Warning: Many photos in this post! Sometimes we all get a little tired of seeing beautiful, sleek, serious, high-end fountain pens, and it’s about time we explore the lower end, cutesy fountain pens, just for fun. Thanks to two members of the SFPL group, I have in my possession two cute fountain pens which are clearly very suitable for children (or adults who like cute stuff, like me sometimes). In terms of pricing, both pens cost $3 (SGD) or less, which is pretty amazing, and you will know why later. I will go into details of each pen one by one. CELLO FOUNTAIN PEN (DISNEY – SNOW WHITE) Cello Writing Instruments is an Indian company that manufactures stationery products. This fountain pen has been offered to me by Burhan from Jalalpen, a Singaporean pen company that has emerged recently. Even though I received this for free, my review is only of my honest opinion of the pen. The colours on this pen are bright pastels, which at first glance looks like something that children will be attracted to. In addition, the barrel has a printout of Snow White, a Disney character. There are also other pens with other colours that feature other […]
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Sorry for the delay in putting up the winners of the Backpocket Ink Testers. 1st Winner Congratulations to Jeff from the U.S.! Your winning entry is the comment you left on my blog post. 2nd Winner Congratulations to Dale, also from the U.S.! Your winning entry is by following me on Twitter. To Claim Your Prize You will each receive one Backpocket Ink Tester notebook. Look out for my email which notifies you of winning. I will send the prize if you complete the following: Leave a comment at this blog post to acknowledge winning Reply to my email with your mailing address Do both of the above by Saturday, 13 Jun 2015. If I don’t receive any notification from you, I will pick a new winner. Meanwhile, if you really love the Backpocket Ink Tester, you may visit Straits Pen to ask about availability and to see what else they have there! Also, Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherwork has graciously allowed to let me share a photo of their notebooks with you (below). If you happen to be interested in what other kinds of notebooks they have, visit their Facebook Page. As for the photo below, Steve Curnow has informed […]
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This year is a milestone year for Singapore. 2015 marks the 50th birthday of Singapore ever since it became independent in 1965. Over 50 years, the country/island/city has evolved at top speed from a developing nation to a first-world country today! Since the Golden Jubilee is an important event, a nationwide celebration effort has taken place, known as SG50. To join in this effort, Staedtler has launched the SG50 Flora and Fauna Limited Edition fountain pen on 6 June 2015. I was at Fook Hing Trading Co. right on this very date and had the chance to experience the pen for myself! This pen is based on the Intium Corum Urbes range of premium writing instruments by Staedtler. The first thing you’ll notice is the colourful design on the barrel of the fountain pen. The barrel has a roll of fine quality cowhide leather around it, with the design of a bird and a flower on it. The bird is known as the Crimson Sunbird, the unofficial national bird of Singapore. I have never seen this bird myself in real life, but seeing it in pictures, I can tell it looks really pretty! The flower is Singapore national flower, a […]
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This pen has been sponsored by Pen Chalet, but all opinions are my own. I was browsing Pen Chalet’s online catalogue when I chanced upon the Monteverde One Touch fountain pen. It caught my eye immediately and I knew I wanted to check it out. As I was asked to choose a couple of pens to review, I immediately contacted Ron from Pen Chalet, requesting to have this pen to review. Thank you, Pen Chalet, for providing me with the Monteverde One Touch fountain pen! The Monteverde One Touch pen arrived in a cardboard box which is mainly yellow, black, and silver in colour and design. The whole package gives a very technical/industrial feeling about the pen, and I suppose that is the point – you will see why later. Other than the box and the pen, there are two cards inserted diagonally inside the box. One is a “holder” onto which the pen is clipped, and it contains a description of what’s available in the One Touch range. The smaller card slip shows a picture of the main parts of the pen, and instructions on how to refill the pen with a cartridge. I call this the Swiss Army Knife of […]
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I have lately received an interesting product from Straits Pen, and the product is from a company I have never heard of before. It is the Backpocket Ink Tester. I love new products from new brands, so I was pretty excited to review this notebook! The Backpocket Ink Tester is a pocket-sized notebook which reminds me much of Field Notes, the super-popular pocket-sized brand of notebooks that everyone seems to love. It is made by Curnow Bookbinding & Leatherwork, from Dixon, California. These are handmade journals, which makes it even more appealing to me! When you flip to the middle of the book, you will be able to see the binding, which seems to be some sort of wire or twine. It’s an interesting way of binding (while Field Notes are bound by classic staples). Within the book, there are 46 pages of forms for you to fill out your ink records, so you can record 46 different kinds of inks in one single book. The fields allow you to record the ink brand, ink name, the pen and nib you used for the record, and the date. Following those, you can give star ratings for ink characteristics like shading, saturation, […]
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I’ve been rather busy and still ill, so I’m going to just put up a short post! The Singapore Fountain Pen Lovers have just had a pen meet on Saturday, May 30, 2015. The turnout had been excellent, and there has been a lucky draw as well! Everyone was eyeing the prizes as they are Montblanc products sponsored by Fook Hing Trading Co. The meet was held at the Tea Party Cafe again, which seems to be our usual haunt for official pen meets. It’s a spacious cafe with a nice concept, and serves good food! Despite the abundance of space in the cafe, it was almost literally overflowing with fountain pen enthusiasts. There was an ink testing station set up at a corner of the cafe, where we could go and have a look at the 8 Montblanc fountain pen inks in beautiful slipper glass bottles. As admin, I helped to prepare ink swab samples for ease of colour referencing. I also brought two glass pens for the members to dip into the bottles of inks to test out the colours. It was so crowded that, being the introvert that I am, I didn’t know really who to talk […]
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I am a music-lover, and used to be a student of music. All that time spent drawing crotchets and quavers, treble clefs and bar lines, has been memorable indeed. It is not until my interest in fountain pens started that I learnt about the existence of music nibs. Did the composers in the past really use nibs like that to write their music? Here is a picture of a handwritten musical manuscript: The style is characterized by very thin strokes for stems and lines, big saturated blobs for the notes, and thick fat lines for joining notes together. You can also see line variation in the handwriting. I’ve decided to investigate whether music nibs are able to produce a similar effect. Thanks to Parkablogs, I have managed to try out a Sailor music nib for myself. Previously, I have reviewed the Platinum music nib and liked it pretty much. I had spent quite a bit of time deciding between the Pilot, Platinum, and Sailor music nibs, and finally decided on the Platinum because of the writing feel on paper. Sailor’s music nib does not have 3 tines like the Platinum, and I had felt that it didn’t look as special, […]
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Did you know that it is World Stationery Day today, and that this week (27 April – 3 May) is National Stationery Week? That means it’s time to get out and celebrate with some stationery. I have started a series of “Get Started On” posts consisting of only one post so far, so I thought it is the best time to write another one to get people started on things. Being a fountain pen blogger and a stationery fanatic, I would like to get you started on fountain pens, if you haven’t done so yet! 3 Reasons Why You Should Start Using Fountain Pens I will keep it simple and to the point, but I would like to share with you some of my thoughts on why you should get started on fountain pens. Note that this list definitely isn’t exhaustive, but I hope you can identify with at least one of the pointers listed below. “Green” Going green is a big thing as one may probably wish to do a little on our part to reduce waste and protect the environment. Using a fountain pen itself may not be fully environmentally-friendly, but if you compare it with using cheap […]
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I recently bought a Franklin Christoph Penvelope 6. I have been eyeing it since I saw the pouch that my SFPL friend, Jeffrey, own. He has a Saddleboot Brown version with a dusty red inner lining. I got mine from Fook Hing Trading Co. at a reasonable price. They only had the maroon version which I found was wonderful, and it has black lining inside. So, of course I simply had to get one! The price of a Penvelope 6 is much more reasonable compared to the Penvelope 2. I had contemplated for a long time between the 6 and the 2, and finally decided that 6 is a great number of pens to carry. I have done a review of the Penvelope 6 in a video below. It’s my first video review where I actually show my face and speak, so I’m quite nervous. But I hope you like the video! Here’s a photo of Jeffrey’s Penvelope in Saddleboot Brown, with the weathered, aged look: Amazon affiliate links of the pens I used in the video, in case you’re interested to get one for yourself: Pilot Kakuno and here is my review of it Sailor Lecoule Lamy Joy and here is […]
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Caran d’Ache produces quite some nice colours of inks, and while I have done a couple of ink samples late last year, I haven’t gotten down to reviewing them on this site yet. The brand has had a range called the Caran d’Ache Colors of the Earth inks, which has been discontinued and replaced with their Chromatic range. I was lucky enough to have snatched up 3 of the old inks before they were all out of the market. Before I start my ink review, I’ll have to disclaim that the colour of the ink that I scanned for this review may not be the same as the actual colour perceived. I have tried my best to adjust the hues to be as similar as possible to the real thing, based on what I see on my Macbook laptop screen. Your computer may output a slightly different hue, depending on the settings of your screen colours. Just search on Google Images for any of the ink names, and you will see how vastly different the colours look like for each type of ink! Caran d’Ache Colors of the Earth: Saffron I have a great weakness for certain colours for inks. One […]
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