What colors would be in your rainbow?

• Robert Oster Astorquiza Rot
• Robert Oster Peach
• Robert Oster Aussie Gold
• Papier de Plume Ivy Green
• Diamine Florida Blue
• Waterman Tender Purple

Also I guess I need a yellow fountain pen?

I grabbed some gradient colored embroidery floss in a contrasting color so that the repair is recognized and acknowledged — part of its journey through life. I started calling it my “FrankenSoolla” because I stitched the repair on the lavender lilac pouch with green thread, like Frankenstien’s monster.

Surprisingly, this repair made me love the pouch even more so this weekend, I decided that the pouch needed even more customization. I’ve been wanting to get better at embroidery — I’ve only ever really done a couple stitch samplers in my life — so I thought I’d take a chance and stitch my astrological sign onto the pocket. Stitching on an already-assembled object is tricky and definitely challenging.

I used a free embroidery pattern from DMC (available on Lovecrafts) and plain black floss. The design was a little quirky and imperfect to begin with so the fact that my skills are just so-so aren’t as noticeable. The design is supposed to look a little wonky.

Now, I’m wondering if I should do more embroidery or sew some patches on as well? What would you do?

Do you like to customize or personalize your stationery items too? Do you stick stickers on notebooks, recover the outside or add other embellishments to make your stuff “yours”? Let me know in the comments!

Our winner is:

I love the idea of venomous animals for inks! And a little octopus in the bottle? Yes, please!

I have reached out to the winner via email. If this is you, check your spam filter. If I have not heard back from the winner within 7 days, a new winner will be selected.

Thanks to everyone who read the blog and enter our giveaways. Stay tuned for more!

No. 1 Notebook: Mark’s EDiT Notebooks

I absolutely love the Mark’s EDiT notebooks and the B7 Semi Size has been my little side kick all year for random notes, to-do lists, thoughts and ideas on-the-go and even a few. silly little doodles. The paper is thin and great for fountain pens but I like it just as much with gel, felt tip, markers and rollerballs. The plastic cover keeps the book safe and durable without making it feel precious. This is a work notebook, not an heirloom. If you haven’t tried one yet, the paper is called NEO AGENDA and was created for Mark’s to be all the things we love about lightweight, fountain pen friendly paper. Not to promote my own shop but I have new order of these notebooks scheduled to arrive on June 13 so stayed tuned.

No. 2 Planner: Aura Estelle B6 Classic Daily Magnet Planner

I have been using the Aura Estelle B6 Classic Daily Magnet Planner and it is a great system. It combines all the things I loved about the Hobonichi (fountain pen friendly paper, page-a-day layout, etc) and added in the weekly layout like the Hobonichi Weeks at the beginning of each week. The layouts are simple, there’s no space occupied by quotes I didn’t choose myself and the gird lines are light and unassuming. 100% would buy again. My only issue is that I would love to see an Aura Estelle “Avec” with two smaller books for each half of the year as my Aura Estelle has already doubled in size with all the thing I’ve glued into it that I’m worried how impractically large it will be by the time November and December roll around.

No. 3 Pen: Kaweco Sport DIY Glow-In-The-Dark

I haven’t purchased a ton of fountain pens this year but I was able to acquire one the Kaweco Sport DIY Glow-In-The-Dark models and I love the color of the body whether its glowing or not. I appreciate Kaweco pushing the boundaries of what materials to use when making their flagship pen. My suggestion for the next model would be to do something translucent day-glo with sparkles — in green it could be Alien Invasion, in pink it could be a real Barbie Princess vibe, blue could feel like crystal caribbean waters and day-glo sprkly yellow could feel like a solar supernova.

No. 4 Ink: Diamine Deadly Nightshade

I know its not fair to most US pen fans to choose this one but I am absolutely loving Diamine x Cult Pens Deadly Nightshade ink. A delicious purply ink that sheens, has shimmer and floaty skulls in the the bottle. Be still my little goth heart. But don’t dispair, there’s still time to enter to win a bottle. May the floating skulls be yours!

No.5 Tool TIE: Soola Studio Pouch and Hobonichi Drawer Pouch

Darnnit. I was really hoping not to break the Top 5 rule but when it comes to tools in my stationery collection, the bags I use to hold all my pens, markers, stickers and ephemera, its hard to pick just one.

The Soola Studio Pouch is great for doing a bag-in-a-bag scenario and having “all the things”. All the pockets on the outside make it a great way to grab various pens and then the interior compartment with its various pockets can hold stamps, ink pads, stickers, washi, glue and more. I like that it sits flat on my desk or table when I use it as well.

But I still love using my Ukranian Flowers Hobonichi Drawer Pouch for the more diminutive carry. This case is used when I just need a few things or I’m trying not to look like a pack mule when I go somewhere. It has enough space for the pens I’ve selected for my monthly planning, a pair of scissors, washi tape on cards, a glue stick and maybe a few other bits. Slim and trim and can then be unzipped on my desk to create a landing spot for all the tools that it easy to see and easy to access.

Soola for ALL THE THINGS and Drawer Pouch for on-the-go.

Bonus Humble Brag: The Retro Rainbow Sticker collection

My new Retro Rainbow Sticker collection are my new favorite stickers. I can grab a color to match my theme of the month and have a great variety of vintage ephemera like tickets, stamps, typewriters, flora and fauna and more. But even I have been “these are too pretty to use” even though I have a drawer full of more of them. So, don’t worry and if you have any of these, use them. I’ll keep making them. And I may be convinced to add more colors to the rainbow in the future.

Links included in this post are for previous reviews and places where you might find the products. None of the links are affiliate (I don’t get any money, products or special deals for these link placements) EXCEPT links to The Well-Appointed Desk. That’s my shop. So, I do make money when you shop there. And I do genuinely appreciate it when you buy from my shop.

Have you signed up for any of the workshops or classes yet? I am teaching four unique workshops (including a NEW workshop!) at the show including some of my most popular options like Gamify Your Life and Sigils: Make Magic with Pens & Ink and Carve Your Own Rubber Stamps. I’m super excited to offer all these workshops. It’s some of the most fun I have at pen shows now.

For the Make Your Own Junk Journal class, each student will get materials to make their own Field Notes sized journal and the option to learn simple, traditional bookbinding techniques. You will leave class with a notebook and even have some time to start “junking it up”.

Attendees in the Carve Your Own Rubber Stamps will learn how to use simple materials to carve their own stamps AND leave with a kit including a carving tool to make more stamps after class. Students also love to bring a notebook for swapping stamps with other students in the class which is also one of my favorite ways to make new friends!

If you think you want to attend one of my workshops, or those hosted by anyone else, it helps HUGELY to know a few weeks in advance. It helps teachers know how many kits, packets, and other supplies will be needed and provides the funds to purchase them.

Finally, if you are new to fountain pens AND left-handed (or lefty-curious), you might want to consider attending my free seminar “Fountain Pens for Lefties” on Saturday, June 27  at 3pm.

Thanks! I can’t wait to see everyone in St. Louis. If you have any questions about these workshops or seminar, please drop me a note in the comments.

Do you have products you come back to over and over or always recommend to newbies? Do you agree with any of the favorites in the posts below?

Stationery Favorites:

• Our Favorite Stationery That Doesn’t Exist Anymore (Plus Good Alternatives) (via JetPens Blog)
• Stationery Favourites – May 2026 (via Inky Imaginings)

Pens:

• Fountain Pen Rainbow 2026 (via Rachel’s Reflections)
• 9 Years in the Rabbit Hole (via The Pen Addict)

Pencils:

• Colored Pencils with Woodward (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)

Journaling, Notebooks & Paper:

• Happy you: 2 writing exercises that help accepting yourself (via Flow Magazine)
• Journaling Tips to Get You Started (via RozWoundUp)
• Paper Review: UglyPads
  (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)
• Cute Moleskine Notebook Charms (via Notebook Stories)

Art & Creativity:

• On My Table: Beginning of June 2026 (via Apple-Pine)
• Sketchbook as a Reminding Tool (via Apple-Pine)

Typewriters:

• THE UPPER AND LOWER CASE FOR (TYPEWRITTEN) LETTERS (via oz.Typewriter)
• The Pen Addict Podcast: Episode 718 – A Guy With A Typewriter Walks Into A Bar (via The Pen Addict)
• The Backward Index (via Kottke.org)

Other Interesting Things:

• Smithsonian Releases 1,000 Free Images on Unsplash (via My Modern Met)
• I shall be released! (a mixtape) (via Austin Kleon)
• Postcard from France No. 1 (via Dispatch from LA)
• 13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 774) (via Messy Nessy Chic)
• Books Unbanned Library (via Kottke.org)
• Going Focaccia Crazy (via Kottke.org)
• Read on Expiration? (via Dime Novel Raven)
• Calm Productivity – Bullet Journal (via Bullet Journal)

If you enjoy Link Love, you’ll love our exclusive podcast, TL:DR which is me telling you about new products, news and gossip from around the pen community — it’s like Link Love Live and its only available to Patrons. Our Patreon also gives you access to free printables every month and more. Patrons help keep us going and provides you with lots more content.

Congratulations to you both! I’ve already emailed you directly to coordinate delivery.

Happy Monday everyone!

Wha compelled me to brave tariffs and fees and international shipping, you might ask? That would be the Diamine Deadly Nightshade ink (£13.00 GBP for 50ml bottle) that was exclusive to Cult Pens. What’s so special about this ink?

I probably would have purchased it for the name alone but it is a purple sheener ink with silver shimmer in it as well. And… insert dramatic dirge music here… floating skulls in the bottle to act as mixing beads!

You read that correctly. Floating skulls. There was a great photo on the CultPens site. I did my best to get my skulls floating upright and visible but in the end, they look more like two teeth. Which is equally creepy so I’m going to go with it.

The ink color is a pinky purple with a clear green sheen. And the shimmer adds a little sparkly moonlight. Yes, I really do want everyday to be Halloween. 

I tested the ink with a variety of pen tools. The sheening is definitely more visible in wider nibs. There is not a ton of shimmer which I don’t mind. If I see a little shimmer that’s cool but there is so much sheen that I think it would be distracting if there was a a crap ton of glitter too.

I compared the Deadly Nightshade to the purples currently in my collection first. I needed to compare it to Monteverde Birthday Cake (one of my favorite inks) which is not a sheener and quite a bit bluer violet than the Deadly Nightshade. Colorverse Delicious Sleep is closest to the color in my stash but also not a sheener. So if you like the color but don’t want sheen or shimmer, I’d recommend it as an alternative.

I tried to compare the Deadly Nightshade to other sheener or shimmer purple inks. I think the Taccia Murasaki Purple  is the closest to the Deadly Nightshade base color. The Bungubox L’Amant reminds me of the lighter, finer writing samples above. Neither of these are sheen or shimmer inks.

The Kuretake Art Nouveau Perkin Mauve is the only other sheener purple that was similar but the sheen is darker making the ink feel like a purble black.

In the shimmer inks, Diamine’s Purple Pazzazz has a gold shimmer, Esterbrook Shimmer Lilac is lighter than Purple Pazzazz and has a lighter gold shimmer. Jacques Herbin 1789 Amethyst de L’Oural has a silver shimmer and finally Robert Oster Barossa Grape has a gilver shimmer which gives the ink a different feel altogether. None of the shimmers in my library were also a sheener so if you like the idea of purple but not sheen consider one of these options instead.

Final Verdict:

I do think I prefer the Deadly Nightshade in a finer nib as I can see more of the color of the ink and a hint of the sheen. The shimmer is cool but not a make a break for me. Diamine’s shimmer particles are fine enough now that I don’t worry much about it clogging.

YES! I love the addition of themed mix beads like little plastic skulls in an ink called Deadly Nightshade. This is a great way to plus up an ink and make it more fun to use. I want to see more of this! But, Diamine and Cult Pens, could you make it a little easier for US customers to get a bottle? Let’s collab! I have ideas!

Now, for the really big news…

Giveaway:

I didn’t just buy one bottle of this ink. I bought another bottle of Deadly Nightshade to give away to ONE lucky reader.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below and tell me what other POISON inks you’d like to see. Or what floaters you think should be added to ink bottles. Play along and type in something. It makes reading through entries more interesting for me, okay? One entry per person.

If you have never entered a giveaway or commented on the site before, your comment must be manually approved by our highly-trained staff of monkeys before it will appear on the site. Our monkeys are underpaid and under-caffeinated so don’t stress if your comment does not appear right away. Give themonkeys some time.

FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Saturday, June 6, 2026 at 10pm Central. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Instagram, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Monday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your actual email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 5 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Shipping via USPS first class is covered. Additional shipping options or insurance will have to be paid by the winner. We are generous but we’re not made of money. US and APO/AFO only, sorry.

The exterior is a matte painted metal with a soft hex shape. The grip and end cap are matte black. This sets the pencil version of the Drehgriffel apart from the ballpoint and gel pens which mostly have white grips and caps (though there are some new gradient versions that hve these sections blended into the color of the barrel which is cool). To advance the leads, twist the end cap counter clockwise and it moves the lead down a designated amount. If you hold the cap in the twisted position, you can push the lead back into the pencil so it doesn’t break in transit. Honestly, being able to retract leads and not need to carry a sharpener is the best reason to keep a mechanical pencil in your kit. This is the Dusty Rose color, BTW, which looks like a beautiful orchid lilac color to me. Chef’s kiss on the color!

Interesting fact: there is a cartridge of sorts inside the pencil with a long cap that engages the telescoping mechanism. When you remove the cap, you can replace the leads as needed though I am concerned that over time the plastic cap might degrade or strip so that the lead no longer ratchets correctly.

The Drehgriffel branded lead refills I could find only come in a tube like every other 0.7mm lead refill so be very careful with the refill converter should you decide to purchase one of this pencils. Hopefully, at some point, Leuchtturm1917 will offer replacement lead tubes and caps for we the klutzy, forgetful and hard-on-our-tools folks.

Can we pause for a moment and talk about the logo branding on the Drehgriffel? I had the worst time determining that the first letter was a D. No one draws a capital D like that. And the lowercase g is wonky AF. I initially wondereed if the pencil was called a “irehyriffel” because it is so difficult to read. I get it. They are German company. Maybe Germans can easily read this but for an international audience, even typographic nutjobs like myself, this is almost indecipherable. The san serif they sue for the Leuchtturm 1917 branding is beuatiful and I have nothing against script logos but did you focus group this with anyone before you slapped in on thousands upon thousands of writing tools? Call me, Leuchtturm, if you need future design consulting. Sheesh. (Okay, rant over.)

Pencil Comparisons:

I decided it would be necessary to compare the Drehgriffel with its closest cousin, the Caran d’Ache 849 844 Mechanical Pencil. I added in a regular pencil (in the form of a Blackwing 24, collectible item. Don’t ask.) and a less expensive hexagonal mechanical pencil, the Kokuyo PS-PT112 0.7mm (no longer available via JetPens). The Caran d’Ache and Drehgriffel are very similar– metal, hex shaped, kind of fancy– but the Drehgriffel is ever-so-slightly wider around with a little bit longer grip section.

The Caran d’Ache is a tiny bit longer and includes a clip. And the Caran d’Ache is where I learned that the branding is hidden under the clip — very subtle and results in me now installing clips on my Kaweco pens the same way.

The Kokuyo is similar circumference, but its slightly longer and plastic so it feels different in the hand. Also, I guess its no longer available domestically so sorry about that. I didn’t know when I chose it for the comparison.

And finally, comparing to your standard, fancy-pants Blackwing, the Drehgriffel is heavier because its metal and designed to be that “sweet spot” length commonly called “Steinbeck Stage” in the pencil community. Woodcase pencils will feel different in the hand depending on the reamaining length though there are holders that can be used when pencils get shorter than Steinbeck Stage.

A woodcase pencil will also be lighter than the Drehgriffel and require sharpening but it does have an eraser on the end and only slightly slimmer overall. You can buy a whole box of fancy Blackwing pencils for about the same price as the Drehgriffel.

Final Verdict:

I am actually quite happy with the Drehgriffel pencil, quibbles about the logo aside. It feels nice in the hand, easy to hold but a little nicer than a woodcase or plastic mechanical pencil. What can I say, I’m a fancy pencil girl?

DISCLAIMER: Some items included in this review were provided by the generous support of our Patrons for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.