Month: October 2021

October 28, 2021

A Makeup Journey

Back in the early days of my blog, I wrote a review of Surreal Makeup. In it, I was very clear that I didn’t wear makeup very often. Four years later, that has changed completely.

I wear makeup virtually every day now. I’ve long-since discovered the joy of decorating my face with colors. I look at makeup as clothing for my face. I put it on in the morning, take it off in the evening, and use it to show off my personality.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know I take inspiration for my looks from all over: nature, pens, photos, etc.

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ARTUS Four Elements Fire

October 26, 2021

Rachel

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ARTUS Four Elements Fire

Posted in Fountain Pens, and Reviews

Ah, another ARTUS pen. As I said in my 200th Pen post, I wanted my next pen purchase to be something special, and this certainly qualifies. Like its “brother pen,” it’s a magnificent work of art. The layers of paint give the flames a three-dimensional quality that tricks my eyes. Every time I look at it I find something new to look at. Note: You can view the images a little larger — much larger if you’re on mobile — by clicking on them.

Enjoy all of the delicious pen porn contained within this post. I take no responsibility for purchases resulting from them.

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Delights from my Dislikes

October 22, 2021

Rachel

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Delights from my Dislikes

Posted in Fountain Pens

As promised, I’m back with delights from my disliked pen brands. Once again, this is based on a video from Angelica Nyqvist.

Disclaimer: I’m calling this “dislike[d]” brands, but that’s really for the alliteration. I don’t necessarily dislike the brands, it’s more that their pens don’t tend to work for me.

Montegrappa

I’ve had hard starting issues with most of my Montegrappa pens. It’s the reason why I’ve sold the ones that I have. But, my Extra 1930 Shiny Lines/Dove is a true delight. The nib is wet. The material is stunning. The nib and cap band are beautiful. The only thing I would change is the ink capacity, as I keep writing it dry.

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Cocoa Paper: Quality Custom Cover

October 20, 2021

Rachel

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Cocoa Paper: Quality Custom Cover

Posted in Fountain Pens, and Reviews

I enjoy color. I know, it can be hard to tell. 😉 Unfortunately for me, my favorite notebooks don’t come with colorful covers. So, in June last year, I made a custom fabric cover. It turned out… alright. It was a bit too big, and the construction wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t too bad for a first try. I used some gorgeous fabrics, and that’s really the only reason I’ve kept it as long as I have.

Switching to a different notebook brand with my current notebook seemed like a good time to abandon that old cover. Unfortunately, while the Rhodia is more colorful than the Firma-Flex, it stains badly.

Back of Rhodia Goalbook showing staining — Look at all that ugly staining. The front and spine are just as bad.

So, I went looking for a new cover. I didn’t think it would be so difficult.

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A Cheat Code for Self-Love

October 18, 2021

Rachel

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A Cheat Code for Self-Love

Posted in Personal

As it is for many, my journey to self-love has been long, with many walls and speed bumps along the way. I also still have a long way to go to love and accept my own body the way I do others’.

Somewhere along the way, though, I discovered my own, personal cheat code: decorations.

My first tattoo was on my hip. At the time, I wasn’t super fond of the area. But, after my tattoo had healed, it was like it’d flipped a switch. How could it be anything but fabulous when I had such a cool tattoo?

Granted, this is more something I realized in hindsight. At the time, I was so excited to finally have a tattoo that I didn’t pay any attention to how I felt about my hip. After all, there were, unfortunately, plenty of other areas I disliked back then.

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Fails from my Favorites

October 15, 2021

Rachel

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Fails from my Favorites

Posted in Fountain Pens

DISCLAIMER UPDATE (6/24/22): TWSBI and Narwhal have released a joint statement which I cover in my most recent TWSBIgate post. While not completely satisfied with TWSBI’s response to the situation, I no longer feel the need to dissuade people from purchasing their products.

DISCLAIMER (5/1/22): Since writing this post, TWSBI has been involved in some unsavory actions, and I am currently boycotting them. For more information, refer to the #twsbigate tag page.

I’m not sure where it originated, but the other day I watched a video from Angelica Nyqvist about fails from her favorite makeup brands. Seeing as I had so much fun with adapting the makeup tag to pens, I figured I could do the same thing with this. So, without further ado, here are some fails (for me) from some of my favorite pen brands.

Disclaimer: I’m calling this “fails,” but that refers to failing to satisfy my pen wants & needs. These aren’t bad pens, I just don’t like them. Also, the alliteration is fun.

Rachel

My 200th Pen

Posted in Fountain Pens

5 years, 8 months, and 19 days after buying my first fountain pen, I purchased pen number 199. Granted, I haven’t kept all of those pens. Between selling, gift, breakage, and loss, I currently own 121 pens, of which 110 are in regular use.

But, the main point is that my next purchase will be pen 200!! That’s huge, and deserves an appropriately special pen.

Because I wasn’t carefully cataloging my pens yet, I blew right past pens 50 and 100 — although, by sheer dumb luck, #50 was my first 18111 pen. And I didn’t think to save 150 for a special pen, so 200 has to be awesome.

18111 Ivy Pen — Pen number 50. She’s certainly gorgeous.

Rachel

Dark Radiance

Posted in Fountain Pens, and Reviews

Before I get started, let me say I take no responsibility from pen envy or impulse purchases resulting from this post. Pen porn abounds. You have been warned. Now, enjoy!

I fell in love with my Tamenuri Studio pen when Michal posted his close up images (see image 2).

I sent him a message ASAP, and, luckily it was still available. Michal was kind enough to send me some photos of the whole pen. It lost nothing in the further distanced photos. He posted them a little later, so you can see them, too.

Rachel

An Underrated Ink

Posted in Fountain Pens

Several years ago, as part of my Fountain Pen 101 Series, I wrote about inks. In that post, I mentioned how some “inks are considered “tried and true” in that they work well with virtually all pens and flow well.”I cited Diamine and Pilot Iroshizuku as two “tried and true” inks. I’ve since learned that Waterman inks have a similar reputation. However, in my own experience, I’ve discovered another ink brand that should have been on on that list: J(acques) Herbin.

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Capsule Pen Collection

October 1, 2021

Rachel

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Capsule Pen Collection

Posted in Fountain Pens

DISCLAIMER (5/1/22): Since writing this post, TWSBI has been involved in some unsavory actions, and I am currently boycotting them. For more information, refer to the #twsbigate tag page.

Ink Journal’s September 10th Flex Nib Friday issue included a link to ukfountainpens.com‘s article The Three Pen Collection for £1,000. The idea was based on a series of posts on the watch blog Worn & Wound called the three watch collection for $5,000. UK Fountain Pens adapted the idea to pens, dropped the budget to $1,000 because “watches are much more expensive than pens” — *chortle* some watches are much more expensive than some pens — and limited picks to pens you can go out and buy today.

It’s an easy enough premise. My problem, however, is that the pens I’d choose don’t work out well with the budget provided. So, I gave it some thought and decided to curate two collections, one with the adjusted $1,000 budget and one with the original $5,000 budget. As a note, I did not include taxes when figuring out my choices.

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