Hey dear readers, I am back on track with blogging! Sorry I have been busy for the past few weeks (yes, in my “Hiatus” post I wrote “two weeks or so” but it ended up almost 1 month, oops!), but I would like to give a huge THANK YOU! to all my readers who have been constantly checking back on my blog. I seemed to have also gained a couple of new readers in the process. Hmm, maybe I should have more “hiatuses” like this! Kidding! I do miss blogging, though. The pen I will be writing about today is a nice grand pen. “Grand” here is used loosely, as in the overall feel and experience with the pen. Not imagining a diamond-studded Mont Blanc now, are you? The pen in question is much simpler-looking than that. Granted, it isn’t a fountain pen, but it is good enough to deserve some attention to it too. It is a… The pen is medium-big, black, rollerball, and silky-smooth. That’s probably the most apt sentence I can ever speak of about a pen. I bought this pen in a furniture shop in Singapore called King and King Wong, at the shopping mall […]
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Hey guess what.. I’m typing this post from my brand new Asus Transformer Pad! Yes, the TF300! I just got it over the weekend and was really happy to get it! Well I had been contemplating getting a tablet for a long time, and the demise of my mum’s laptop had given me the right opportunity to justify buying a tablet. Things hadn’t been going too happily for me so far (especially at work), so I think such a new gadget to play with is definitely a nice treat. Alright, let’s get back to the topic of stationery. Some time ago, JetPens has sent me a little parcel containing one pen. I could feel the pen in the envelope when I got it out of the letterbox. When I took the pen out, oh boy! It is a fountain pen with a wooden body! Dearest JetPens, how did you know that I love such wooden pens? You must be geniuses! Totally in love with this pen. Absolutely happy! Comparing this with my previous review of an unknown-brand wooden fountain pen, this pen is different in that the metallic parts are made of aluminium. This makes the pen feel […]
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To celebrate my very first sponsorship and the fact that my blog’s pageviews has exceeded its very first 10,000 views, I have decided to do my very first review and giveaway! I was quite surprised, upon returning from a busy weekend, to find that my blog has already hit 10,000 pageviews – earlier than I had expected! Reaching a five-digit number of pageviews for me is a milestone: it means that I have managed to persist in staying on the same blog for a substantial amount of time (almost 1 year, I think!), and it also means that my blog has reached out to a number of people (I hope)! Today’s review will consist of two parts, each respectively dedicated to Daycraft’s MyTravel Notebook and Signature Wine Journal. Thanks to Daycraft, I am now able to do my first official review (and giveaway) of notebooks! My previous notebook reviews have been not so detailed so I hope this review will be better than the old ones. These two notebooks are newly launched series by Daycraft. At the time of writing, I am not sure that their distributor in Singapore has imported these notebooks yet. Which means there is a high […]
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This article and all the pictures in it has been contributed by Mike Grove, one of my blog readers. Thank you Mike, for being so nice as to share about your pen on my humble little blog! Hopefully this review will help out those who are looking for a nice Visconti pen! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I discovered this pen on the internet a couple of weeks ago when I was bored at work (so it’s their fault that I fell in love with it – I think they should pay!). It’s big, black, and heavy, like all the best pens…(well, except my Conway Stewart Nelson, which is a sort of swirly red colour). Here’s a picture to whet your appetite; The body of the pen is high gloss resin with Rhodium plated trims and, unusually for a fountain pen, is octagonal in shape. This means that you can put it down on a sloping surface and it won’t roll off and leave an ink blot on the carpet (like that Conway Stewart I mentioned!). Here’s another picture, with the cap removed; I ordered it with a Double-Broad nib (BB), because I like wide nibs – they help make me write larger […]
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When I saw this pen at Georges & Co. in Paris, I just had to buy it. Another impulse buy, I guess. The first reason was that this was a Faber-Castell, which I never ever tried before. The second being the pretty checkered body, which is also a design I never had, and the gloss seemed to have a mildly hypnotic effect on me. The third reason: it is the first fountain pen in broad nib that I have ever encountered. So I had to get it. The first thing I thought of this pen was that it is HEAVY. And no, it’s not the cap. The cap is light, hard rubber-like material, while the pen barrel is made of a thick plastic, lined on the inside by a cylinder of metal. No wonder it is heavy! If I flicked this pen against someone’s head, the person is bound to have a huge purple bruise that would last for weeks. So when you hold the pen to write, it is quite top-heavy, which is definitely not suitable for long periods of writing. However for a signature pen (especially with that broad nib) it would be great! I normally use […]
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Today’s review is a new look at an old pen. And it’s a pen that I am sure most of you have seen before: the Pilot V5 Hi-tecpoint! It is my typical school pen which I always used when I was still schooling. And by that I mean -ALWAYS-. I used this pen for taking down notes, writing on slips of paper to pass around behind the teacher’s back, draw on my friends’ arms for fun, doodling during boring lessons… Despite being such a frequently-used pen, I have never delved into the details about it. A quick search on Google brought me to Cult Pens, which gave a very short description about it. It was first launched in 1983 (wow, that is way before I even existed in this world!) and it is a needle-point rollerball. Cool, I didn’t know needle-pointed pens are rollerball pens. I always called them “ink pen”. Now I wonder why that term came out. Probably because before the use of rollerballs became popular, everyone in school used ballpoint pens. So when these needle points increased in popularity, everyone just grabbed one and probably called it the “ink pen” due to the smooth, consistent inky […]
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The review I am going to do today is of 3 types of pens from: This is my very first review of Stabilo products, so let’s rejoice! It means that I am scrutinizing more stationery brands for review on my blog, and I do hope that this would help you guys out there who are looking for an opinion on pens! Yesterday during lunch, I just decided to make a trip down to a shopping mall near my office to get some snacks for my snack cupboard (I believe everyone has one in the office. If you don’t have one, get one!). By some unknown magnetic force, I was drawn to the Popular Bookstore where there is of course a huge array of stationery. There were so many new pens, and so many familiar pens. Which pen should I buy? My decision was made when I had a sudden memory of my secondary school life, which was likely the Golden Age of my stationery explorations (bought a few new pens weekly). So I got some Pilots and Stabilos, which I will be reviewing today and in the next few days. The 3 Stabilos that I am reviewing today are […]
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The fountain pen being reviewed today is not in my possession, and neither is the review done by me. I am very happy to have a friend from the Singapore Fountain Pens Lovers Facebook group do a review of her blue Jinhao fountain pen to be shared on my blog to all you readers out there! I’d like to first comment on Hwee Min’s review style and why I like it. It is surely different from mine in that she has done a written review, while my reviews are mostly typed out. Also, she seems to have a better-quality camera than I do, because her pen photos look like brochure-worthy material as compared to my less professional photos which are generally taken with my phone’s camera! One important note: Hwee Min is right-handed, while I’m a leftie. You can probably expect the difference in handedness from the way she structures her review below fact that she has a STRUCTURED review, something I would say is typical of a left-brain-dominant right-hander. In contrast, my reviews are mostly unstructured, not unlike tangles in bushy hair sometimes, and I have an excuse for that: I’m a leftie who is right-brain-dominant. If I may […]
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Hello readers, I’m finally back after one week of absence from here. What have I been doing so far? Well, after my Vietnam trip that lasted from Tuesday to Friday last week, I had a bit of rest on Saturday, which unfortunately was morphed into a horror of a food poisoning on Sunday. Complete with diarrhoea, vomitting, and fever. I slept most of the Sunday away but I feel better today. Still having some cramps and diarrhoea, but I’ve seen a doctor and gotten some medication (was diagnosed with bacterial infection in the tract), and hopefully I’ll be perfectly fine in a couple of days. So what new acquisitions have I gotten lately? One nice “signature pen” which I will review another day, and two new kikki.k gel pens, which I will briefly share about today. The two pens are respectively named Rainbow Stitch and Bebis. Rainbow Stitch is probably thus named because of the squares of colour that make up a spectrum from one end of the pen to the other looking like a work of cross-stitching or embroidery. Although I would probably call this “Rainbow pixels instead”, to “keep up with technology”. Bebis is the Swedish word for […]
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Here is a review of my very first Mont Blanc fountain pen! The moment I saw the Mont Blanc 31 on sale, I totally ignored the fact that it was a third-hand pen, and, while salivating, I told the seller that I WANT THIS PEN. I got it for 120 SGD which later on I realized is a little more expensive than what I could have gotten for online. Damn. Life is always like that. Once you think you nailed down a great deal, something better pops up. Stop toying with us already! But in any case, I got the pen, I paid for it. The deed is done. Let’s not cry over spilt ink. 🙂 I was told that this pen is a vintage. And then I was also told that vintage is subjective. This #31 was probably manufactured during the 1960s, so does that qualify as a vintage pen? To me I think vintage stuff are stuff that were from 2 generations ago – that would be about 50 years ago. So I guess by my definition, this is almost vintage, I guess? It is clearly an old and used pen, judging from some marks on […]
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