Tags

, , , ,

I wanted to share with you the last of my Christmas journals. A good friend gave me this Butterfly Journal from Fringe Paper Goods.

butterfly journal cover

I call it the Butterfly Journal but I think it’s actually called Three Maps (that’s what is on the barcode on the back). And you can see why – inside each of the butterflies and inside the actual journal are beautiful maps.

butterfly inside front cover

I think it’s a US map; I see Trinity and National and various names of creeks and ridges. I could Google the names I suppose.

butterfly inside back cover

And the same map is on the back cover, with a pocket.

butterfly journal inside

The paper feels great; not sure what the weight is. I will do an ink test when I’m moving into the notebook.

butterfly journal back cover

The back cover. Really beautiful notebook!

Sorry to jump around, but I also wanted to get into my Akkerman ink, which I mentioned here. Lots of folks have been asking if I’ve inked up any pens with it yet, and yesterday I did, and here are the pictures!

hero in water

So I wanted to put the Akkerman blue ink into my blue Hero 6021. Before I could do that I had to empty the blue Hero and clean it. This was my first time and I followed the instructions from Goulet Pens. Above is the Hero in distilled water. I moved the plunger up and down until the water within the pen was clear.

I also emptied my Manuscript pen. I wanted to ink them both up with the Akkerman ink because they have very different nibs.

manuscript in water

Aren’t the ink swirls beautiful?

manuscript drying

Once the water within the pen is clear you wipe off the pen with a tissue or paper towel. There could still be some ink in the feed but that’s ok. Above is my Manuscript pen disassembled and drying. I did the same with the Hero.

So then the next step was to fill the pens with the Akkerman ink.

akkerman open

I turned the Akkerman bottle over to fill the reservoir. Above is a picture of the bottle with the cap removed. You can see there is a good amount of ink in there. It’s almost to the top of the rim of the bottle.

manuscript inserted

Then I plunged the pen into the top of the bottle until I hit the marble. I drew the plunger up and the ink flowed into it.

hero being wiped of ink

I wiped the pens off and put them back together again.

And then I started writing in my Rhodia notebook.

akkerman writing sample 1

The Hero 6021 is very fine and on the dry side. The Manuscript pen has an italic nib and is much more wet. You can really see the ink colour with the Manuscript pen.

akkerman writing sample

Stormy sky indeed! And I’m thrilled with how the Manuscript pen is performing, now that it’s been cleaned and I have moved to the converter as opposed to the cartridge. It used to be a super slow starter but over the last two days I have had no trouble with it whatsoever. Could be the cleaning, could be the ink (although previously the ink was J. Herbin Perle Noire and I’ve never had problems with it), or could be the change to the converter. Whatever the reason it’s a different pen. And I LOVE the ink colour!