aquamarine Lamy Safari's parts: cap, section with converter, barrel.

The cap of the Aquamarine Lamy Safari like other Safari fountain pens has the iconic flexible chrome-coated oversized paperclip-style clip.

The cap's top has a button cross, another unique identifying feature of Lamy Safari fountain pens. I noticed though, that this pen's cap top button is different from those of the previous limited edition Safari pens.

Below is the Aquamarine Lamy Safari together with my other limited edition Lamy Safari fountain pens. The earliest version is the lime green pen (2008) with the black cross cap top that is seen in almost all regular Safari fountain pens. The creme orange (2009) and pink (2010) Safari pens have simple dots as cap tops in the same barrel and cap colors, instead of the usual black cross. Note that the Aquamarine Safari (2011) has a cross cap top, but in the same color as the pen's cap and barrel – aquamarine. Interesting details.

The Lamy Safari's section has unique features to make writing easier. The triangular section has two recessed grips and the finger anti-slipping brake to prevent a user's fingers to slip into the nib part while writing. Some fountain pen users find the triangular grip annoying and uncomfortable. I find it helpful so I get a firm grip on my pen.

The pen's barrel measures around three inches, and the flat areas on both sides prevent the pen from rolling especially when it is uncapped.

Lamy's logo is boldly etched on the top/end of the pen's barrel.

An ink window near the barrel's threads allows me to check on my pen's ink. This is an excellent feature, not to mention a cool design, as I don't need to unscrew the barrel of my pen every time I need to check on its ink.

Like the rest of my Safari and other Lamy fountain pens, I can ink my pen in two ways: with Lamy's proprietary T10 ink cartridges, or from an ink bottle using the Z24 converter. The Z24 converter can also be used in other Lamy fountain pens including the Vista, Al-Star, Joy, and even the Nexx.

Towards the middle of the Z24 converter are two tiny nipples (can be seen in the photo above too) that fit snugly into the small grooves in the upper part of the section.

This is how the tiny nipples on the converter fit into the specific grooves in the section. They fit perfectly so that the converter, while filled with ink and inserted, will not easily turn or be accidentally pulled out.

Because my Aquamarine Lamy Safari is new, I could not pull out the feed from the section to show here, but it has the same feed as those on other Lamy pens (Safari, Vista, Al-Star, Joy, Nexx, and Studio).

Lamy Safari fountain pens have polished steel nibs available in a number of widths: extra fine, fine, medium, broad, and left-handed. It can also be fitted with an italic nib ranging from 1.1mm to 1.9mm since the Safari shares the same section, feed, nib and cap design with that of the Joy, Lamy's set of calligraphy pens. Lamy nibs have the tendency to run wide, but they all write wet and smoothly.

I usually use medium Lamy nibs on my Safari and Studio fountain pens, but I am very fortunate that Charlene sent me the Aquamarine pen with a broad nib.

Lamy's modern minimalist design extends even to their nibs. These polished steel nibs do not have the usual fancy engravings -- just plain, simple, shiny metal pieces with 'LAMY' and a letter for the nib's width to mark them. My pen's broad nib is marked 'B'.

I flushed this pen before I filled it to ensure that there is no factory residue or ink on it. When I used it, the pen wrote instantly, and did not need any strong pressure to start writing. It kept writing very smoothly and did not skip as I filled an entire page of my A5 Daycraft Signature notebook journal.

Below is a writing sample of this cool Aquamarine Lamy Safari fountain pen.

The Aquamarine Lamy Safari next to a Venzi cahier in A6 size. The ink used in this writing sample is Lamy Turquoise. Ink review to follow.

Here is the pen again with my limited edition Lamy Safari fountain pens.

This Aquamarine Lamy Safari is a cool new addition to Lamy's growing line of fountain pens. Touted as a beginner's fountain pen and a student pen, this plastic pen actually feels very good in my hand because it is light, but strong and firm at the same time. And it's available in many colors! So it's not only a reliable, sturdy, user-friendly fountain pen, it's fun to collect too! I just got my Aquamarine pen but I'm already thinking of the 2012 Safari color. Purple? Not bad.

My pen with a bottle of Lamy turquoise ink and a large Venzi notebook.

Lamy Safari pens are widely available in reputable pen sellers worldwide. For a global search of Lamy sellers worldwide, follow this link.

In the Philippines, the Aquamarine Lamy Safari (and other Lamy pens) is available from Times Trading Company, through their increasing number of kiosks at National Bookstore outlets around Metro Manila. A Lamy Safari (including the Aquamarine pen) sells for PhP1,499.75 (USD35), and a 50ml bottle of ink costs around PhP375 (USD9).

Notebook Review: Daycraft's Juicy Notebook

2011-06-24T06:36:00.001+08:00

The rainy season has definitely started here in the Philippines, but I'm stuck in summer's ambrosial delights - fruits! At home, we still get to enjoy these colorful, sweet, and juicy summer pleasures: plenty of bananas, cantaloupes, green and yellow mangoes, pineapples, and watermelons. Soon, most of these fruits will be gone from the stalls and we will all wait till next summer to enjoy them again.

Luckily for me, one watermelon has remained to keep me company until the next summer. It's Daycraft's Juicy Watermelon notebook that Foreal Lee, Retail and Marketing Manager of Hong Kong's Tai Shing Diary Ltd. sent to me a few months back. With a very apt tagline of 'Pick A Fresh One', Daycraft's Juicy notebook line comes only in A6 size, but has five 'delicious fruit flavors' to choose from: orange, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple, and honeydew melon.

The Juicy Watermelon notebook's cover is soft, fine Italian polyurethane (PU), designed to resemble the rind of a watermelon.

This notebook opens to a wedge of watermelon. You'd want to grab a juicy, wet bite when you see the front and back inside covers are watermelon red with watermelon seeds.

The Watermelon notebook, like the rest of those in Daycraft's Juicy line, have 128 pages of 6.5mm lined cream-colored paper with distinctive 'fruit' designs. The 'fruity' spread below has apples on the lower left of the page and watermelons on the upper right of the page. The 6.5mm spacing is just right for my handwriting.

Here's the watermelon design up close. I think the fruit designs are cute. And because they're printed lightly, I can write over them and still read the text I've written.

The notebook's back cover has the same watermelon rind design as its front cover, but bears the clearly pressed Daycraft logo centered at the bottom.

Like most of Daycraft notebooks, the Juicy line is case bound, so the pages are threaded and glued together to make it durable.

The pages have round corners which I like very much. Pointed/Squared corners are more likely to snag my arm while writing, so the rounded corners are safer and better.

And now the best part of the review is here: pen and ink tests! I always do a number of tests when I have a new notebook. These tests help me choose the best pen and ink combination for any particular notebook. I grouped the tests according to the ink brand this time.

The first page has the ink tests for J. Herbin, Diamine, and Caran d'Ache. There was no feathering on the page and all the inks dried fast. Most of my pens have medium nibs and put large amounts of ink on paper, which is why I am concerned about the inks' drying time. Surpisingly, they all dried fast, including the saturated J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink. I'm loving this Juicy Watermelon notebook's paper already. The Herbin inks looked bright and happy, but Diabolo Menthe is the runaway winner here. It looked so beautiful and yet so cool. Diamine Royal Blue appeared so bright that I instantly filled two more pens after seeing it again. And then there's Caran d'Ache Saffron which will always be the perfect orange ink for me.

I tried Private Reserve, Waterman, Pelikan, Noodler's, and Mont Blanc inks on the other page. This time, I saw some feathering in Private Reserve and Noodler's inks, but that's okay as I already expected that. PR Black Magic Blue is a gift from fellow fountain pen collector Karlo Tatad and it surprised me because of its close resemblance to one of my favorite blue inks, Diamine Majestic Blue. Pelikan Blue-Black is another surprise for me because I did not see any feathering even though it's on a BB nib. I also tried two of my Zebra Sarasas here and they looked good on this cream-colored paper.

Below is the back of the first page with ink tests. Note that there is only minimal bleed which is seen only as tiny blue dots. Again, that's okay. This is still way, way better than the first Daycraft notebook I reviewed last year.

The second page revealed more bleed. Private Reserve Avacado on my no-name Maki-e pen is the one bleeding here (on top), as is Noodler's Midnight Blue (lower part of the page).

Here are some macro shots of the inks on the Juicy notebook paper. I was surprised to see under a 10x loupe that the 1670 ink feathered. But Vert Pré did not, and even showed some shading.

I love the shading that Saffron produced, as well the Blue Sky; and both CdA inks behaved properly: no feathering, no bleed!

After all is said about this excellent little notebook from Daycraft, I realized I forgot to mention that this Watermelon notebook comes with a felt bookmark instead of the usual ribbon pagemarker - cool! It is shaped as a curled stem of the watermelon fruit. Other notebooks in the Daycraft Juicy line have their own respective bookmarks according to their fruit designs.

And what else is good about this notebook? It is sold here in the Philippines at Scribe Writing Essentials! Daycraft notebooks have been available at Scribe's flagship store in Eastwood Mall since last year, and in several PowerBooks outlets this year.

Daycraft products are also widely available now. Aside from Daycraft's distributors, their products can also be bought in stores from these countries: (click on country name to see retail stores) Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Macau, Poland, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand.

J. Herbin, Lamy, and Starbucks Go to CamSur and Caramoan

2011-06-16T12:16:00.014+08:00

Last year, my Rhodia pad and Thein the Sheaffer franky went with us to Puerto Galera. This year, I brought along my Starbucks planner and white Lamy Safari loaded with J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe to CamSur Watersports Complex and the beaches of Caramoan for some 'fun in the sun'.

Here they are next to a wakeboard in the deck.

And here's the set again on the beach in Matukad Island, Caramoan.

Throughout our three-day stay in Camarines Sur, the pen and notebook took plane rides, a couple of boat rides, and a looooot of land transfers. But we had fun! Pen and notebook were kept dry in layers of zip-lock plastic bags while I enjoyed the water, the sun, and the sand.

Ink Review: J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe

2011-05-30T18:06:00.001+08:00

In my part of the globe, summer is nearing its end as rains begin to pelt us from tropical storm Bebeng (Aere) and typhoon Chedeng (Songda). But before summer finally bids us farewell and this post becomes a weather alert, let me write my long-postponed review of the one ink that truly reminds me of summer, J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe.

I received this bottle from Marian Ong of Scribe Writing Essentials some time ago and though it wasn't love at first write, I developed a need for it. When I'd write headings and subheadings in my notes, I'd use Diabolo Menthe or Orange Indien. If I need to highlight or underscore my lessons and handouts, I'd use Diabolo Menthe. When I want to impress my nieces with calligraphy, I use Diabolo Menthe.

I understand that not much has been written about this ink, probably because not many fountain pen users find light ink colors suitable for daily, regular writing. Despite this, I find Diabolo Menthe a cool ink color from J. Herbin. It has excellent flow and visible shading especially when used with a wider nib. And though Diabolo Menthe is very light while still wet, it dries a beautiful cyan with highly visible green tones. Diabolo Menthe's tint belongs to the goup of cyan colors including aquamarine, teal, turquoise, and verdigris.

This ink color reminds me of the color the summer seas in Boracay, Anilao, and Puerto Galera.

Here is a macro shot of my poorly drawn Diabolo Menthe icon. I drew the outline with a Platinum brush pen and applied the ink used a q-tip.

The photo below shows excellent shading, which only enhances Diabolo Menthe's tint.

Because of its light color, Diabolo Menthe is perfect for highlighting. I filled my Rotring Artpen with a 2.3 italic nib with it and use it as one of my highlighters. On my white Lamy Safari with a regular medium nib, it's super perfect for underscoring.

Diabolo Menthe is simply incomparable to other turquoise (or light blue) ink colors. The photo below shows that it's not like J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche, Diamine Turquoise, and definitely not like an old favorite, Waterman South Sea Blue. I will not pick a favorite because I love them all, and definitely because Diabolo Menthe is so far away from the rest of the cyan colors.

Lastly, the drying time of Diabolo Menthe is amazing! It dries quickly and nicely. It took less than 15 seconds to dry which works very well when I use it for highlighting.

J. Herbin named Diabolo Menthe after the popular French drink of the same name, which is "simply mint syrup and white lemonade mixed with ice cubes."

(Diabolo Menthe/Green Mint Syrup in Lemonade.

Image from http://mog.com/Anna/blog/163548)

J. Herbin inks are available in 30 beautiful colors. These water-based inks are non-toxic, have neutral pH and manufactured using natural dyes. Download a printable PDF of the J. Herbin fountain pen ink swatches here.

A 30ml bottle of J. Herbin ink sells for P475 at Scribe Writing Essentials, and US$9.50 at The Goulet Pen Company. (I have no affiliation with both companies, though.)

Review: Quiver Pen Holder

2011-04-19T12:35:00.024+08:00

When I saw this newly-released pen holder late last year, I was both curious and excited because of its name. Most people know I named my blog after the centaur with a bow and arrow that is my sign, but only a few knows that I am a former archer. Which is why the pen holder held my attention the moment I saw it. It brought back happy archery memories way, way back. When I was an archer, a leather hip quiver held my arrows, and now that I am a pen collector, a unique pen holder holds two of my favorite pens to a favorite notebook, and it is called the Quiver.

Quiver Global's Bob Koch kindly sent me one of their pen holders to review. I received a double/dual pen holder for large notebooks and I used it as soon I took it out of the envelope. It was love at first sight. Who wouldn't fall for these penholders? They are made from genuine soft leather and hand-stitched by Quiver's skilled leather craftsmen. It's perfect for my pens! I got a brown pen holder, but it is also available in black.

The Quiver pen holder is very easy to use because of its simple design. Just slide the pen holder over the notebook's front cover and move it according to the desired position. The photo below shows the wide elastic band that keeps the pen holder secure on the notebook's cover. This elastic band also offers maximum flexibility to the pen holder so it can be used on a number of large notebooks. Quiver's website has a list of Quiver-compatible notebooks.

The double/dual Quiver pen holder comfortably accommodates two pens. Its soft leather can be stretched a bit, so two large pens can fit in. I tested several pen combinations shown in the photos below, and I paired a big-sized pen with a thin one so they will not scratch each other.

On the Webbie: Haolilai and Esterbrook SJ.

On the Reecovid notebook: Lamy Safari and Sheaffer thin cartridge pen.

On my red Scribe notebook: Waterman Hemisphere and Lamy Safari.

Lastly, two birds on my 2011 Starbucks planner: Pelikan M200 and the yellow M205 demo from the M205 Duo set. Love, love, love this combo!

The pen and notebook combinations are great! I love seeing two of my favorite pens on the cover of my notebooks and it makes writing very easy for me. I don't need to open a long pen wrap to get a pen to write, I just need to get one from my Quiver.

Quiver pen holders are available for online purchase through Quiver Global site. Other Quiver products include:

single pen Quiver for small notebooks;
single pen Quiver for large notebooks; and
double pen Quiver for small notebooks.

Quiver also offers an adapter for use in softcover notebooks. Also available are a number of Combo Sets that include any Quiver pen holder paired with a Moleskine notebook of choice.

The Quiver pen holder used in this review is courtesy of Quiver Global. Webbie is from Exaclair, Reecovid from Reecovid, and Scribe from Scribe. Pens and Starbucks planner belong to my personal collection.

The April Carnival of Pen, Pencil, and Paper

2011-04-13T18:00:00.001+08:00

The April Carnival of Pen, Pencil, and Paper is here! It's a week late and there are only a few entries, but let's enjoy this month's excellent selection.

Pens

Julie (O-kami) presents a great review of the beautiful Caran d'Ache Dunas posted at Whatever.

The Classicist presents a "classic" pen, The Parker 45 straight from Augustana College posted at Penned House.

TonyB of Tiger Pens presents some crazy reviews from Amazon. Here's the 10 Funniest Bic Cristal pen reviews posted at Tiger Pens Blog.

Notebooks

Feeling drained of blogging ideas? travisthetrout presents How to: Organise your Blogging (#1: the Journal) posted at Notes in a Book. Note that this is part of his "Blog Journal Series".

Read about a worldwide journal swap as Cynthia presents A Journey of Journals posted at Journaling Arts.

Vicky Polk presents The History of the Moleskine Notebook and its Role in Literature posted at Online Education Degrees.

That's it! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this month's entries.

Next month's Carnival will be at Economy Pens. Submit entries to the next edition of the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found in the blog carnival index page.

Fountain Pen Review: Lamy Nexx

2011-02-04T12:30:00.001+08:00

Here comes a first in the blog: a pink fountain pen!!! Cool, isn't it? But yes, I have a brand new pink Lamy Nexx fountain pen to review, a gift from the Philippines' Times Trading Company and Charlene Ngo. This pink version of the Nexx is among Lamy's new offerings for 2011.

I was very surprised when I a delivery person came to my office and handed me a small package because I was not expecting any. When I saw the Lamy bag, I was ecstatic! Inside are two Lamy boxes, the bigger box contained an unfamiliar looking pen with a metallic barrel and a bright pink plastic cap. The smaller box had a pink Lamy Logo ballpoint pen. Pink pens!!! A few minutes later, Google revealed that the unfamiliar pen is a Lamy Nexx fountain pen.

As an avid collector of Lamy's Safari line of pens, I am happy to receive the Nexx, and write my very first Lamy fountain pen review.

Lamy took extra care in presenting the Nexx in a neat, well-packaged offering. It comes in two boxes: an outer box and an inner box. The outer box, photo below, is made of silver-colored board paper, printed with the Lamy logo on the lower right part. Very simple, very elegant.

The inner box, below, is made of gray plastic that splits open when the two sides are pulled apart, as indicated by the arrows.

The top sides are pushed under the bottom part of the box, and a clear plastic pen clamp that holds the Lamy Nexx fountain pen in place. Again, cool, isn't it? This packaging is waaaaay better than gray paper boxes that my other Lamy pens came with.

The pink Nexx is the newest and youngest member of its line. It was initially offered in blue, red, and lime. It measures 5.5 inches while capped, and 5 inches uncapped.

Below shows the deconstructed Lamy Nexx. From top to bottom: plastic pink cap, aluminum barrel, Z24 converter, section, feed, and medium polished steel nib. I just love shooting these deconstructed pens.

The cap of Lamy Nexx is made of thick plastic, and this is what gives the pen its happy, youthful look. I want to get one with a red cap next time.

The Lamy logo is neatly etched on the lower part of the pen's clip.

A rounded rectangular hole is on the upper part of the clip. Below that, printed in the traditional Lamy gray is the Nexx logo.

An eye on top of the pen's clip makes it easier to attach the cap to a lanyard.

Many people in the whole fountainpendom compare the Nexx to the Safaris and Al-Stars, but I would like to point out that there are also a number of differences among them, and one is this pen's section grip. The Nexx has a smooth, soft, contoured, non-slip rubber grip on its section, as opposed to the plastic section of other pens.

The Nexx can be inked either with Lamy's T10 cartridges, or through a Z24 converter (see deconstructed pen photo above). The converter has two nipples on either side that fit snugly into the small grooves in the upper part of the section.

This is how the converter fits into the section. It fits perfectly so that the converter, while inserted, will not easily turn or be accidentally pulled out.

This pen uses the same feed as those on other Lamy pens (Safari, Vista, Al-Star, Joy, and maybe the Studio). It can be pulled out of the section using rubber grips and this helps a lot in cleaning out deep-seated ink. Putting it back can be tricky because there are grooves in the feed and inside the section that need to fit.

Here is the medium polished steel nib on my pen. Writes wet and smoothly.

Here's the nib again, on the feed.

Like the Lamy Al-Star, the Nexx has an aluminum barrel with a unique design. The barrel starts round at the grip, where it meets with the pen's section...

...and gradually tapers off into a triangular shape towards the end. The aluminum barrel is extremely strong, but is surprisingly light in the hand. This ensures comfort even for prolonged periods of writing. My only fear for this pen's aluminum barrel is it vulnerability to scratches. Like many fountain pen owners, I don't like chicken feet scratches on my pens, whether on the barrel, the cap, or anywhere else.

Finally, here is the writing sample of this cool pen. You can click on the photo for a larger image. The first three paragraphs read as:

Here is something new for the year: a pink fountain pen! This is my cool, pink Lamy Nexx fountain pen, and this is my very first Lamy fountain pen review.

The pink Nexx is a cute and cool pen, and though it looked unfamiliar to me straight out of the box, it was love at first sight.

Similar to its cousins, the Safaris and Al-Stars, the Nexx has received a mixed set of comments. Some frown at it for its school pen/kiddie pen look, some find it a poor design mix of the Safari (plastic) and Al-Star (aluminum), others just think it is downright ugly.

The pink Lamy Nexx next to a large Quo Vadis Habana journal. The ink I used is J. Herbin Rouille d'Ancré. The 1.9 mm italic nib is from my Lamy Joy set.

The last paragraph reads as:

My pink Nexx is the newest and youngest member of its line of fountain pens from Lamy. It is available in four other cap colors and has a polished steel nib. It has a plastic cap, an aluminum barrel, and a soft rubber grip on its section. It can be inked through cartridges or a cnverter. But what I like the most about this pen is its nib. Because it shares the same nib with many other Lamy pens, I can easily change its medium nib with, say, a fine or a 1.9 mm italic nib. What is that called? Ugly? No. It's called versatility.

I wrote the word 'versatility' using a 1.5 mm italic nib from my Lamy Joy set because I wanted to show this pen's, well, versatility. It is now fitted with a 1.1 mm italic, an all-time favorite nib.

The pink Nexx is a wonderful addition to Lamy's expanding line of fountain pens. The Nexx line has been manufactured to replace the formerly popular Lamy Smile pen, and is intended to be a bridging pen between the ABC, a beginners' favorite, and the more sleek adults' favorite Safari pen. I have more than a dozen Lamy pens in my collection now, mostly Safaris, but would I get another Nexx? You bet, I will! I want one of each in red, blue, and lime!

Lamy Nexx pens are widely available in reputable pen sellers worldwide. For a global search of Lamy sellers worldwide, follow this link. In the Philippines, it will be available in stores around March.

Notepad Review: Rhodia dotPad

2011-01-25T21:30:00.013+08:00

Sometime in spring last year, Rhodia introduced a new addition to their line of notepads, and they called it the dotPad. dotPads are "functional black stapled notepads with a dot grid." Yes, the dotPad has dots – not lines, just dots – tiny, subtle purple dots spaced 5mm apart. According to Rhodia, the dotPads are brilliant alternative to traditional lines and boxes found in other notepads, including some of Rhodia's own, and the dot grid is a favorite for graphic designers, architects, artists and everyone looking for a subtle grid.

When Exaclair VP for Marketing Karen Doherty sent me the J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink last November, she included a No. 19 Rhodia dotPad which I called Dottie.

The dotPad's ruling system is new to me. I have never tried paper with dot grid before as I always used lined/ruled paper. My Journal is ruled, the notebooks and notepads I've used in my ink reviews are either lined/ruled or squared. The reason why I've always avoided blank paper is that I find it uncomfortable to write on. Now with Dottie, I can write, do calligraphy, and even draw (and color!) without worrying about my handwriting going to wrong directions, or with lines getting in the way of my calligraphy and drawings.

dotPads, like other Rhodia pads, are staple-bound. But unlike its siblings, dotPads have black covers instead of the traditional Rhodia orange. The top of the inside cover is scored so that it will fold back easily towards the back cover, but what it reveals once folded is something so cool to me - the Rhodia logo. A thicker board is placed at the back of the pad, aside from its back cover, to provide it with stronger support.

Dottie has the same smooth, white, acid-free, ph-neutral 80gsm Clairefontaine paper that I have enjoyed using in my previous ink reviews. The pages are microperforated and very easy to tear off. Like many fountain pen users, I prefer using Rhodia pads and notebooks as they are very, very friendly to fountain pen use. It's the perfect paper to use in my ink reviews!

The photo below shows all of the J. Herbin inks I got in my ink stash right now. I used an Herbin glass dip pen to test all 14 inks on a page off my Dottie.

Below are more pen and ink tests on Dottie.

A selection of fountain pens and inks...

Some of my gel pens...

A pencil and a Sharpie.

Look! No bleed! Except for the ultra-fine Sharpie that bleeds on almost anything.

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Below are some macro shots of different inks on the dotPad's paper. I realized that this is the perfect paper to test inks because most of the 'featherers' and 'bleeders' on my ink collection behaved beautifully on this paper.

Lovely Herbin inks! See how smooth Rouge Opera and Vert Pré are on the dotPad.

I'm happy to see the red undertones of Diamine Majestic Blue here because it does not always show - my guess is that the paper/pen/ink combination determines such.

Caran d'Ache is sooooo smooth.

And Noodlers too! I told you they all behaved well - no feathering, no bleeds! Yay!

The dotPad that Karen sent to me is the No. 19, measuring 8¼ × 12½. It is available in four sizes, though: 3 3/8" × 4¾", 6" × 8¼", 8¼" × 12½" and 16½" x 12 ½"; in a number of Rhodia and Exaclair retailers worldwide. Coming up in 2011: a dotted Webbie! Can't wait!

And now for a bit of experiment and fun. Here is a Stegosaurus I drew and colored on a page of my Dottie. I got it from About.com's cartooning for kids section for my niece. I just love the cute smile on this dino's face that I drew one myself. I used a Sharpie ultra-fine pen for dino's outline. Though I have not tried any of my inks for coloring, I used J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche for its body, Orange Indien for the first row of armor plates and tail spikes, and Terre de Feu for the remaining armor plates and its toe nails. I enjoyed coloring this cute dino so much! I felt like a kindergarten kid again!

Rhodia dotPads are available in different sizes to fit everyone's lifestyle. Use it for note-taking, writing lists, doing calligraphy, sketching, drawing, painting, and so on. The possibilities with these pads are endless!

Ink Review: Diamine Majestic Blue

2011-01-09T19:00:00.003+08:00

When I haven't any blue I use red.

- Pablo Picasso

Imagine Picasso running out of blue while painting the Old Guitarist. Or the La Vie. I wonder how his masterpieces would have turned out had he ran out of blue. Interesting, isn't it? But could it be Picasso who inspired the chemists at Diamine to put together blue and red in one ink color they called Majestic Blue? I wonder.

Being a huge fan of blue inks, I have read (and tried) a lot about them and came about Diamine's Majestic Blue long before Phil Davies sent me the box of sample inks for review. I've been curious about Majestic Blue for long and filled a number of pens with it as soon as I received the samples. Since then, I've been a huge, huge fan of this ink!

Diamine Majestic Blue is a deep, dark, saturated blue that is almost blue-black, but it has a reddish undertone that simply amazes me. Before the J. Herbin 1670 Anniversary ink, I have not seen an ink with an undertone such as this one. While wet, Majestic Blue appears to be a deep blue-black -- almost black -- but dries off a beautiful and unique dark blue.

Diamine Majestic Blue reminds me of the blue skirts I wore to school when as a precocious 6 year-old attending Mrs. Avanzado's Grade 1 class, I proudly read stories and poems from books, and wrote and drew on the blackboard using a dusty chalk. My favorite story then was "Henny Penny". Incidentally, the Henny Penny book had laminated dark blue covers like Majestic Blue. Oh, the memories of those days!

Below is a written review of Diamine Majestic Blue. Like the Woodland Green review, I wrote on Kokuyo paper using two pens: a Platignum calligraphy pen (from fellow FPN-P member Eilu) with medium italic nib (blue pen on the left), and a white Parker Jotter with a Pentangeli stub nib.

Diamine released Majestic Blue in late 2009. It is a moderately saturated ink like other Diamine inks, but flows well on most of the pens I used for this review, especially on the Platignum calligraphy pen. Shading can be seen in the strokes made by the Platignum pen, probably because of its broad calligraphy nib, and the reddish undertone against the blue shade is visible at the beginning or end of a stroke written using my Parker Jotter with a stub nib.

And here's Diamine Majestic Blue up close. Note that it behaves differently when dry on different paper types.

On Kokuyo paper, written with the Platignum calligraphy pen. Lovely shading, though not as obvious as I would have wanted it to be.

Again, on Kokuyo paper with the Parker Jotter with stub nib. Note that the comma has a different (reddish) tone.

This is on Eagle notebook paper. The letters l and u both have the red undertones.

Here's Majestic Blue on Saizen notebook. No red undertones on this one.

On Scribe squared notebook. There is minor feathering, but no bleed. Again, no red undertones.

Lastly, this is on Venzi notebook paper. Look at the letter l. See the red?

I don't have much blue inks to compare Diamine Majestic Blue to, but here it is with Noodlers' Bad Belted Kingfisher and Midnight Blue. It appears more of a dark blue than being a blue-black beside the Noodlers' inks.

Like Woodland Green, Majestic Blue takes a longer period of time to dry, mostly because of its saturation. But still, it dries a beautiful deep blue, so it's worth waiting for a page to dry.

Founded in London, Diamine has been manufacturing inks since 1864. Diamine is one of the largest producers of a large range of fountain pen inks as well as the famous Registrar's Ink for permanent records. Diamine fountain pen inks are available from the Diamine site or from the Writing Desk in the UK. In the US, they are available from the Goulet Pen Company or the Pear Tree Pen Company. (I have no affiliation with any of these companies.)

(The glass boots used in this review are shooters (a type of shotglass) from the UK, gifts from a Lovely friend. I had fun trying to find stuff that will go into my review -- in this case, the English ink is complemented by English shooters and English pens. LOL. The paper and blue cloth are both Asians, though.)

Notebook Review: Daycraft's Flower Wow

2010-12-01T07:00:00.003+08:00

I'm always happy to receive new products to review, especially ink and paper. When Foreal Lee of Daycraft/Tai Shing Diary Ltd. emailed me to ask if I am interested to review their new notebooks, I replied with a fast-as-lightning yes! A week later, DHL delivered a box to my office with the notebooks that Foreal sent. It felt like Christmas morning in August.

Among the notebooks that Foreal sent to me is one of Daycraft's new products, Flower Wow notebook, the one that Daycraft won't claim (but won't rule out, either) as the world's most beautiful notebook. Available in one size (6 in x 8.5 in) and four cover designs, Flower Wow notebooks have real fabric cover with illustrations of stunning colorful bouquets. My notebook has large, beautiful red and pink blooms on the white fabric cover, which according to Daycraft is a special type of printable cloth from The Netherlands.

Flower Wow notebook. Lovely flowers on the front cover...

A closer look at the big red flower on the cover.

A smaller flower is printed on the back cover...

... that also bears the Daycraft logo, printed in gold. Elegant.

The gold inside cover of this notebook and the colorful blooms on the inside pocket add more elegance to it.

The Flower Wow notebook has 176 pages of smooth, cream-colored 116g paper. As with my other Daycraft notebooks, I like that it is ruled, and the 6.5mm line spacing is just right for my large handwriting. Consistent with the notebook's theme, the pages are ruled with faint lines in gold.

The spread of the notebook's inside pages shows printed illustrations of flowers on both the lower right and upper left corners.

Flowers on the notebook's pages.

The edge of the Flower Wow notebook is gilted in gold - this feature, together with the flower prints on the pages, fabric cover, and gold inside cover, makes me wonder if this notebook came from Victorian times.

I tested quite a number of ink colors and fountain pens on the Flower Wow notebook, and though some ink types feathered and bled, there is definitely a great improvement in Daycraft's paper quality in terms of fountain pen and ink friendliness. This is definitely a lot different than the paper quality of the Signature notebook I reviewed last February.

Some inks bled (see photo below), but I'll have to consider the fact that I used mostly medium wet nibs, so both feathering and bleed are hard to avoid. I'm suprised though, that some pen and ink combinations wrote so well without bleed. These are: Waterman Phileas (M) with Mont Blanc Bordeaux (line 4), Parker 45 (M) with Styl' Honore Rouge Amaryllis (line 5), Schneider Base (M) with De Atramentis Fuschia, (line 6), Sheaffer NoNonsense (M) with Caran d'Ache Saffron (line 8), Sheaffer NoNonsense (fine italic) with Diamine Burnt Sienna (line 9), Schneider iD (M) with J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche (line 17), and Lamy Safari (M) with J. Herbin Diabolo Menthé.

The other side of the test page. Some inks bled. Some are just right. Which means I can use this notebook with my fountain pens. For journalling. Then I'd feel like a lady from the courts of Victoria writing about hard work, perseverance, love and luck.

Below are some macro shots of some of the ink colors on the Flower Wow notebook:

Noodler's Midnight Blue

Noodler's Bad Belted Kingfisher

Diamine Oxblood

J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche

Irozhizuku Kiri-same

Waterman Havana Brown

De Atramentis Fuschia

Caran d'Ache Saffron

Mont Blanc Bordeaux

The Flower Wow notebook is another great addition to the beautiful products of Daycraft. I am glad, as well as other Pinoy pen and paper enthusiasts to know that Mr. Foreal Lee, Retail and Marketing Manager of Tai Shing Diary, makers of Daycraft noteboks, have facilitated the availability of their products here in the Philippines.

Daycraft products such as diaries, notebooks, and sketchbooks are available at Scribe Writing Essentials located at Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City.

Ink Review: J. Herbin 1670 Ink

2010-11-04T19:00:00.013+08:00

Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red
Was what you wrapped around you.
Blood-red. Was it blood?
Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
Haematite to make immortal
The precious heirloom bones, the family bones.

- Ted Hughes, 'Red'

Karen Doherty, Exaclair's Marketing VP, surprised me with a box last September. It was completely unexpected, and I jumped like a little kid when I saw the 1670 Anniversary ink, a large Rhodia dotPad, and an anise green blank Habana inside the box all swathed in seemingly endless piece of bubble wrap. I felt very lucky to receive a bottle of this ink because it is a limited edition ink, released early this year to specifically commemorate J. Herbin's 340th founding anniversary.

The J. Herbin Anniversary ink is named 1670 after the year the company was founded. It is also called Rouge Hematite for its color, taken after the mineral hematite (blood ore), which is also the Greek word for blood.

I like the unique design and packaging of this ink. Unlike the other J. Herbin inks, the 1670 Anniversary ink arrived in a new bottle inside a new box. The 1670 comes in square 50ml bottles, with 1670 simply embossed on gold wax to tell its name.

The 1670 Anniversary ink's clear square bottle reminds me a lot of Caran d'Ache ink bottles, but the gold string on the bottle's neck caught under the gold sealing wax (which Stephanie of Biffybeans blog wrote as glue gun wax) adds a touch of elegance into its simplicity.

The gold wax on the bottle, according to the J. Herbin website, is "reminiscent of the wax used for the 'grand cru' wines of France," and all gold wax seals on all 1670 ink bottles are handmade. PaperAndCo.com has a video of this process and it's amusing to see how it's being done: the person assigned to this task puts the gold string on the bottle's neck, pumps the glue gun wax onto the gold string and the bottle, stamps the 1670 on the glue gun wax, cuts the gold string to desired length, and does the whole process again. Cool!

The red wax on the ink bottle's cap is made of official wax cherry, and strongly reminds me of the wax used in cheeses, especially the big queso de bola (Edam cheese) we see in supermarkets around Christmas time here, and get either as gifts from friends or as part of our Christmas grocery package. According to the inital set of reviews, the red wax used for the earlier batch of inks was brittle and crumbled easily, but I received a newer version with a more flexible wax. But all the same, I am very careful when I cap and uncap the bottle. I don't want to destroy the beauty of this ink yet.

This ink's bottle cap is made of aluminum, and I wished they used the usual hard plastic caps. Then again, wax may not stick to the plastic very well, and so they decided to use aluminum.

The 1670's box is another J. Herbin work of wonder. It has been carefully designed to represent the life of J. Herbin, who was a sailor. The ship, anchor and palm tree represent navigation and discovery; while the crown is a reference to the red sealing wax color used in the royal courts of Europe.

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Rouge Hematite is a unique ink color in the red/orange/brown range, which is my favorite. It has an intense, vibrant, earthy and blood-red color that is reminiscent of the historical J. Herbin logo and the sealing wax used in the royal courts of previous eras.

The 1670 ink has the same qualities of J. Herbin inks I have tried in the past. It has smooth flow, good lubrication, shading and of course, excellent color. However, it is very, very saturated compared to other J. Herbin inks.

For a larger photo click here.

I used a Rotring ArtPen with 1.5 italic nib for the calligraphy, and my white Schneider Base with a firm medium nib for my written review. The grid notebook is from Saizen, which took the inking very well. There is no feathering and bleed for both of the pens I used. Notice the difference in color and shading for the two pens.

The poem I wrote using the 1.5 italic nib looks a brighter red, with more evident orange hues.

The text I wrote using the medium nib looks a darker red, though.

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And now here are some macro shots. I hope the images below captured the gold in the letters I wrote, especially where more ink was placed on paper.

Below is the 1670 ink in comparison with other red inks: Diamine Poppy Red (dries a bright red), Camel Scarlet Red (dries a pinkish red), Parker Super Quink Red (dries a pale red), J. Herbin Rouge Opera (not a true red, but dries a beautiful rose red), and Diamine Oxblood (a dark, dark blood-red color). The 1670 ink is the stand-out color in the group, its reddish somewhat brownish-earthy-golden color is a winner!

I mentioned earlier that the 1670 ink is a highly saturated ink. This may be a problem among left-hand writers because this property makes it such a slow-drying ink. I used the Base pen on Rhodia paper for this test, and though several factors may have contributed to drying time, the 1670 is undeniably a slow-drying ink to be 'almost dry' at 1 minute 30 seconds.

I tried writing with the 1670 ink on different papers from several notebooks I got. Below are several pictures of them.

I am so in love with this ink I have been using it on three different pens since I got it. I love the color, shading and the tiny gold flecks I see when I look closely at the dried ink on paper. But this is a limited edition ink, said to be produced only this year, and I hope that J. Herbin will include this ink into their regular production.

Aside from the 1670 Anniversary ink, J. Herbin also offers 30 more inks in beautiful colors. These water-based inks are non-toxic, have neutral pH and manufactured using natural dyes. Dowload a printable PDF of the J. Herbin fountain pen ink swatches here.

A 50ml bottle of the 1670 Anniversary ink sells for US$20 at the Goulet Pen Company, and will soon be available at Scribe Writing Essentials here in the Philippines. (I have no affiliation with either companies, though.)

The 1670 Anniversary ink used in this review is courtesy of Exaclair, Inc. through Karen Doherty, as well as the Rhodia pad. Daycraft notebook courtesy of Foreal Lee of Daycraft, and Reecovid notepad courtesy of Ingrid Savill of Reecovid. The Pukka notebook and two pens used in this review all belong to my personal collection.

Pen Review: Schneider iD Fountain Pen

2010-08-30T03:33:00.013+08:00

I love Schneider pens. I have a huuuge stash of Schneider gel pens, fineliners, and rollerballs ~~hoarded~~ collected before I shifted to fountain pens. When I got my first Base pen, a black pen with smooth, wet medium nib, I was hooked. I found their simplicity charming and elegant. Through time, I have acquired more Schneider pens, mostly fountain pens: the colorful Zippis, the minimalist Base pens, and a Creativ calligraphy set. And last year, a new Schneider fountain pen caught my attention. I first saw the Schneider iD fountain pen at Cultpens, while ogling at the other Base models.

After reading about Schneider iD, I wanted one, being a Schneider fanatic and pen addict. But like so many pen and paper products, the pen isn't available in the Philippines. *Sigh.* So I did the expected, and months later, I received news that Schneider has kindly sent me an iD fountain pen to review. Hurray!

And here's my first fountain pen review: the Schneider iD fountain pen.

The Schneider iD came in two boxes, an outer box and an inner box. The outer box is made from black, thick, board paper. I like the simplicity of this box.

The inner box is made of transparent plastic with the Schneider logo on top, and the iD logo in the lower part of the box, near the bottom. Love the white artwork there. :)

A plastic pen holder keeps the iD in place inside the second box. A small brochure about the Schneider iD line of products is also included. The cover says "iD full of ideas". I like that. :)

The Schneider iD is a big pen, alright. It is huge, but not heavy. It is just right for my grip. It measures 5.75 inches when capped, and 5.25 inches uncapped. The cap does not allow posting the pen, which is just fine for me, because I rarely post my pens. It may be a problem for people who are used to posting their pens.

Here is the pen again, disassembled. On top is the cap, next line have section and barrel, bottom are feed and nib.

Did I say this pen is huge? I didn't? But it is! Look at that cap. It is huuuuuge! With a huuuuuge, oversized, wide shiny chrome clip and huuuuuge top cap.

This ring is on the top of the clip, near the top cap, and I assume this is meant for lanyards.

The Schneider logo is imprinted on the rubber material on the pen's cap. I am not so happy with this feature because the rubber is a monster lint and dirt magnet.

The iD logo is printed on the barrel, next to the wide metal ring. Because I got the chrome pen, the logo is imprinted in gray. The green and purple pens have matching logo color imprints.

Do you see the cartridge inside the barrel? The iD has a transluscent gray barrel, black plastic end cap, and the distinctive wide metal chrome ring. This photo gave me an idea about what I can do next with this pen. Read on, the surprise is at the end. :)

Like the cap, this pen's section comes with black, soft rubber that is ergonomically-designed to fit snugly to the pen user's fingers. This feature is excellent because it will help the user write comfortably even at longer periods of time.

Here is the Schneider iD's nib, which comes with a new feature: a breather hole. The breather hole is important as it promotes the exchange of air and ink in the pen's reservoir. The nibs of my Base pens do not have this feature, though.

The Schneider iD has a German (European) medium nib, which is bolder than other medium nibs. The day I got this pen, I was itching to ink it right away using the cartridge that came with it. But I waited until I got home because I wanted to use my current favorite ink: Diamine Majestic Blue. And the pen (and ink) did not disappoint. The iD wrote as soon as I inked it. The nib is softer than I thought it would be, writes smoothly, and Diamine Majestic Blue flows well on paper. (See photo of writing sample on Kokuyo paper below.)

The underside of the feed and nib shows the enormous iridium on the tip.

Schneider logo on the nib.

M is for medium. This is imprinted on the nib's left ear.

Feed and nib up close.

I have generously mentioned the Schneider Base pen in this post. I feel that I must write about it as well. But for now, I am happy to present the two pens here for comparison. Below are photos of the Schneider iD and Base nibs side by side, front and underside. Note that the Base nib does not have a breather hole and the ears (as I want to call them now - if there is a real name for these, kindly let me know) as seen on the right photo showing the feed's underside. The Base pen's feed's underside also appears to be flatter than that of the iD's.

I wrote my handwritten pen review on Kokuyo paper. The iD wrote so well on this paper, but also on a variety of papers as well, such as my Venzi journal and Rhodia Reverse notebook. If you read what I wrote below, you will know that I named this pen Kay. :)

For the large image, click here.

The Schneider iD fountain pen takes standard short or long international cartridges. In fact, my pen came with one short international cartridge. A converter may also be used, but it will have to be bought separately from independent pen sellers. Schneider surprisingly, does not make their own converters.

And here is the surprise. :)

The transluscent barrel of the Schneider iD gave me the idea that I could turn this c/c pen to an eyedropper (ED). I noticed, too, the long threaded part of the section where it joins the barrel. To test it, I filled both barrel and cap with water and observed it for a couple of hours, carefully watching it for leaks. And... no leaks! I then applied some silicone oil to the section threads and my Schneider iD fountain pen is an instant ED-filled pen! Hurray!

Below are photos of the Schneider iD filled with J. Herbin Orange Indien.

For this writing test, I chose my Rhodia pad to match the orange ink. ;) The Orange Indien is a suggestion of my good friend and fellow blogger Tom Overfield.

For the large image, click here.

CultPens currently describes the Schneider iD products as weird and wonderful. I understand that not all fountain pen enthusiasts will like the form, but I am sure that many will agree with me that this pen's performance is more than excellent. It won't win 1st Prize in the 2009 ISPA and Innovation Award for nothing, right? I love it and I will definitely get another pen or two when it becomes available locally. In the Philippines, Schneider pens are available at all Office Warehouse branches.

The Schneider iD fountain pen in this review is from Germany, courtesy of Schneider. It is part of the series that include two more pens: a ballpoint and a rotary pencil. All three pens are available in green, purple, and black, which is my pen's color. Right now, it is filled with Orange Indien and writes like a dream. :)

Ink Review: Diamine Woodland Green

2010-08-13T18:00:00.008+08:00

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig,

and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:

maybe it was the voice

of the rain crying,

a cracked bell,

or a torn heart.

- Pablo Neruda, 'Lost in the Forest'

It all started with a Vector. Then came some more. More Parkers, more Lamys, and more Sheaffers. That was followed by testing huge quantities of different notebooks for ink resistance, and scouring the streets of Recto for vintage inks. It did not end there. Not yet, for the search continued. For more inks. For more Parker Quinks, more Watermans, more Auroras, more J. Herbins. Here and there, a bottle of De Atramentis, Caran d'Ache, Iroshizuku, and Mont Blanc came around. But no Diamine. Until.

I have always wanted to try Diamine inks, but like most ink brands, it is not locally available. My current limitations dictate a moratorium on oline purchases, so I was in a bind. That's when the bright idea dawned on me. I wrote to Diamine. With fingers crossed (and hopes held high), I wrote to them and said I'd love to review their inks on my blog. Several days passed and no response came. I believed my request was turned down. But on March 1st, Diamine's Company Director Phil Davies sent me an email to say that several bottles of Diamine ink have been sent to me. Hurray!

And now, here is Woodland Green, and my first Diamine ink review.

Phil sent me six Diamine inks to try. Six! I got Majestic Blue, Royal Blue, Chocolate Brown, Orange, Poppy Red, and Woodland Green. I have tried to write and doodle with all of them, but because I'm into all things green now, I chose Woodland Green to be my first Diamine ink review.

Woodland Green is a dark, strong green ink with shades of blue. Unlike the bright Lierre Sauvage, this ink has a dark greenish-bluish shade. It has a gem-like quality when wet, and dries a beautiful dark green especially on light-colored paper.

The Diamine bottle is made of plastic, so ink easily gets off the inside surface. Here is the closest I could get to show the ink color through the bottle.

Woodland Green reminds me so much of Los Baños, especially Pili Drive – a long, narrow strip of road inside the UPLB Campus, lined with decades-old Pili trees with enormous trunks and thick canopies. The color of Woodland Green is akin to the shade provided by these huge trees.

Below is the written review of Diamine Woodland Green. I wrote on Kokuyo paper using two pens: an Osmiroid 65 with medium italic nib (black pen on the right), and my new green Wality 69TL with round medium nib.

Woodland Green is a saturated ink, as the other Diamine inks are. It flows well on both pens I used for this review. Shading is not very visible, but that could be attributed to the pens I used and not to the ink.

Here is a sampler of Diamine Woodland Green on Kokuyo paper.

Doodle was written with my Wality pen.

Here is another macro of ink smeared on paper, from the drying time test.

Note the shades of blue on the part where the ink begins to fade.

More macro shots here:

Here is Woodland Green in comparison with other green inks. It really has more blue compared to J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage (hints of yellow), Private Reserve Avacado, Penman Emerald, and Parker Super Quink Permanent Green (all with hints of black/gray).

Woodland Green takes a longer period of time to dry not only on Kokuyo paper, but also on Rhodia Reverse notebook. I also noticed that it's not very easy to take off Woodland Green ink on my fingers when I got stained while changing nibs on my Osmiroid pen.

And now, the poem. I have always loved Pablo Neruda's poems. I love his 'erotically charged love poems', especially those in his compilation book, Twenty Poems of Love and A Song of Despair; and the ones included in the soundtrack of the film Il Postino. It is only fitting to have this green ink review as a tribute to the poet who 'always wrote in green ink as it was the color of hope'.

Founded in London, Diamine has been manufacturing inks since 1864. Diamine is one of the largest producers of a large range of fountain pen ink as well as the famous Registrar's Ink for permanent records. Diamine fountain pen inks are available from the Diamine site or from the Writing Desk in the UK. In the US, they are available from the Pear Tree Pen Company. (I'm not affiliated with any of these companies.)

Notebook Review: Reecovid Notepad

2010-08-04T00:23:00.002+08:00

'recycled, not virgin'

- reecovid (recovered) notepads, great for emergencies!

Sometime in June, I received a comment on my blog from a lady in the United Kingdom, Ingrid Savill, asking me if I am willing to write a review of one of their notepads. Hm. A notepad? Great! A month later, I received my reecovid (recovered) notepad, the first paper product made from 100% post consumer waste to join my growing collection.

Ingrid sent me a Natalie notepad, and I just love the cover design! I love the green, blue and purple floral, mandala-like design. Natalie is one of the six beautifully-designed refillable A5 notepads of reecovid. The cover design of these notepads is based on the female symbol evolving into a flower, and all six notepads are named after environmentally-conscious women. It also has an elastic strap like most notebooks, but what keeps reecovid's elastic strap different from the rest is that it is a genuine bra strap and it has a unique bra strap adjuster! Love it! :)

The reecovid logo is printed on the lower left part of the cover, near the spine.

On the upper part of the cover, near the spine, is the company's slogan, 'Waste, Not Chaste.' This became their slogan after the 'Recycled, Not Virgin' thing.

The notepad opens to such a simple, but elegantly-designed inside cover page printed with the word 'notepad' at the center of the page and the reecovid logo at the bottom.

A closer look at the inside cover page.

At the back of the inside cover page is where one can write her name in beautiful calligraphy. :) (But of course, that's just me.)

The paper used in reecovid notepads are 100% recycled, white, uncoated paper. And this raised my curiosity: can recycled paper stand up to fountain pen inks?

As a fountain pen user, pen and ink tests is a must for each and every paper product I get. In the photo above, it is quite obvious that I used a lot of pens. I used my calligraphy pens, and also most of my beloved Schneiders, Sheaffers, Walitys, and Parkers.

This photo shows the calligraphy pens I used to test reecovid's paper. From the top, beginning with the title: Lamy Vista with 1.1mm cursive italic nib inked with J. Herbin Rouille D'Ancre; Lamy Joy with 1.5mm cursive italic nib inked with Diamine Chocolate; Schenider Creativ pens with J. Herbin Poussiére de Lune; Rotring ArtPen with 1.5 crisp italic nib inked with J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage; Osmiroid 65 with a B2 nib inked with Diamine Woodland Green; and Sheaffer NoNonsense with a fine italic nib inked with Diamine Burnt Sienna.

Here are the round nibs and their inks: Schneider Base pens with J. Herbin Rouge Opera, Diamine Turquoise and Aurora Blue; Lamy Safari with J. Herbin Diabolo Menthé; Sheaffer NoNonsense pens with Caran d'Ache Saffron, Waterman Purple and Inoxcrom Blue; Sheaffer Statesman with Waterman Havana Brown; Sheaffer TipDip with Cross Blue; Thein with Private Reserve Copper Burst; Sheaffer CP with J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage; Wality pens with Lamy Black, Lamy Blue and Woodland Green; and Inoxcrom pen with J. Herbin Poussiére de Lune.

Here are more round nibs. Parkers on parade: Rialto with Mont Blanc Bordeaux, Jotter with Diamine Royal Blue, 25 with Penman Ruby, 45 with Diamine Majestic Blue and 51 Special with Aurora Blue. Watermans: Kultur with Diamine Poppy Red and Phileas with MB Bordeaux. Haolilai with Diamine Orange, Pilot 78G and Rotring 600 with Iroshizuku Kiri-same.

That's a lot of pen and ink combinations! And the verdict? See photo below:

No feathering on almost all the inks used, but Kiri-same bled badly. Notice the bleed at the bottom of the page. But that's fine.

Now here are some more macro shots of several ink colors on reecovid paper:

Both photos above are written with the Sheaffer NN with a fine italic pen. Fantastic!

Now here is Lamy and Diamine. Chocolatey. :)

But wait, there's more! Here is ORANGE.

GREEN.

And BLUES.

I couldn't resist taking a photo (and posting it) of the back cover. So here it is. :)

reecovid notepads are excellent products. Here are the other features of these gorgeous notepads:

refillable hard cover binder with biodegradable laminate;
2DD rings metal mechanism for use with a standard hole punch;
216 pages of 100% recycled, white, uncoated paper;
ruled lines; and
available in A5 size

Despite all these, I still wish this notepad had a pocket somewhere. And a page marker. But, I love this product from reecovid. And I will use it because it's an excellent product. (Hint: I love the fact that the paper can take most of my fountain pen inks.)

reecovid notepads are available for online purchase through their website at http://www.reecovid.co.uk/. They are also on Facebook (reecovid) and Twitter (reecovid), so updates come faster if we 'like' and 'follow' them.