Diamine Inkvent 2023: A New Year’s Eve review
This year’s Purple Inkvent is probably my favorite, certainly par with the Red Inkvent. I love purples, and this inkvent has wonderful offerings. In this post I review the Inkvent inks, and also provide some comparisons to other inks. My top 5, in no particular order: Tranquility, Lavender Frost, Rainbow’s End, Velvet Emerald, and Blizzard.
Creating an Artist Book with Inkvent Inks
I made an artist book as a present for my spouse’s birthday. I used Col-O-Ring swatch cards and Diamine Inkvent inks to create an accordion fold book that features my original poem handwritten over birds and beasts. A detailed walkthrough inside!
Year in Review: What happened with my 2023 Stationery Resolutions?
I’m taking a look at the pen plan I made for 2023 — it’s time to find out what happened.
Year in Review: 2023 Stationery Highlights
A post of my stationery highlights of 2023, broken into inks, pens, and accessories.
Grail Feeling: Aurora Internazionale Orange
This post offers a review of the Aurora Internazionale Arancio / Orange, and it is also about grail pens in general.
What separates a merely expensive and well-executed pen from a grail is not the price point so much — it’s a feeling.
The Gathering and the Menagerie
Over the years, I have gathered quite a few animal figurines; and just as my fountain pens are the Gathering, the animal figurines are the Menagerie.
10 things I’m grateful for, the fountain pen edition
This is a simple gratitude post, featuring ten fountain pen things I’m grateful for.
Whimsy is healing
Academia is not the only field where one is expected to perform seriousness. Whimsy gets a bad rap in quite a few industries. But my stationery habit does not make me bad at my job, and I am prepared to stick a sticker on that hill.
Pen frustration, pen magic
Our fountain pens and other stationery items are not just tools. They are artifacts, talismans against an overwhelming and cruel world. Pens can represent self-care and purpose, pens can bring delight and wonder. Pens are magic. That magic can come as a freebie gift, or in shape of a cheap, incredible, damaged antique-store pen.
How pens leave and enter the gathering
It’s easy to see how a person who spends years collecting pens ends up owning many of them - even if you only buy a few a year, the numbers begin to add up. For those of us who own under 20 pens, and yet spend time in the hobby, I’m always curious how this happens. For me personally, it’s some combination of restraint, considering exactly what pens I want to add to the gathering, and letting go of pens that do not rhyme with the collection.