#5 of 53 File Index Sneak Peek and A Carousel of Ink

Tags

diamine, diamine 150 anniversary, index, wonder pens

I’ve been thinking for some time about changing the way I record the details of my pens and inks, as discussed in this post. I love having lots of room to write about each pen or ink, but inevitably I found the binder too large and heavy to be practical and portable. So I’ve made the move to index cards.

I’ve made a list of all the pens I have, as well as a list of all the inks. I’ve noted down the colour of pen, the size of bottle, where each was purchased and when. Then each pen and each ink has it’s own index card under the corresponding letter (J for Jinhao and D for Diamine). It’s compact and alphabetical. It’s still a work in progress as I haven’t found a proper file drawer for it; I would love to purchase a real library file drawer (with the steel rod and everything!!) but my budget doesn’t allow it at this time. I plan on doing a full post on it when it is finished.

But in working on transferring the contents of the binder to the cards I have found gaps in my inventory, and one such obvious gap is a set of inks I bought after the binder was set up but still packed away: 8 of the Diamine 150 Anniversary Inks. To mark the 150th anniversary of its brand, Diamine released 16 40 ml bottles in a unique triangular shape that, when arranged, form a beautiful carousel of ink.

There are 16 colours in the anniversary line:

1. Burgundy Royale
2. Carnival
3. Blood Orange
4. Golden Honey
5. Safari
6. Tropical Green
7. Dark Forest
8. Blue Velvet
9. Tudor Blue
10. Lilac Night
11. Regency Blue
12. Purple Dream
13. Terracotta
14. Espresso
15. Silver Fox
16. 1864 Blue Black

I have eight of these, and I actually didn’t realize there were eight more until I did the research for this post. I bought the set from WonderPens.ca and they gave me a deal because I bought a set of eight. Now that I know there are eight more, I might ask them if they would offer me the deal again! When I have a few pennies to spare maybe. You can buy them on the Wonderpens site for $15 each.

The labels are very distinctive, with the swirly 150 and the vintage feel. And the inks themselves, as with all Diamine inks, are bright and eye catching.

Here is the Blue Velvet. The blue handwriting in the photo above is from my journal, made with a Jinhao 992 pen inked with Blue Velvet.

Here is Carnival, which is more of a true red than what is coming through in the photo.

Here the red writing is in Carnival.

Here is the 1864 Blue Black above with a writing sample below.

 

Above is the Safari green, with a writing sample below.

The next four inks.

Here is the Tropical Green with a writing sample below. Love this green.

Here is the Regency Blue followed by a writing sample. I like all three but this is my favourite of the blue inks in this set.

Here is the Silver Fox with a writing sample following. This is my least favourite of this set. I have never come across a grey ink that I like; they all seem to be too light. You can barely read this one.

And finally here is the Terracotta, with the writing sample following.

That’s it for the Diamine 150 inks, or at least half of them.

I also came across a few more new inks that need to be reviewed but this post is certainly long enough so I won’t inflict them on you. Yet.

Happy journaling.

 

A Pilot Metropolitan and a Quick Craft Project

Tags

avacado, pilot metropolitan, private reserve, winnable

So Friday was Fountain Pen Day, celebrated on the first Friday of November around the world since 2012. I gave away some Zebra V301s (which I talked about here) to get into the spirit of things, and I treated myself to a Pilot Metropolitan. Brian Goulet of Goulet Pens raves about these pens so I decided to pick one up and see for myself.

I’ve read a few reviews and watched a few videos and this pen is very popular. It’s great value for the price point (I paid $18.75 on Amazon). It came with a squeeze converter which I have never used before and a Pilot cartridge in black.

The cartridge is proprietary of course, which I knew before purchasing. I think the design of the pen is quite striking – the cigar shape and the understated styling. The section is black but the rest of the pen is silver.  I chose to finally try one of my samples from Wonderpens that I purchased earlier this year: Private Reserve Avacado (sic).

Here’s a closeup of the squeeze converter, sitting on my ink journal entry. I’m not sure how I feel about the squeeze converter; I’ve read that the converter, if filled properly, can hold up to 1ml of ink, which allows for a long writing experience. But that has not been my experience; I get to page 4 or so and the pen runs dry. It’s probably a problem with me not filling it properly as I’m new to it. It could also be the bottle from which I filled the converter; it’s a sample bottle and a particularly small one so it is probably not the best vessel to use for such a converter. If there is a problem with my converter I will switch to the cartridge. I can always fill that cartridge with an ink syringe if I do not want to purchase more cartridges.

I really love the ink colour. Such a vibrant, sunny green. And the Metropolitan is a real joy to write with. It started up right away with no skipping. I’m really pleased with it and agree with the majority that this is an excellent starter pen or just a really good workhorse addition to any line up.

I’ve been writing in my Winnable journal with this pen, and I’ve found myself getting really frustrated with the lack of a bookmark in the journal cover. So I added one. I had to mutilate a Coronation Street lanyard I’ve never used as I seem to have thrown out all my ribbon. I had a lot of fun with my hot glue gun (I secretly love my hot glue gun and am constantly thinking of opportunities to use it!) and I’m really happy with the result.

I glued the end of the ribbon onto the inside of the journal cover and looped it around a broken pin I’ve not had the heart to throw out.

I love pewter pins and this one reminds me of fishing villages at home.

So that’s my new pen and my Sunday Craft project. 🙂

Crafty Monday

Tags

arc notebooks, fauxdori, midori, midori-style, my life all in one place, ray blake, raydori

I was fooling around with my ARC hole punch today and made a custom notebook for a game I’m playing at the moment. It involves the care and feeding of dragons and there is a lot of information to remember. I didn’t want to use one of my many empty journals as I don’t know how long I will be interested in this game and I would hate to “waste” a journal on my notes for a game I no longer play. My ARC rings, some scrapbooking paper and my ARC hole punch solved that problem.

Here’s a close up of the cover. I found the old dragon map online and the egg sticker I already had in my collection.

It is an unusual size; it was dictated by the size of scrapbooking paper I wanted to use. I put purple lined paper and blank, brown craft paper in it, cut to size.

I also used different scrapbooking paper for the dividers, with tabs at the top.

The rings are probably too big but they are the smallest ones I have.

When I finished this notebook I started putting together Ray Blake’s Monthly PlanPack. Ray Blake is a wonderful artist who has many, many free printables on his website, My Life All in One Place. He also makes Midori-style notebooks for sale. I bought one and wrote about it in this post in October of last year. This PlanPack was super easy to print and trim.

Here is the cover I created for the insert. I didn’t cut the edges properly so some of them stick out, but it doesn’t bother me. And it’s brand new so it doesn’t lay flat yet.

The printable produces two booklets. It starts with a blank month.

Followed by 6 blank weekly layouts.

And then the rest of the booklet is devoted to lists for whatever you choose.

I am not planning to jump into this format right away; I’m happy with my Flex Planner. But I have a lot of fun putting these type of things together and it might come in useful if I move into a smaller purse (which I dream about but never actually happens). Check out Ray’s selection; he makes truly professional-looking and incredibly useful printables for your Midori or Midori-style notebook covers, in a variety of sizes.

 

LG Pocket Photo Printer

Tags

fuji instaxx, lg pocket photo printer

I wanted to share with you a recent purchase of mine. First let me give a big shout out to my husband who made this purchase possible. Love you honey.

Ok so I’ve had an LG Pocket Photo Printer on my Amazon wishlist for about eight months. When I put it on my list it was $200. It came down $40 recently, which is good, because it is now comparable to what Future Shop and Best Buy have it listed for. Mine was purchased on the July long weekend from Best Buy during a fantastic sale. I was thrilled to finally have it. I’ve seen it used quite a bit on Youtube by journallers who want to add small photos to their journal pages. At the time I was actually considering the Fuji Instaxx camera but was encouraged by the Best Buy associate and my husband to go with the Pocket Photo printer. The advantages over the Instaxx are many. In a nutshell the Pocket Photo printer syncs with your phone, using NFC or Bluetooth technology, and prints your photos on 2″ x 3″ paper. The printer does not have any ink cartridges; as I understand it the ink is contained within the special paper used in the printer. The colours in the photo dictate how far the laser will cut the paper. It’s brilliant and it’s my new favorite toy.

You must download an application called LG Pocket Photo (which I accessed through the Google Playstore since I have an Android device; the printer is compatible with iPhone as well) and it is through this interface that you can print your photos. You can choose from a variety of effects and backgrounds to enhance your photo. And the refills for the paper are not too expensive, in my opinion; I bought two packs of refills today for $16.99 each at Future Shop. Each pack holds three packages of 10 sheets of photo paper. So for $35 I bought 60 sheets. That’s about 60 cents a picture. I think that’s well worth the price for the convenience. And on ebay you can find comparable deals on the paper and the devices themselves. Actually ebay is proving to be a popular choice with some of the folks I follow on Youtube; ebay offers the devices direct from South Korea and they come in pink and yellow, sometimes with cases, for just over $200. The problem is, in my opinion, the South Korean devices come with chargers that do not fit the North American electrical outlets. So you are forced to charge the device with the USB cable. Which is no big deal for some but I preferred to buy a North American one. However the only colour available in North America, at least as far as I can tell, is white. And that is just fine with me.

What’s in the box: the printer, a package of 10 sheets of photo paper, a usb cable, instructions and a charger. When you first open it you must charge it; mine didn’t take too long, maybe an hour. Loading the paper is fairly straightforward. The instructions are very clear and you can be printing in about 15 mins once the device is charged. There is also a great troubleshooting guide, which tells you what to do if the paper jams (mine did and it was super easy to fix) or if you have trouble syncing your phone.

The refill packs. Each package comes with a blue “Smartsheet” which must be placed barcode side down and should be the first page that is printed each time. It’s like a printer test page; it calibrates the device. I’ve also seen refills that are sticker sheets.

Here’s the Smartsheet and you can see some of the pictures I’ve printed.

This is one of the “skins” that the LG Pocket Photo application offers. You can add the date and a caption, as I did; and I chose the border of polka dots on a yellow background. These irises grew in my mother’s garden in Nova Scotia; when my Dad moved out here in 2004 he brought some of them with him. They have thrived and it’s nice to have that connection to her. For comparison of colour, below is the original photo from my phone.

Obviously the larger picture is clearer but the colours are pretty close. I’m really pleased with the prints.

Here’s another example of a skin that can be used when editing the photo. I thought the heart was appropriate for Halley hugging her sister Gracie!

And this is another example of a skin, where I actually split the screen so I could print two photos, side by side. And then I chose a coffee (or tea!) and rain skin to fit them into. Again I included the date, and as you can see you can change the colour of the font, which is nice. You can also change the size from small to medium to large. I don’t think you can change the font itself or apply italics, which would be nice, but hey you can’t have everything.

So that’s it for the LG Pocket Photo printer. I highly recommend it for printing photos from your phone. The layout options and skins are alot of fun. And of course you can play with the brightness, contrast and saturation to suit your tastes. You can also apply different filters like black and white, sepia, vintage, etc. which I forgot to use for this review. I hope this was helpful and happy printing to go with happy writing!

I couldn’t find it so I made it

Tags

filofax flex, notebooks, paper, youtube

Here’s what I’ve been working on tonight: home made notebooks. I’ve been looking for grid notebooks with a smaller grid length and in a size that would fit my Flex Planner. Couldn’t find them. So I made some.

They are very small; only 10 pages each. I wanted to perfect the craft before making bigger books. There are lots of videos on Youtube for making your own notebooks; I watched about a dozen before deciding on stapling my books together. Look up Sea Lemon on Youtube; she has a ton of videos on the many different ways to make a book.

The stapling method is the easiest and fastest method, in my opinion, although the limitation is the size of your staple.

I used some cardstock that was kicking around my closet. I’m really pleased with how they turned out.

I printed the paper from http://www.printablepaper.net. This version is the 7 squares to the inch size.

I want to try saddle stitching next. And here is Sea Lemon’s video on Saddle Stitching with Staples in case you want to make some notebooks too. 🙂

Card File for Correspondence

Tags

arc notebooks, card file, incowrimo, letter writers alliance, letters

So I’ve been keeping my correspondence log in this ARC notebook, which started out as a Letter Writers Alliance log and turned into an InCoWriMo log, as I got a much better response from that endeavour than the pen pals that were sent to me from LWA. But as the number of letters sent grew larger (I’m in the 60s now since February 1) and my stack of replies seems to stay at a constant dozen, I needed something more organized. I wanted to keep track of the person’s name and address but also a log of our correspondence and some idea of what I’ve already said to the person. Don’t want to be a boring correspondent. So I came up with a card file. I had a 40% off coupon at Michael’s and I used it. Please know that I am not a crafter; I have never attempted decoupage before so this is my first project. Please indulge the rookie mistakes. 🙂

I wanted something more interesting than a recipe box but not as big as a conventional card file (one that might fit a shoe box – I don’t have that many correspondents). I saw this rough wooden box in Michael’s and thought it was perfect. I bought a bottle of Mod Podge and some foam brushes and went to town decoupaging the box. It’s not finished yet; I will do another post when it’s done. I intend to cover the entire thing (or as much of it as I’m capable of) with interesting paper I have collected over the years. In the picture above the paper on the front right is a page from my Bo Bunny Miscellaneous Me collection of notepaper. I cut it into an interesting shape, laid it on the box, and covered it with the gooey Mod Podge. The paper on the front left is gift wrap given to me years ago. You may recognize it from this post in which I use it as a divider in my planner. The sticker is one I picked up at Michael’s a while ago. I’ve been waiting for the right project to use them on and this is definitely it. The finished project will probably have more of those stickers.

I thought it would be interesting to have the paper cover the edges of the box. I used an exacto knife to cut the box open again after the paper was dry.

The image on the top of the box is a napkin, believe it or not. I removed the two layers of absorbent sheet on the napkin and was left with a very thin sheet with the image on it. It was tricky to decoupage as it becomes like wet tissue as soon as the Mod Podge hits it. But I’m very happy with the end result.

The other side of the napkin had a similar but slightly different design so I put that one on the inside of the box lid. You can see where the napkin started to tear on the left. I’m learning!

For the card file I needed dividers. Michael’s didn’t have any so I went to Staples and they only had the brightly colored modern ones; I was hoping for the vintage looking black and tan ones. No luck. So I made the dividers myself using brown tags.

The two-toned brown tags match my colour scheme, such as it is. I used an alphabet stamp set to make the letters.

Each correspondent will have their own set of three types of cards: Name and Address on the first, Log on the second, and Letters on the third and subsequent cards.

The first card is simply their name and address, and perhaps any extra info about them, like their username on FPGeeks or Youtube for example. The second card, the Log, will be a record of when each letter was sent from me and when I received their reply. The third card, the Letters, will be the details of what I said to them in each letter. I don’t want to repeat funny stories about the cats or my husband or something at work. And each set of cards will be fastened together with an interesting paper clip (finally a use for all those funky paper clips I own!). Each paper-clipped set will be filed under the person’s first name, as that is how I will think of them for sure. So when I sit down to write a response, I will have their last letter in front of me to answer, but I will also have all of their information from the card file. I’ve been using this system for about a week now and it’s working great!

As I said I still have work to do on the box. And after it’s all covered in paper I’m told I should do a final Mod Podge coat, to seal it all in. I will do another post when I’m done. Hope you enjoyed this – I’m certainly having fun playing with paper and glue!