Finally here!

A few days ago our shipment of the TWSBI Mini-ALs arrived.

I think I’m more of a mini-fan (Vac Mini, too), so this was a particularly exciting release for me. I have the now discontinued Mini White with Rose Gold trim, but I always worry about losing it or dinging it up when I take it out with me since it’s no longer available.

For a size comparison, from top to bottom: is the Mini-AL, the Vac-mini and the 580 AL-Orange

The difference between the standard Mini and the Mini-AL is that the grip and the piston mechanism are made out of aluminum. They’ll still take the same nib units as the standard Mini, in case you want to swap them around or purchase a new nib separately. The cap will twist to post securely on the back of the pen, but my hands are small enough that I typically write with my Mini unposted.

You can see on the left the standard Mini, with its clear grip (and the black feed housing inside), and also the black plastic piston mechanism at the end of the pen – versus the corresponding silver parts on the right.

Most of our Hobonichi shipment has made its way in, fortunately all of the covers were in the boxes that did make this week, so we’re shipping out pre-orders now. If you order a Hobonichi Techo or its cover we’ll be shipping it out as usual.

We’ve been busy trying to keep up with all the new things coming into the shop, and new photography, and organizing and counting inventory. We’re still hiring, and Jon is slowly making his way into booking and holding interviews again. I sometimes go out there to sit in on the interviews with Caleb and Chicken (the cat), but we keep our shop litter box at the back next to the table where we interview, and ever since Chicken made pretty good use of it in the middle of an interview, Jon has seemed to want to fly solo.

I dropped a bottle of Noodler’s Bernanke Blue earlier today, breaking my previous streak of around 6 months. Fortunately only the lid cracked, so there was only a tiny bit of leaking, but a broken bottle is a broken bottle. Jon’s theory is that my six month streak is only because I don’t always do the counting in the back anymore, so it’s a matter of reduced exposure and opportunity.

In our Noodler’s shipment, we got a new colour of ink: Golden Brown. This one is a beauty – I actually special ordered a bottle for myself years ago because I just love …golden browns. I wasn’t sure if anyone else would really want a bottle, since it’s a bit on the light side – I’ve got plans to do a review of it soon, since it really is one of my favourite colours. It’s not online yet, but should be over the next couple of days.

It feels like it’s been a while since we got in a new colour of ink from Noodler’s, but we can hardly seem to keep up with all the new pens and inks being released, while catching up to products and lines that have been out there for a while, but we just haven’t picked up on them yet, like the Iroshizuku line.

The fall is bringing with it a few new surprises for the shop, including one I’m basically lying moaning on the floor waiting for. I think it should be arriving in the next week or two.

***

In other news, we made some fairly substantial tweaks to Caleb’s bed time routine a few nights ago. Maybe it’s the fresh cool weather that the fall brings (although I hear it’s supposed to go back up next week, here in Toronto), or the fact that Caleb’s reached two years, which feels like a bit of a milestone.

Caleb’s never really been a terrible sleeper, but at the time and working up to it I was pretty nervous about it all, since I’m the one who puts Caleb to bed. However, it’s turned out marvelously, and I can’t believe how wonderful it is to have a toddler who goes to sleep by lying down in a crib, and without a complaint.

We moved a part of our sofa, which happens to be at the exact same height as the mattress in his crib, into his room and put it right up next to his crib. I lay down next to him on the sofa after turning off the lights – and he does the same, going right to sleep. A miracle, most likely because he slept in the same bed with us for quite a while.

Previously what was typically a half hour to 45 minutes has turned into five minutes – and I can say this because I set up an audio book to listen to  while waiting for him. He said mama a few times the first night, and mama once the second night, and now on the third night he said mama once again before snoozing and before I made my creaky exit, while holding my breath.

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Our newest pen in the shop: the Pelikan M400 Brown Tortoiseshell.

We’ve been thinking about carrying Pelikan in the shop for a long time – their beautiful inks in the Edelstein line and their 4001 series, but mainly about their pens.

Pelikan is a pen and ink manufacturer most well known for their line of piston-filler pens that begin with M and end with a hundred, like M200, M400, etc. They range in size (typically the larger the number, the larger the pen: the M1000 is the largest pen and it’s a big one), and colours in the barrels + caps.

Pelikan has a standard black pen with a green ink window, and a few other colours in their regular line, but they also release some special editions every once in a while – they’ve had beautiful pink or blue or aquamarine finishes.

I’ve been a Pelikan user and fan myself for a while, but it’s always a bit more complicated to bring a new line into the shop, and so it’s always just been something to dream about.

If you didn’t know this about me, I have a thing for brown pens and brown inks – earthy and warm and has a bit of a vintage sense to it. Many of my favourite pens are either brown or clear, and quite a few of my favourite inks are in the brown family, although I will take blue-greys + warm greens as well.

Many years ago, Pelikan released a Brown Tortoiseshell, and I’ve been dreaming of finding a vintage Pelikan Brown Tortoiseshell in the wild for about as long as I’ve been interested in fountain pens. I occasionally haunted eBay and had it on my list for Scriptus for the last two years, but never had the right timing to get one.

A few months ago, though, when Pelikan announced they were re-releasing the Brown Tortoiseshell in the M400, Jon and I had a serious meeting, over dinner, and likely with some peas flying around, unattended.

If ever there was going to be a pen for us to bring in to introduce this line to our shop, it would be the Brown Tortoiseshell M400.

It is everything I dreamed it would be. For me, I think it epitomizes a timeless pen – one I could use for journaling and letter writing, taking notes or signing invoices. It’s elegant and subtle and classic.

The Pelikan M400 Brown Tortoiseshell is a piston-filler with a super smooth 14K gold nib and a stunning brown cellulose acetate finish – the strips of gold and brown and black are so rich and vibrant while still being understated enough to use in any situation.

The M400 is a lightweight pen, and it feels just right in the hand – you can post the cap on the back if you need to, but I write without it posted since I have smaller hands.

It has the classic Pelikan bird on its top finial, and the Pelikan clip as well. The screw-cap and piston knob are dark brown resin, and the trim is 24k gold plated.

Pelikan pens are best-known for their reliable and well-engineered piston mechanisms – this pen holds a ton of ink, and the mechanism itself is flawless: smooth and stable. Pelikans are pens that can hold up for a lifetime or more of writing, and I have no doubt that I will be using this pen for years and years to come.

I think the real selling point for me is the beauty of the body, the striations of gold and brown and black and orange. It is truly one of the most beautiful pens I own. The depth and shine and subtle lines of everything earthy and gold all mixed together are just too much for me to resist.

As you turn the pen, you can see the light reflecting in the lines, and because the barrel is just slightly translucent, if you hold it up to the light, you can see the piston mechanism and the ink inside.

The nib itself is stunning – it’s a two tone 14k, and it has the Pelikan logo along with its classic grooves along the nib. I am generally indifferent to nib creep, but I love the way ink looks in the grooves of this nib.

Of course no matter how gorgeous a pen is, it always comes down to writing performance. The pens I reach for the most are the ones that write the best.

Pelikan’s nibs are super smooth, and I basically have not stopped writing with mine since I got it. It hasn’t skipped yet, and does well even after a minute or two or more of being uncapped.

I like wet pens, the wetter the better, and Pelikans tend to write on the wet side, which also makes them just a bit broader. I got a fine for mine, which ends up being just right for me since I sometimes find it hard to choose between fine and medium. I do have a few broads, but I find the fine/medium line much more versatile in my day to day use. How boring! I know.

This is a writing sample of Diamine Ancient Copper from my Fine nib in a Stalogy notebook. (Above is actually Rohrer + Klingner Sepia, as I took these pictures at different times.)

This M400 Brown Tortoiseshell is stunning. I’ve had it for almost a week, and I have already designated it as my soulmate (along with Super and Jon): its piston-filling mechanism, its smooth + wet nib, its tortoiseshell finish – it’s a dream.

We have extra fine to broad – as we bring in more of the Pelikan line, we will also be bringing in spare nib units, but we don’t have those available right now. Because this pen is a special edition, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to order more – my understanding is that quantities released in Europe have already moved quickly, but this pen looks pretty great in our case while we have it.

***

These days have been fast and furious, it seems. Along with all the new stuff coming in – Hobonichi, the Lamy 50th Anniversary LX + Black Amber 2000, Pelikan… – we’re starting to feel the fall coming back to us, and Caleb’s classes have begun again.

The day we got our shipment of Pelikans was a bananas day in the shop (a Friday! good things come on Friday for us), so I only got a chance to break it out and ink it up after the shop closed, when we had dinner at the park. I literally had irrational thoughts of our distributor selling out or not receiving this special edition at all. That is how crazy I was over it. I guess crazy is the operative word in that sentence.

It sorts of sums up our days – thrown together dinners on a blanket at the park, new pens and boxes and bottles of ink jostling around in the wagon: family and notebooks and crackers and cheese and Birkenstocks under the sun.

As of right now, I’m typing this out over the pen counter in the shop after hours, night outside and half the lights on inside. Caleb is squatting on the floor, way past bedtime, naked except for his shoes, filling up the tins of single Palominos from the boxes, concentrating hard, one pencil at a time.

I sometimes laugh because I think he’s learning his colours by sorting the 602 and the pearl and the Blackwing Palominos into their various cans, and matching ink boxes onto their shelves by the colours on their boxes. Before we know it he’ll be counting out change from the till.

The post Pelikan M400 Special Edition Brown Tortoiseshell appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

A couple of weeks ago we got in our newest colour from Noodler’s – Golden Brown.

This is a colour that I’ve had in my own personal collection for a while – I special ordered it to try out. At the time, we weren’t sure that there would be too many people who wanted to try out such a light ink – it seems that with browns, people are often looking for darker, walnut browns that will be good for work and the office, and can be more legible.

When I first got into fountain pens, I thought I wanted the darkest black ink out there, and that would be it for me. It was a very short-lived aspiration: I now typically do always have one pen with black in, but I probably have ten or more others with different colours and shades, and I lean heavily towards inks that shade well.

And this ink’s biggest thrill is how well it shades.

Golden Brown has nice flow, and while it’s not waterproof, a faint part of its darker component will remain on the page following generous water flow.

Lighter inks sometimes do shade better, since the pooling of ink becomes much more obvious compared to lighter areas. I use my broadest and wettest nibs for shading inks, but Golden Brown is an ink that will shade even in medium and fine nibs. You might be pushing it with extra-fine, but this ink really shows off different shades extremely well.

Alongside good shading, though, oftentimes the lighter the ink (like J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie or grey inks), the more variation you’ll see in how the ink looks from different nibs and pens. It can result in beautiful shading, but it can also mean that inks will look different from pen to pen.

The writing samples above and below were both done with a Noodler’s Konrad on Life Stationery paper, but the above photo had no additional pressure, and the photo below flexed out the nib to give wider lines and also additional flow to the page. You can see that they almost look like different inks, although below you can just see a hint of the gold where the nib was the lightest.

I find Noodler’s browns have this way of being both rich and warm but also demonstrate nice shading. Golden Brown is of my favourite brown inks, probably in my top ten. I love this one for letter writing – I think it kind of gives a bit of a vintage look, especially on cream paper.

***

In other news, it’s been rainy and gloomy today, which has been a bit of a break from our park visits in the sun and sand in our shoes – I guess it’ll be more roaming the hallways this afternoon.

We spent the morning before the shop opened rearranging a bit of our furniture – we’ve added in a shelf from the back, and a new table as well, as all of our notebooks and stationery gets more and more squished on the tables we do have. It’s nice to see everything spread out a bit.

Every once in a blue moon I stumble across a photo from our early days at 906 Dundas West, where we first opened shop on the west end. It’s crazy to see how empty the shop was when we first started, just a few shelves and that one big table in the front. (What’s even crazier is that I was so clueless I didn’t even take any photos of our first day – a very thoughtful customer (James!) took pictures and emailed them to us.)

Over time we piled boxes in every corner and under the tables, and by the time we were ready to start looking for a new place, we even had boxes piled up inside the front window – not exactly a welcoming sign for new customers. I remember every once in a while someone would come in and ask if we were closing down, with all of the boxes stacked up so you couldn’t see inside.

It’s this fall weather that brings out the nostalgia in me.

The post Noodler’s Golden Brown appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

Caleb continues his adventures around town on his little bicycles, and I continue to follow along.

Caleb at the yoga studio I keep saying I’m going to go to. At least we’re all clear on how to get there.

Taking a break.

What’s really crazy is how aware Caleb is of when he feels he needs to get off his bike and walk it down a steep section. I see some of Caleb’s terrible judgement calls in all sorts of things (what to put in his mouth, throwing valuable objects, balancing things on top of each other), and it’s always so interesting for me to watch him make decisions about his bicycle.

At the front of our building is a “regular” elevator, but throughout the rest of the building are these old industrial freight elevators, with gated doors that you have to manually pull down or pull up to close before you can press and hold a button to move the elevator.

Fun fact: inside our packing area are the up + down buttons to operate a freight elevator that is located outside our unit. The buttons and the elevator doors are separated by a wall, and so people who want to use the elevator have to use the buttons inside the elevator itself. Crazy stuff.

It was a bit scary going in the first few times, especially since the elevators shudder a bit as they start up and come to a stop, and even more so because you actually have to line up the floor of the elevator to the floors yourself.

Inside the elevator feels a bit like we’re going underground. I’ve had many, many images of Caleb and I stranded inside like an episode of Criminal Minds. Or Indiana Jones, where someone discovers fossilized skeleton bones.

And yet, we adventure on.

The entrance to the gym where Jon keeps saying he’s going to go.

A million years ago, I shared a few pictures from Caleb wandering in the hall – he seemed like such a little guy, just trucking through the halls and peeking into doors and around corners. I can hardly remember him so small and balding and stout.

These days he’s grown into such a little boy, I can hardly believe it. Maybe it’s this fall weather and the extra sweaters and the excitement that comes with this season, but it seems like every time I blink he’s become a new creature.

I sometimes wish I could stop time and keep him tight, but everything about this wild and growing and curious boy is a miracle that I’m just here to watch.

The post Caleb Adventures in the Halls (On Wheels) appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

We were so excited to announce our first School Supplies Drive for Covenant House Toronto earlier this summer. As the school year starts to settle in, we’re about ready to wrap things up, and it’s about time, as our front table’s been overloaded and we’ve got boxes under the table and in the back ready to be delivered.

We were thrilled to see so many people digging into their stationery closets to bring out supplies that will be given a second life. The drive was a huge success, and it was so great to see new and old faces lugging in boxes and bags full of things that have been cluttering up their closets and desks – and you could see as well how happy they were to be able to get rid of things they really weren’t going to be using.

We’re going to be doing a bit of testing just to make sure none of the pens have dried out, or anyone accidentally gave a notebook with a few pages written in that need to be carefully removed, and then we’ll be driving this all down to Covenant House.

A few people also donated some spare change they had, and we’ll be giving this money, totalling $91 to Covenant House Toronto as well.

Thank you especially goes to Quo Vadis Canada, who donated a huge supply of dated agendas, which will be especially helpful as Covenant House youth get organized and keep track of their academics and more.

Another really big thank you to everyone who donated art supplies and notebooks and erasers and binders and everything else. I’ve been on a real decluttering bend for the last two years, and it always feels great to be able to get rid of something you can’t use, but that someone else really needs.

If you still have some supplies you’d like to donate, please bring them in! We are hoping to drop everything off later this week or early next week, but we’re so close to Covenant House that a second trip is no problem at all.

***

In other news, I’ve recently discovered my latest trick to keeping Caleb occupied.

A million years ago I wrote about a little wooden toolbox we got Caleb to keep his toys in, and that I secretly lusted after to store my washi tapes (what a joke! like that dinky thing could possibly contain all my washi tapes).

Shortly after the post, Jon sat on the box, and it crumpled into pieces. We saved the pieces, meaning to glue it back together, but only recently, in a spurt of cleaning, did I finally get around to using rubber cement (the only thing I had) to put it back together.

Caleb is in love. Italics in love, so you know it’s serious business.

He’s been bringing it around everywhere, filling it up with random screwdrivers and extra IKEA pieces and mini versions of Jon’s tools, and then hammering into shelves and chairs and furniture everywhere.

He can keep himself busy for so long that sometimes I get worried about what’s going on with my little domestic terror. He brings his tool box from one place to another, unpacks all of his tools, gets to work and then packs it all back together to move onto his next job.

It’s a bit freaky how kids “know” how to use different tools just by watching adults use them – he knows what a hammer is for, and how to use a screwdriver, and he holds up the laser level on the wall.

I’ve been doing this thing where I eat cookies and junk food and then tell Caleb that’s not for him and not to be eaten and give him some fruit, but I have a feeling he’s cottoning on more than I’ve let myself believe.

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Just in stock, we got in a few new Japanese stickers from Classiky!

We recently placed an order with Classiky for a much needed re-stock of their wooden boxes and drawers, and also their washi tapes.

However, I feel like every time I browse their catalogues I discover new treats I hadn’t seen before, and this time, of course, I couldn’t resist these adorable and funny and quintessentially Japanese stickers.

Jon sometimes jokes that I have been using the shop as a front for my own stationery hoarding, and while I might say in this instance, it’s obviously not true since we’re selling them in the shop, I will admit that it wouldn’t be the end of the world for me to keep all of these stickers in my secret stationery stash.

We got monkeys, swallows, birds and various Japanese characters doing funny things .

I think these monkeys must be my favourite – they’re serious and hilarious at the same time. I sometimes call Caleb a monkey because he’s a climber, but it’s funny because these monkeys are also pretty serious, like Caleb is.

And these koi fish! Suitable for all occasions and recipients.

Stickers also look great on envelopes for snail mail (or even better, invoices or cheques!), or to put on your stationery.

These are the little hooded girls.

These Japanese characters are also hilarious, and I think I’m going to put them on all of my snail mail for the next little while. They’re available in green or blue.

Another favourite is using the swallows or birds with air mail envelopes, since they’re reminiscent of pigeon carriers. There’s something nice about a bit extra on an envelope besides just the stamp and address.

These stickers mostly come in flat envelopes or packages, and we’re hoping to set up shipping options within our online site so people who are interested in just ordering stickers or flat items can pay over-sized letter mail rates, which won’t come with tracking but will cost less than parcel rates.

If you are interested in these now, before we get the shipping setting up online, you can always send us an email at info@wonderpens.ca for a quote based on the weight of your package. It will probably be around $3-4, depending on how many packs of stickers you order.

Eventually this over-size letter mail option will also be available for people who just want to order, for example, two or three Traveler’s Notebook inserts or a flat notebook. Coming soon!

***

In other news, we’re keeping our door open now to welcome in the fresh air and cool breeze, and it’s also meant we’re keeping a closer eye on Chicken, the shop cat, in case he decides to go for a walk.

He’s been vaccinated with his outdoor shots just in case, although we haven’t seen him go out on his own, and in fact have been discouraging it. In the packing area + apartment, when the door’s open, he watches carefully but hasn’t ventured out. This is more due the fact that the door is only open to welcome large deliveries or as people come in and out, so someone can keep an eye on the cat (and dog), but in the shop with the door propped open all the time, I’m not sure if we should be more worried.

At the park nearby our shop, Caleb and I regularly see a large white + grey cat with a collar and tags who just saunters around the jungle gym and nestles into the beds of flowers, and he seems pretty content.

Supposedly some cats are just free spirits, and need to wander a bit outside to retain their independence and bring home some prey, so we’ll see what Chicken decides.

Who am I to refuse a cat the call of the wild if it should so deign to spirit him off, but I’m hoping after 6 months here Chicken will remember where the food dish is.

The post New Classiky Stickers appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

A reminder that our monthly Letter Writing Club meets this Thursday, October 13th, from 7-9 pm.

We meet to write letters and to chat about correspondence and inks and life, and we usually have treats and coffee as well. Sometimes in the shop during the day things seem a bit rushed, so it’s nice to sit down with a cup of tea and your letters in front of you, and maybe a cat curled up on the table (and hopefully not wandering across your freshly inked words).

We meet every second Thursday evening, and if you can’t make it this month, we’ll hope to see you in November.

And along the theme of letter writing, I thought I would share a new favourite book -Postman Bear.

Caleb is obsessed with books with flaps that lift to reveal surprises, and to my despair, we’re constantly having to purchase new books, as his old books have flaps that are torn into oblivion by enthusiasm.

You can imagine my delight to stumble across a lift-a-flap book right up my alley! As Caleb gets older and older, it’s wonderful to be able to read books with Caleb about activities and ideas and stories that are things we want him to bring into his own life.

As an interesting side note, there aren’t too many children’s books about bears and their iPhones.

I would hate to ruin the end for you, so I’ll just leave it at the first page: Bear is writing letters. Look at that writing desk! The quill and ink! Oh, the suspense.

You’ll have to ask Caleb what happens the next time you visit the shop.

The post Letter Writing Club on Thursday + Postman Bear appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

It’s definitely fall now – the last few weekends we’ve been driving around outside of Toronto, and it seems like the leaves are on fire. It sounds a bit morbid, but it must be such a slow and glorious death, to blossom into reds and oranges and yellows before falling to the ground.

Fall is one of the only times of year for me where I almost always match my inks and pens to the colours of the season. I sometimes try to around Christmas, but often I get distracted by the busy-ness of the holidays, or spring, but I’m not a huge fan of the lighter or brighter pinks and purples and fresh greens that sometimes come with new growth.

Fall, though, is when all of my favourite earthy pens and warm coloured inks come to shine.

This season I have:

Noodler’s Rome Burning – TWSBI 580 AL-Orange Fine

Noodler’s Army Green – Franklin-Christoph Model 20 Fine

J. Herbin Lie de the – Kaweco Sport Brown Medium

Sailor Jentle Apricot (now discontinued!) – Platinum 3776 Celluloid Tortoiseshell Broad

KWZ Maple Red (Scriptus 2015 Edition, also discontinued) – Pelikan M400 Brown Tortoiseshell

Noodler’s Rome Burning is a bit of a secret favourite ink of mine, although it’s not terribly well-behaved in terms of feathering on cheaper papers, and I tend to write on a lot of copy paper for notes and invoices and things. I need all my pens to be multi-taskers, so it’s not too often that I put this ink in a pen.

When I do though, I remember how much I like it. It’s a more yellow and lighter than Golden Brown, which has more of a warm and orange tone, but it fits fall leaves perfectly. Interestingly, it’s also the ink that turns into a permanent purple if you spill water on it – I don’t use this ink because of that trait, but it’s something fun.

Army Green is another old favourite of mine – in these pictures it has a bit of a dark green with a hint of almost teal to it, especially in the swab, which I didn’t do a very good job of spreading around, but it’s a true army green colour.

Sailor Jentle Apricot is a vibrant and bright ink from the old line of Sailor inks – along with Sky High and Grenade and Epinard and Ultramarine.

Sailor has re-released a line of inks that is coming to us soon, including a new bright orange ink that I can’t wait to see – I’ve been trying to be a bit less precious about discontinued ink (the point is to use them, after all!), but I’m always glad for another opportunity for hoarding. There’s a turquoise colour that I’m also especially looking forward to – I think these inks should be arriving in the next few weeks, but we don’t have a confirmed timeline yet.

KWZ Maple Red is last year’s Scriptus Toronto Pen Show ink, and with the pen show come up on October 30th, the timing is great. I always forget how much I like this ink because I’m not usually a red ink person – this is a dark and rich red.

Scriptus announced the 2016 Pen Show Ink, Northern Twilight, which is a sort of dark blue teal kind of ink. Philip, one of the show’s organizers, occasionally pops into the shop on pen show business, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from shamelessly pleading with him for an early bottle. I basically hold no sway anywhere in life, and it’s always depressing to realize that once again.

***

In case you missed it, our previously monthly newsletter is now being sent out weekly. We say hello and send out what’s new and what’s happening in the shop. You can read last week’s here, or you can sign up here if you’re not already signed up.

We’ve been embracing the fall weather by updating Caleb’s wardrobe. He’s been in his spring + summer clothes for what seems like forever, especially since some of his pant legs now ride up to his knees as he’s crawling up the jungle gym.

Caleb always seems warmer than everyone else – I can feel a cloud of warmth radiating from him in his crib at night – but I think we’re starting to reach the days where everyone needs a jacket or a vest.

This is his second and maybe his last summer of going anywhere with just a diaper on – it’s this season of change and fresh starts and cool breezes and it’s giving me the heebie jeebies to see Caleb growing up into a little boy.

The post Inks for the Autumn appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

This has been a long time coming, but we are now offering a $4 flat rate lettermail option for flat and lightweight items from our shop!

This was a project that we’ve been thinking about putting into place for a while, but we figured that if we didn’t push forward to make it happen now, we would probably get distracted and waylaid by the holiday busy-ness coming up. Especially with a few requests coming in for the Classiky stickers to be shipped lettermail, this was a great time (for Jon) to spend the weekend fiddling around with the online shop to get this set up.

We’re now offering a lettermail rate for a selection of our items that can be mailed flat. This is the same sort of shipping that your snail mail or bills get sent by, rather than packages with tracking information.

Best of all, it’s $4 flat rate across Canada!

Here are a few examples of things that we’re going to have available for shipping by lettermail:

• Classiky stickers
• Hobonichi Techo planner (one, no covers)
• Field Notes 3-packs (up to two 3-packs)
• Midori Travelers Notebooks inserts (up to 3 regular or 6 passport)
• cards …and more!

We will not be shipping our sample vials via lettermail, despite our smaller vials fitting inside the 2 cm width clearance – they’re liquid!

If you have chosen items that are flat and within the weight limits, an option for Lettermail shipping will automatically become available. If you add too many flat items and it becomes too heavy, or one item cannot be shipped in this method, Lettermail will no longer be an option and you will have to ship via Expedited Parcel at $8 flat rate.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that there is no tracking.

All of our packages are shipped out parcel with tracking that you can follow, but the trade-off for the lower shipping cost by flat lettermail is that you’re willing to absorb the risk of it being sent without tracking information.

If you have concern about the security of your mail box or consistency in the delivery in your area, your safest bet is to select Expedited to get tracking information, as there’s nothing we can do if your Lettermail gets lost.

As with packages, we still ship out internationally, but you’ll have to email or call us with a few details so we can get you the most accurate shipping cost, either parcel or lettermail.

We will be likely adding and changing this as we go, as we figure out exactly how much can fit in the weight limit and size limit of 2 cm in width. If you have any questions, please feel free to email (info@wonderpens.ca)! There may have been something we just overlooked but that could definitely be shipped lettermail.

As a huge snail mail fan, I’m pretty excited to see how this is going to fit into our online operations!

There is something sort of lovely about putting some stamps onto and sealing up a mailer before sending something it off to the post.

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There’s a chill in the air and grey skies and hot tea and and pumpkins everywhere, and Hallowe’en is almost upon us.

We’re sometimes a bit behind or ahead of the curve when it comes to seasonal traditions, but maybe because of Caleb’s already unconventional-enough upbringing, we’re trying our best to stay with the crowd. And so off we went to a pumpkin patch to get our own.

We went to Reesor’s Farm out in Markham, and it was great! They were super friendly and it was simple and easy to find our pumpkins and they have a farmer’s market to buy fresh produce and baked goods as well.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see a pumpkin patch for the first time – it looked a bit like an overgrown and possibly abandoned field, and not quite like the pumpkin patches in the children’s Hallowe’en books I’ve seen at the library. However, in hindsight, it was probably more to do with the fact that we’re getting our pumpkins pretty late in October, and these fields have probably been picked over pretty well.

We came on a weekday, so we had the entire patch basically to ourselves – we got to roam far and wide, rolling pumpkins over to examine their backsides.

I think Caleb had a blast because he’s sort of a little muscle man – he’s such a physical kid, and he loved carrying pumpkins from here to there and tipping them over into the wagon.

And I think it was also partially because the act of “helping” is something he’s really latched onto – he loves this idea that he’s a critical park of the whole operation, bringing our selections from their beginnings to our wagon.

It’s so funny to watch him as a little guy walking around, looking up at me and pointing to this pumpkin? Nope, too flat. This pumpkin? Nope, too big. This pumpkin? Perfect! – and then watching him heave it up and bring it back.

Of course the best part was the wagon. It was a bit crazy going over the bumps, but Caleb’s pretty sturdy at holding on the sides.

We stopped by the market to pick some some vegetables and pay for our pumpkins.

And we stopped for some noodles on the long trip home.

It’s been a long, long road, but I think we’ve finally reached the stage where we can take Caleb out for meals in restaurants without needing to micromanage every motion, or feeling a burning need to hide under our table.

He spilled some water (on me, of course) and also contaminated around 6 extra chopsticks, but all in all, noodles continue to be a favourite meal for everyone.

We came home with a pumpkin for everyone on the team to carve their own, and Caleb helped for around 45 seconds until he got bored, mainly because cutting a pumpkin is pretty hard for a two year, and pulling out seeds is only fun for so long.

We don’t have all of our staff pumpkins done yet, but I thought I would share a photo of them so far.

It’s mostly my imagination, but it does seem a bit spooky and exciting to have the pumpkins lit in a dark and empty shop in the night. It’s like I’m 8 years old again.

***

We’ve been busy here, with fall and new products and orders coming in and Scriptus coming up soon, or maybe the fall weather has also stirred up something in all of us to get going on all of our projects and freshening up everything in the shop.

We’ll have another blog post in the next week with some of the fun we have planned for the show, but of course you can always come by our table. We’ve got a few treats and surprises planned, and one pretty exciting one in particular that I’m sure is going to basically fly off the table. Stay tuned!

I’m loving these fall days, especially with Caleb getting bundled up. He loves stepping out into the cool air, and often starts running just to have the thrill of a cold wind against his face. These days are probably coming, too soon, to a close, where Caleb, already a bit of a self-conscious kid, can just be gleeful at…the air.

Even Super has a bit more friskiness, despite all the grey coming in around his snout and paws – in the heat of the summer, with all of his fur, he moves a bit slower, but as the air cools down, it’s like he’s a puppy again.

These are some of my favourite days.

©

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Scriptus, the Toronto Pen Show, is coming up this Sunday, October 30th, and we couldn’t be more excited!

The pen show is taking place at the Toronto Reference Library from 10am to 4pm, and we’re going to be there all day long!

Our shop will also be open from 1-5 pm on Sunday, just for this pen show Sunday.

We’re also a bit nervous because this will be our first time exhibiting. We’ve spent the last few weeks doing a bit of organizing, but we’ve really hit full-speed putting things into boxes, taking them out, putting them into different boxes, and then wondering where we put things.

Things to keep in mind for the show:

Every year, Scriptus has a raffle – you buy tickets and drop them in to enter the draw for specific prizes. Last year, I think we donated an Edison Collier; this year, we’re donating a Lamy Dark Lilac Safari with a converter, a bottle of Dark Lilac and a Classiky Desk Tools box.

Please be sure to stop by and check out all of the raffle prizes and donations – all the funds collected here help to keep Scriptus completely free for everyone, which I personally think is pretty amazing. There’s nothing more welcoming for a new comer to our community than free admission to one of the best pen shows in the world.

If you’ve been to either of the previous two Scriptus shows, you’ll know how packed it gets – the crowds and crowds. It seems like this year is going to be even busier, and so we specifically chose to have four tables to give us lots of room to spread out. We’re not going to be bringing the whole shop, just a few special and fun items, but we really do hope you’ll come by and say hello!

There will be signs right at the entrance directing you to the show’s location within the library (it’s huge), and while I won’t say that the crowds will be the thinnest right at the 10:00 open time, I would say you should budget plenty of time for yourself if you’re planning on coming, as it will get busy fast.

We’re going to have lots and lots just for the show:

We’re going to have a giveaway at our table! Sign up for our e-mail newsletter and enter for a chance to win six Pilot Metropolitans in each of the Retro Pop colours. If you’re already signed up for our weekly newsletter, you can still enter the draw by submitting your same email address. The winner will be announced on the blog.

We’re also going to have Scriptus ink sample bags, with five random ink samples for $5 flat. Some of the possibilities include Lamy Dark Lilac, discontinued Sailor Grenade and other surprises. We’ll have some big blank paper out so you can write down the samples you got, if you’d like, and see what other people got in their bags.

We’ll have free pen show postcards, just stop by our table to pick one up if you’d like a souvenir from the show! I’ve been literally burning the midnight oil putting wax seals on these guys, and some of them are definitely showing it (as in, there are a few “special” seals on some of them…). We’ve also been busy making some Scriptus pen show buttons which you can wear proudly, and of course we’ll have lots of our Wonder Pens buttons as well.

We’re going to have Edison pens including their new Burnished Gold Collier and Lapis Lazuli Pearlette, new stuff from Kaweco, Tomoe River paper, Franklin-Christoph pens, and lots more from Midori, Life, Lamy, Noodler’s and others, including eyedropper kits with syringes + silicone grease + preppies, along with supplies like pen cleaning solutions, syringes, 10 mL sample vials.

We’re going to have most items at special discounted pen show prices, although there will be a few exceptions. There are some items that we can’t discount, like Edison or Franklin-Christoph pens.

And speaking of Franklin-Christoph pens! Of course we’re going to have our gorgeous Model 20s in our exclusive Bronze Grey colour, BUT!

I’m so exited to announce that we’re going to be launching our newest Franklin-Christoph Exclusive, the Pocket 20 in our bronze grey, at the show! The Pocket 20 is a smaller version of the Model 20.

The familiar Model 20 is on the left, and all along the tray to the right are the new Pocket 20s. This little guy is made for an eyedropper.

And! These new pocket 20s now come with a black No.6 nib.

More on these Pocket 20s to come, but the short and sweet of it is that they are eyedropper or short international cartridge only (no converter), and have interchangeable No.6 nibs. These will be listed in our online shop soon, and will also be available in our shop, but we’re going to be bringing a whole batch to the show.

And, without going too much into detail on it, let’s just say be sure to swing by our table early in the day. There are a few extra special F-C pens that I’m pretty sure are going to be gone quickly. Trust me on this one.

We are going to be accepting credit cards and cash, but no debit (sorry!) – unfortunately we won’t be able to get our Interac machine set up in portable location.

If you’re going to be there, we please come and visit us! We would love to say hello, truly. There are so many of you who we’ve ‘met’ online, and it would be so nice to put faces to real names or Instagram names. Far and away, one of the most incredible things about having opened a pen shop in Toronto and in Canada is getting to know the pen community and so many of the people who are in it.

We’re going to be using #wonderpensatscriptus2016 and sharing lots and lots on Instagram stories, if you want to follow along during the day, whether you’re at the show and want to see what’s going on behind the scenes, or you can’t make the show and want to see all the excitement. Please use #wonderpensatscriptus2016 as well, if you have a chance! We can’t wait to see how your day went, and maybe share a few pictures on the blog.

I’m going to have Caleb with me, and while he’s in this in-between stage of not really needing a nap, but kinda sorta really actually needing a nap, I’m hoping he’ll take a snooze mid-day. Because I have Caleb, and because I’m “not very efficient,” Jon has relegated me to picking up lunch and coffee for the team and making sure Caleb doesn’t destroy anyone else’s table. So I’m definitely hoping a few of you will stop by for a hello and a chat.

If you’d like a look back (and oh my goodness, how crazy is it to see how Caleb has grown year by year!), here’s:

Our Scriptus 2014 recap (its first year!)
Our Scriptus 2015 recap

A Few Tips on Enjoying a Pen Show

And last year I also did a blog post on Philip Akin and the pen show (Philip is one of the show’s organizers, and an all-around nice guy).

And that’s it! It’s going to be a big day – long and full and all sorts of wonderful. I’m hoping to see a few of you there, but if not, I hope you can follow along on Instagram, and I will be sharing a few photos here on the blog soon after.

The post Wonder Pens at Scriptus Toronto Pen Show 2016 appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

Scriptus, the Toronto Pen Show, which is now in its third year of its most recent incarnation, was this past Sunday, and it was one crazy day.

Jon and I (and Caleb) attended the last two years as people looking to browse and buy pens and say hello to kindred pen spirits, but this was our first year as exhibitors. I have no way to say this except that it was a crazy day from beginning to end.

I had planned on doing some sharing of photos during the show, but it completely got away from me – and you may have noticed that I didn’t share a single photo on Instagram. In fact, I missed taking quite a few photos, including the Franklin-Christoph colour prototypes that we had, our tables set up before the crowds came in, a long shot of all our tables…the list goes on.

However, some of the photos I did manage to get sort of capture what happened behind the scenes with our team, and looking back on it, the photos we do have make me laugh out loud at remembering our day.

So I guess this blog post is less a snapshot of Scriptus as much as it is a snapshot of the view from behind the tables.

***

We got up nice and early to pack up the car and make our way over to the library.

Jon packing things up in the truck, and Caleb probably getting in some sort of trouble, and likely trying to close the door so he can’t get caught.

Our entire caravan was there nice and early (or so I thought), but it turns out we were right down the wire and then right past it in terms of setting up. People started streaming in just before 10:00, but we were still setting up and pulling things out of boxes.

Danielle setting up our tables, and Caleb probably getting in some sort of trouble and likely trying to blame it on the dog, unsure of where the dog actually is at this moment.

Jon, Bogdan, Danielle, Sarah, Micah + Caleb. Probably the only time of day Caleb is not suspected of getting into trouble.

I wish I had gotten a better picture of the team… but this is us! And everyone looking at the camera or Jon, except Caleb. Perfect! I also wish I had waited until we actually set up our table before taking our group shot, so it didn’t look quite so much like someone had just dumped some random stuff on a table, but I wasn’t thinking straight (clearly).

Some of our stuff – our raffle prize, inks, postcards + buttons, Wonder Pens Ts, washi tape.

We had our raffle prize on display – people submitted their email addresses to sign up for our weekly newsletter for a chance to win the six Pilot Metropolitans. I think my favourite part of winning that prize would be selecting six inks to put in. Jon is going to be going through all of the entries for our raffle, and we’ll be announcing the winner tomorrow on the blog – stay tuned.

Danielle being a rockstar. 

The day was crazy! It was super busy in the morning, with line ups and crowds and people everywhere. It slowed down a bit after lunch, which was nice after the big rush, and gave us a chance to have a bit of a chat with people.

A few people signing up for our raffle, or maybe trying out some of the pens – we filled one with Plains of Abraham and one with Raven Black, our two exclusive inks, for folks to test.

And here is Jeffry and Erin – Jeffry does vintage repairs, and also taught our class on nib tuning at the shop. This is a pretty good reflection of basically all the pictures I took that day: out of focus, with people’s heads cut off (sorry!), with half of the shot being blocked by crowds of some sort.

One of my favourite customers snagged this flexy beauty early on in the show. 

Caleb lugging around the coffee while snacking on a croissant. I think he single-handedly consumed half of the staff’s pastries rations – one of his new favourite words is “bao,” which is Chinese for bun.

Caleb did great! Or at least, he held to his usual level of getting into trouble and roaming around.

I know we could have grandparents or asked a friend to help out with Caleb during the day – we knew it was going to be busy – but I really love having Caleb around, even as he’s trying to pull down our signs or running into other people’s legs or tipping over our cash box onto the floor. One of the best things about opening a shop like this is being able to have Caleb with us, to grow up in the shop and get to have these sorts of experiences.

Caleb spent the morning snacking and wandering, and we went to go pick up lunch for the team so he got to stretch his legs a bit and gets some fresh air. We ate lunch downstairs on the first floor, and the staff came down to meet us in rotation for their lunches one at a time.

And then, incredibly, he took a two hour nap in his stroller, tucked away just behind our table. Right from when he was a week old, I used to wear him on my chest in the shop, so I think he’s gotten used to having some ambient noise around.

Customers would come by and look around awkwardly asking, …where’s Caleb?? And I would gleefully point to his stroller in the corner, knowing every time I did it, I was begging for him to stir and wake up.

More snacking. We were lucky to have room behind our tables for Caleb to sit and take a few breaks, truly. 

Normally I can generally count on him to stick pretty close by in a crowd, he’s not really a runner. Especially with our tables running along a wall, he had a long base to hang out in without getting into too much trouble, or at least bumping into a few adults first. There were two points in the show when I panicked a bit because I couldn’t see him – and both times he was hiding in the table cloths.

I think he’s gotten mostly used to strangers around in the shop, although he’s still very shy. Caleb definitely knows when the shop is open and people are around, and he’s a bit more reserved – and he also just gets that it’s a bit of a different land after dark and the animals are free to wander around with him.

He also turns into a different sort of beast that runs around shrieking and grabbing things.

After the showed cleared out and most of the vendors had also packed up and left, Caleb had his own free-for-all, delighted at all the open space.

Caleb doing his running and shrieking thing.

Making it home was another adventure, and not only because we were literally the last table to finish packing up and get out.

Jon got a “new” car recently – he traded in our trusty and rusty 2001 Honda Civic, which has seen us through some good years, for a 2002 SUV. Given how much we’ve moved in the Civic and the fact that one of my secret ninja skills is being very, very good at Tetris, both the electronic and real life version, we assumed we would have room to spare in the truck.

Here’s Micah sitting between Caleb, the easel, helium balloons, with a basket on her lap, and me wedged beside her, with our trolley in front of my legs. And of course, being the great photographer I was all day, in this photo, the wheel is in focus.

Bogdan, with the stroller at his legs, another basket on his lap, and another box between him and Jon, who is driving. 

The Wonder Pens team is nothing if not scrappy.

***

What a crazy and wonderful day. It was so lovely to meet a few penpals in person (I’m terrible at predicting what people will look like based on their handwriting and personality and stories, no one looked even remotely close to what I imagined), and a few customers from online, and we even got to say hello to a few bloggers, like Pendora’s Box.

Caleb got a few gifts, which was a complete surprise but also an amazing help in getting him through the day with a few distractions.

A few people asked if we would do it again next year, and the short answer is I have no idea. There was a lot of prep before hand, maybe more so because we had never come to a show as exhibitors before, and it was an exhausting day to say the least – I came home and I slept 10 hours that night.

But it was so much fun! It was so much fun to meet people and say hello, to see what everyone got at the show, and to experience the show as a team behind the tables. There’s nothing like team building when you’re all looking for things in different boxes that are all in different places while hordes of stationery nuts are waiting for you to get your act together.

If you read my last blog post, before the show, I said my one job was to get lunch for everyone, and while you may not think it was possible, I basically botched that job.

I’m still a bit shocked that it happened at all, although I guess it really shouldn’t be so shocking given my chronically disorganized state. I basically fed Micah, a vegetarian (who I knew is a vegetarian, since I’ve cooked her meals in my kitchen) a turkey sandwich, which she ate calmly and nonchalantly, out of supreme politeness, while casually chatting with me about life.

Even crazier, she asked for the chicken when given the choice between chicken and turkey, and I gave her the turkey by mistake. Scrappy and classy.

The post Scriptus 2016 Re-Cap appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

We did a raffle at our table at Scriptus for six Pilot Metropolitans, one in each of the Retro Pop colours, and we’re announcing the winner here today:

The winner is Mariam R.!

Congratulations, Miriam! Could you send us an email from the email you submitted in our raffle box, and we can get going. You have one week (until end of day Thursday, November 10th 2016) before we move onto someone else.

***

And in other news, tomorrow is Fountain Pen Day, just a day to celebrate your favourite fountain pens and all the notes and letter writing and journaling and doodling they’ve given us.

We’re going to be celebrating with a few specials tomorrow, so you can either visit the blog again or come say hello to us in the shop. Maybe we’ll have some special treats! Maybe. I guess you’ll have to come to find out

We’ll also be sending out our regular Friday newsletter in the morning with all the news (you can subscribe here) – unlike last year where we just had Fountain Pen Day special discounts in store, we’re going to have some specials available online.

We’re not going to be doing a contest for FPD, but we will be having one soon on Instagram. Stay tuned!

The post Scriptus 2016 Raffle Prize Winner + Fountain Pen Day Details appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

It’s Fountain Pen Day!

Today is the first Friday in November, the day of the year where all of us analogue folks and stationery nuts can celebrate all of the craziness of fountain pens without our usual decorum and restraint.

I know for us here in the shop, every day is sort of fountain pen day, since it’s what we do! But we’ll take any reason to celebrate.

It’s nice to have a day to think about how important pens have been to our history as a culture and society, and how they still can mean a lot to the way to write and draw and think, but really, I think it’s just fun to celebrate how much enjoyment and meaning something as seemingly inconspicuous as a good fountain pen can bring to our lives.

People often ask how’s business, or who’s still using these things, and it always opens up to a surprising conversation – people who are asking are usually asking because they’re already curious or interested in how pens may still exist in our world today.

Whether or not they’re doubtful about pens still being important in our new world today, I think the curiosity comes from something inside us that can acknowledge and appreciate what it means to write by hand, even with a smart phone in our pocket.

I know I mention this on the blog every now and then, and if you’ve been following the blog for a while you’ll have heard me go on and on about this, but I think it has to do with all of our technology everywhere all the time – at work, at home, in the bathroom, the bedroom, the car, shopping for groceries, walking down the street – which has created the sort of culture where our brains are constantly being fried with streams of information, and it’s a hard train to get off of.

But it’s sometimes when we take a minute to stop and breathe – wait in a line up without looking at our phones and strike up a conversation with someone next to us, or sit on the porch without an iPad, but with a journal and a pen  – that we make real connections with other people and within ourselves. We leave markings that are evidence of our lives.

And so, I think fountain pens really have a bit of a unique place today – they’re a bit anachronistic, but at the same time, in some ways, even more relevant than they’ve ever been in the past. They’re a tool that celebrate and fully allow you to unplug while still communicating – between you and a friend, reminders to yourself, an ode to the universe.

It’s the intentionality and possibility with which you choose a pen and its ink, and the process and ritual of filling and cleaning a pen, and all of the history that a pen can carry that speak much more deeply to the act of writing than the transient nature of emails and text messages.

It is the physical act of writing, but it’s also the meaning we have in something that’s not disposable, something that has had its own journey with us, carried through school or purchased in celebration of an occasion, and something that we can fill and refill endlessly. We use it to put marks on a page that represent stories and humour and learning and messages to others and everything that makes us, us.

But another important reason that Fountain Pen Day means so much to us is this incredible community that’s been brought together. It’s our regulars who come and visit us and play with the cat (to play with the cat??), it’s people who have been following along with our story on the blog and on Instagram and who have seen Caleb grow up from this tiny bean sprout to all limbs and yelling and running around, it’s vendors and manufacturers who send us pears for Christmas, it’s names we’ve seen over and over again in our queue and who leave friendly and funny and sometimes irreverent notes about these pens and inks and papers that we all just can’t get enough of.

It’s faces we see over and over again, smiling over the pen counter, or those familiar names that pop up in our queue. It’s crazy to think that we can think of cities across the country and remember which customers are from where.

So we’re celebrating all of this today, Fountain Pen Day. We’ve got a few package sets at special, one-day-only discounted prices for you to share with friends or neighbours or just folks who you know would appreciate what it means to write something by hand, but maybe haven’t yet discovered fountain pens. (These are already flying off the shelves, and if we run out of stock of an ink for a set, we’ll try to reshuffle to keep them available all day.)

But we’re also just kind of celebrating.

I cleaned out a few pens yesterday, and inked up even more – what kind of stationery shop owner would I be if I didn’t celebrate Fountain Pen Day without an overflowing pen roll?

Jon picked up some egg tarts this morning, for the team and for people who stop by the shop. Egg tarts and pens, and maybe a bit of letter writing – alongside packing up orders and saying hello to folks in the shop and rambling on here on the blog.

I’ve been writing a few thank you notes (slowly but surely!) to folks who dropped by with gifts or snacks for us at the pen show, and it’s actually the perfect way to celebrate. Using some of my favourite pens and ink to thank people who have been supporting us as we try our best to hustle and survive as an independent business on one of our craziest days of the year. Folks who are supporting us and allowing us to make a living and spend our days with fountain pens – and then share the love with you.

The post For the Love of a Good Fountain Pen – Thoughts on Fountain Pen Day appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

This post has been a long time coming!

TWSBI released the ECO fountain pen now almost a year ago, and it has settled right into the TWSBI family, along with the flagship pen, the 580, and its metallic version, the 580 AL.

They’re both functionally basically the exact same, although you pay an increase in price for the upgraded details and finishes, as well as the option of swabbing out nibs on the 580 + 580 AL, over the less expensive ECO.

There are a few key differences between them that might help you make a decision if you’re looking at picking one of them up, so I thought I would put them altogether into one post here.

L to R: TWSBI ECO Lime Green, ECO Clear, 580, 580 AL Blue – I know it’s confusing that I put four pens in the picture, even thought I’m supposedly comparing three. It’s because I just got the Lime Green, and apparently couldn’t stop myself from putting it into pictures. 

These three pen models, the ECO, the 580 and the 580 AL are all very similar – they’re clear piston-fillers that hold a lot of ink and they come at a great price point for the filling mechanism (as opposed a cartridge/converter).

There are a few differences between these lines:

The ECO is the lowest priced, and is named accordingly (“economical”).  Here are the key points that separate it from the 580 and the 580 AL:

• it has a slightly triangulated grip to help with holding the pen properly
• it has a larger, bulkier cap (no difference in function, just aesthetics)
• you cannot swap the nibs out
• significantly less expensive
• can post the cap, but it becomes quite top heavy if you have a smaller hand

The cap of the clear ECO is on the left, and the 580 on the right – you can see that the ECO cap is a bit bulkier and more sort of squared off, whereas the 580 cap is a bit more rounded and also has a more jewel like finial.

Between the 580 and the 580 AL, the only difference is that the grip and the piston mechanism are made out of metal (aluminum), rather than plastic. This adds a slight bit of weight, but I wouldn’t say it’s significant or noticeable unless you’re really paying attention.

580 AL Blue up top and 580 below. All of the blue parts are the metal pieces that are plastic in the standard 580.

Is the 580 worth it over the ECO? I would say the 580 barrel and cap shape are a much sleeker, slimmer look – the ECO is definitely bulkier – and it also feels nice in the hand.

The 580’s cap and its barrel are clean and simple while still having a bit of a curve and detail to them, like the metal trim and jewel-like finial, that make it a really good looking pen. I have a few of the 580 ALs in the orange, and I love it.

This post is a bit timely because we’re expecting the new 580 AL-pink to come in later this week, but what really spurred this blog post on is that I finally cracked and got an ECO in the new Lime Green, which I’ve been pining over for a while.

I have a few 580s and 580 ALs, but this is my first ECO. I’ve historically wavered between fine-medium-broad nibs (always liked ink too much to dive into the EF), and in fact have been sort of anti-stub, but for the first time, over the last couple of months I’ve been experimenting with 1.1 and stub nibs.

This is my ECO Lime Green with a 1.1 stub, and Noodler’s Violet. I was hoping to scrounge up my bottle of Dark Lilac, or maybe R&K Solferino, but I found a loose sample of Violet rolling around.

I’m really loving my ECO Lime Green! I’ve seen quite a few photos now of it pop up on Instagram -I’m not sure if it’s the bright colour, or the fact that I’ve really wanted one and so it catches my eye more, or maybe it really is that much more popular than the other colours, but it seemed like it was teasing me from near and far.

I finally broke down this past weekend – and I guess you could say Jon did, too, haha – and it feels like I haven’t stopped writing with it since.

***

In other news, we’ve basically all recovered from Scriptus, including the unpacking and resorting of all of our bags and boxes and supplies and stickers. It’s hard to believe it’s already been a week ago, although hearing back from people about their pen show experience, seeing the pens they picked up and scrolling through photos on social media has been a lot of fun.

It feels a bit like we’re jumping off of Scriptus and diving right into getting ready for the holidays – coordinating and receiving and organizing holiday shipments coming in, and trying to plan ahead for everything we need. We always try to prepare as much as we can, and then when the holidays hit,  we’re giving people option G because options A through F are sold out, and we’re subsisting off take out and “food” that comes out of a box in the freezer.

Every year I learn lots and lots of lessons about the holidays, and every year I think this year I’m not going to make this or that mistake again – but every year seems to be a whole new set of surprises and mistakes waiting to be made, which is sort of the exciting part of the it all, the whole adventure of the holidays.

Maybe it’s the cold weather creeping in, or more and more notes saying they’re doing some early Christmas shopping, but it feels like I’m buzzing a bit, in the best possible way, as Jon and I plan ahead for holiday hours and timelines for shipping and Christmas trees and egg nog and the sound of people stamping their boots to get off the snow at the top of our steps.

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Our Letter Writing Club is tonight!

I usually try to do a reminder post a few days earlier so people have time to think about whether or not they can make it, but of course I forgot – I do hope a few of you can still make it!

Last month was one of my favourite Letter Writing Club meets to date: we had a bunch of great people, but also a few familiar faces that I hadn’t seen in a while, including one who had just returned from spending a few months sailing around on a boat. I waffled between being happy to see him and wishing I knew how to sail a boat myself. That’s the life, I tell ya.

It’s sort of nice to think that we’ve been running this club for around a year and a half now, and to think we’ve had enough writing days that we can have familiar faces.

I think another one of my favourite things about these letter writing nights is that we sometimes get people who just like letter writing, but who haven’t ever tried a fountain pen before, although I think letter writers all have a bit of their soul still living in the analogue world – fountain pens were sort of made for letter writing.

It’s always so much fun to see their reactions, especially as they try pens from my pen roll with different colours of ink and different nib sizes, thinking wow this is nuts, until eventually they realize they do have a preference for broader, inkier nibs, or purple ink or that neon lime pen colour.

In some ways, if they were actually shopping for a fountain pen, it would be better to come into the shop with someone behind the counter showing them with tester nibs of different sizes and different brands, rather than just the varied and few and random ones I have in my pen roll, but it’s a different sort of vibe – just sitting down and writing letters for fun, trying a few pens out over treats and coffee and a cat darting around and sniffing in people’s bags.

I almost never finish the letter I start at the beginning of the club – I get too involved in conversations, or maybe just involved in my egg tart – but you know, it’s a good effort all around.

***

Just in case you needed some inspiration for your own letter writing, whether or not you can join us this evening, I thought I would share one of the best things I’ve received in the mail in a long time (and running a stationery shop means I get some pretty cool things in the mail sometimes).

From one of my favourite pen pals, who I think is a kindred spirit (and not only because she and I share a few key demographic similarities), this surprise landed in our mailbox. I wish I had kept the envelope, which was just brown paper packaging shaped into letter sized rectangle, and sent through lettermail – it’s incredible the things that you can actually send through the post!

These two tiny, hand-knit socks for Caleb’s tiny and smelly feet.

I just love receiving surprises inside letters. It’s just such a fun and lovely and wonderful moment in your day, to see something new in the mailbox, and not just an “ordinary” letter, although I’ll take those any day of the week.

Best of all, Caleb loves them. Like is all about putting them on and sliding around dangerously on the concrete floors with them, and putting them on before eating his breakfast.

I think maybe because I personally almost never wear socks – I wear sandals or Birkenstocks until the snow really sets in, and then I basically stay inside for the rest of the winter since my commute to work is through a doorway, and I am a spring flower – but Caleb also rarely wears socks.

He puts on and takes off his shoes on his own (he doesn’t wear shoes in the apartment, but needs to put them on to enter the packing area), and it’s always seemed easier to have him sockless, but I think he’s discovered that socks, apparently, can be fun.

Getting these socks in the mail was a bit funny on its own – I don’t know how kids just know when something is kid-sized and meant for them, but he just knew they were for him and pulled them onto his own feet with some pretty intense concentration.

I have to admit another reason why I love this is because I’ve been working on a crocheted blanket for a long time, and it’s something I can only now dream of finishing before I die. I brought it along with me on our trip to Vancouver, with grand plans to get it done, and I actually did get a good bit of it done during an episode of Master Chef after Caleb had gone to bed, but I’m probably around 15% of the way done.

My plan B, after getting home from Vancouver, was to leave it in the car so on long car trips to see the grandparents or to head into the country I could also work on it, but I didn’t factor in the fact that these long car trips were mostly spent eating junk food or napping.

One day…

The post Letter Writing Inspiration for Tonight’s Letter Writing Club at the Shop appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

A while ago, Sailor discontinued the colours of their standard line, except for Black, Blue and Blue-Black to re-release eight of their sixteen “Four Seasons” ink colours. We’ve had these inks for a while, and they’re some of our most popular – Yama-Dori (teal), Souten (bright blue), Tokiwa-Matsu (warm green) and Oku-yama (dark red) in particular.

Sailor has just released, for a limited time, the remaining eight of the sixteen Four Seasons inks, and they are beautiful. You can see all of our Sailor inks, including the new ones, here on the website, or of course come and visit us in the shop.

Sailor Chu-Shu: grey purple
Sailor Kin-Mokusei: orange
Sailor Sakura-Mori: pink
Sailor Irori: red
Sailor Fuji-Musume: purple
Sailor Yuki-Akari: blue/turquoise
Sailor Waka-Uguisu: green
Sailor Rikyu-Cha: brown

Chu-Shu: dark + dusky greyish purple

One of my favourites of the eight – I’m normally not a grey ink person unless it has something else to it, and I don’t especially like it when the greys are light, like Gris Nuage, because I can only use them in very broad nibs.

Chu-Shu is a lovely, charcoal, purply grey ink that writes wet and smooth onto the page.

Sailor Chu-Shu

Sailor Chu-Shu

Kin-Mokusei: bright orange

It’s truly a very bright orange, not quite a match for the discontinued Apricot, but not far off. Kin-Mokusei has some great shading, which isn’t particularly clear here because my Konrad is very wet – it pools ink onto the page, which is sort of how I like it because I want to be able to flex shamelessly, but it’s not great for showing off shading – and it also has a very subtle pink sheen if it’s wet enough.

Sailor Kin-Mokusei

Sailor Kin-Mokusei

Sailor Kin-Mokusei

Sakura-Mori: warm + dusky pink

I know I describe it as warm and dusky, and it looks a bit bright in the swab, but I think that’s more because of the light sheen that comes off of it at an angle.

When it comes out of a pen, though, this ink really surprised me. I am definitely not really a pink ink person, but this ink has a really nice matte quality to it, with just a hint of a crisp darker and slightly shining edge around it. I used a TWSBI Mini Broad which is also a bit on the wet side, so that might have something to do it with it.

Sailor Sakura-Mori

Sailor Sakura-Mori

Irori: cheerful + fun red, with hints of pink + orange

I thought Irori, the bright red ink, might be one of my least favourites (even less than pink, since red sometimes comes across as a bit angry), but it was another surprise with how bright and cheerful it was as a red.

It could also be the Platinum nib: I had swapped out my gold-coloured broad nib with a customer for a silver-coloured medium – at the time I said it wouldn’t bother me that my pen and nib colour don’t match, but it turns out I’m a bit more shallow than I thought, and I haven’t inked it up too much. But every time I do, I remember how nice Platinum nibs are – or maybe it’s the ink??

Sailor Irori

What really makes it a beautiful ink, though, is its sheen – it’s crazy! I wish I had known this before I selected my relatively fine Platinum nib. If you try really, really hard, you can see a hint of the sheening in the writing sample, but I think for it to be really apparent, you need a broader nib.

Sailor Irori

Fuji-Musume: purple

A bit of a dusky purple, a bit of a good match against the pink Sakura-Mori. The swab also looks a bit brighter, I think because of the angle, and because of how wet the swab laid down is.

Sailor Fuji-Musume

Sailor Fuji-Musume

Yuri-Akari: bright, light peacock blue

This another fun and bright and friendly blue ink. At first I thought it was a spring ink, but it’s actually aligned with the winter season, and the more I think about it, it’s a bit wintry too.

Sailor Yuki-Akari

Sailor Yuki-Akari

Wake-Uguisu: warm green

I am a big fan of earthy and warm colours, and this one is right there – and the shading! How can I resist an ink that shades like this. How beautiful and inky and vintage-y it looks on the page.

I used my Franklin-Christoph Fine nib, which is another fairly wet nib.

Sailor Waka-Uguisu

Sailor Waka-Uguisu

Sailor Waka-Uguisu

Rikyu-Cha: goes on green but turns into a dark greenish brown

This is my favourite of the eight. It’s brown! But it’s such a wonderful, deep, rich, complex brown. It actually goes on green, and then dries to this brown with a hint of the richness of the green, and if you look really carefully, a bit of gold sheen in it. I love these sorts of secret things that happen when you write.

It’s not a greenish brown that looks kind of unappealing, it’s a rich brown that has undertones of green and shades of brown.

Sailor Rikyu-Cha

Sailor Rikyu-Cha

***

We just got these inks in the shop this past week, and already I am debating with Jon over what exactly the advantages of opening an ink stop are if you can’t shore up enough ink to last you through any future ink apocalypses. Jon is debating with me over the fiscal responsibilities of running a business, and also the definition of hoarding. These inks are only around for a limited time, which only adds to my angst.

This is one of those times when my fingers are heavenward in the air and my face looks like an emoticon (the one with tears streaming down), but I’m going to tough it out.

I think I might be biased because Sailor inks are some of my absolute favourite – their old Sky High, Tokiwa-Matsu, Do-You are all regulars in my rotation. Their colours are so unique – rather than having ten shades of red, they just have the one or two really beautiful ones. But I think more so because the inks tend to all be so smooth and wet but also have a tactile feel to them, enough to not be glassy but to feel just right across a page. This is going to sound crazy, but I even sort of like that distinctive Sailor ink smell that they have.

It’s funny because a customer came into the shop the day we first day we had them out and took a look at all the swabs. He ended up picking six of the inks: all of the inks minus Chu-Shu (the dark grey) and Rikyu-Cha (the brown), which are my favourite two of the whole batch.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but upon reflection, I feel a bit as though all of those bright and vibrant inks might be a reflection of his bright and cheerful nature – and conversely, my soul might be a bit dark and twisty, with my favourite inks among such bright and beautiful colours being the green that turns into brown, and a dark purplish grey. I guess I did also like the pink one.

Anyone else have any favourites from this new line?

The post 8 Newly Re-released Four Seasons Inks from Sailor appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

One of my favourite things about moving into this shop space is the huge chalkboard wall that came with it – and we recently had brush lettering artist and designer Christopher Rouleau come into the shop and do up our chalkboard in style. Chris does chalkboard walls and signs, design work, and some great stuff on Instagram, along with teaching lettering workshops through Ligatures, a typography organization he co-founded.

Chris actually came in to do our chalkboard this summer, now months ago! I can hardly remember those hot, sunny days when Caleb could run out the door in shorts and a t-shirt, and we would sit in the shade under a tree with some ice cream.

While we’re now getting pretty deep into autumn, and this chalkboard seems to have to do with the summer, it’s a timely reminder all the same – to take the time to enjoy the journey and everything you see along the way.

This wall has been up for a couple of months now, and I have Bogdan to thank for moving me along with the last piece of it, which is editing and putting the video together.

I’ve been blaming my laptop, but it’s actually more to do with my complete lack of technological skills. It’s a miracle even these blog posts make it out into the great cyber abyss, some days.

Chris is of course beyond talented, but I have to laugh every time I watch this video seeing Chicken as a tiny kitten, following Chris around and waiting beneath the chair as Chris climbs up and down. I think Chicken really found a kindred spirit in Chris, which I don’t think I really caught on the day he came. I kept trying to shoo Chicken away, thinking he was bothering Chris, but it turns out when no one was watching, they formed their own sort of bond, which I guess is kind of how it is with animals.

It’s a sign of how long ago it was that Chris came to do this chalkboard that Chicken is such a scrawny little guy, and you kind of want to squish him for being so cute and small and just kind of trailing around aimlessly. Chicken really is a very sweet cat, but his adolescence now has brought about a lot of chasing and attacking, so it’s nice to remember him as a soft furry thing.

This chalkboard is only going to be up for a few more days! So if you haven’t seen it in person yet, and you’re in the neighbourhood, be sure to stop by.

If you know anyone who might be interested in doing some of their magic on our chalkboard, have them send us an email – info@wonderpens.ca. We’re always looking for new and friendly folks on our walls.

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It’s getting chillier and chillier, and we’re close to reaching that time of year when we start to think more closely about how we ship our ink.

As a shop, we’ve been doing a bit of planning and forecasting in bringing in ink shipments before it gets too cold – we’ve had our warehouse area covered in styrofoam peanuts and with bottles of ink everywhere.

I think this is yet another one of those things that I say that sort of classify me as insane, but in the really cold months, I sometimes feel an urge to rush into the shop and run my fingers over all the bottles of ink, knowing that I’ve amassed a safe amount of writing fluid to get me through the winter.

It’s completely ridiculous, since one bottle will likely last you years, much less through one season -there is always the practical concern of selling out of a certain colour of ink before spring comes and we can restock, but what consumes me is the more paranoid idea of “running out of ink,” like I’m not going to make it through the lean months without my ink supply.

It’s a bit much, even for me.

We’re still having some pretty good temperatures for shipping ink here in Toronto, but I know out in some of our eastern provinces, and in a few cities that are a bit higher in latitude, like Edmonton, things have gotten cold. You can read about our winter shipping process in this blog post, but I’ll cover the main ideas here again.

Depending on your location, we may select to have Canada Post hold your package at the post office for you to pick up. Even if you might be home at the time of delivery, there is still a chance that your package may be left in an outdoor pick-up box for your delivery person to pick up from.  In our experience, this really helps, but if you’d like to risk it anyways, you can leave a note in the comments, and we will mark your package accordingly.

We may siphon off a bit of ink from bottles that are filled right up to the brim (like Noodler’s) so if the ink does freeze and expand, there is a reduced chance of it popping the cap off or breaking the glass bottle. We’ll include this in a labelled sample vial with your bottle.

Cartridges may burst. Unfortunately, there’s not too much we can do about this shy of not shipping cartridges in the winter. It depends a bit on the cartridge – we’ve had the worst luck with the standard international shorts, because their small volume means have less buffer, but larger-sized cartridges, including Platinum or Lamy, can also leak slightly, or burst.

You can definitely still use your cartridge right away if it’s leaking or even if you’ve lost some volume out, but the longer you leave it, the more the water can evaporate, thickening up the ink inside, which can cause some flow issues.

And in particular, we may stop shipping Diamine inks if the weather gets too cold, which is always a shame because Diamine makes some of my favourite inks.

The 150th Anniversary inks in the triangular bottles and the Shimmertastic inks in the taller, cylindrical bottles, seem to be fine, but their standard, wide bottles seem to fare the worst with our great Canadian winters.

We’ve historically had the worst luck with Diamine bottles, no matter how well we try to pack. The bottles have just seemed to be weaker, and we’ve even heard of some bad luck with big Diamine shipments coming into Canada to our distributor late in the fall, and we can completely sympathize with the headaches and costs of that.

Diamine has recently redesigned their bottles for their standard line – in the photo, the one on the left, with the long ridges is the one you might recognize as their old design, and the one on the right, with all the dots, is the new (along with the new label). Time will tell if the new bottle design is stronger, and fingers crossed that maybe we won’t have to pull Diamine from our online shop this winter.

However, if there is a full bottle of something that you’d really like from Diamine’s standard line, you should start thinking about it over the next couple of weeks.

Personal favourites of mine include Ancient Copper and Ochre – looking back on the blog post about Ochre, I can remember writing this post just after Caleb was born (in September), and the cool fall weather at that time, at our old west end shop. I guess that’s also part of the allure of inks, remembering  when and where you fell in love with it, and looking back on the journal entries or notes you made at that time.

In any case, I’m also partial to both Majestic Blue and Sargasso Sea. We recently got in a few new colours including Hope Pink (a great match for the new TWSBI AL-Pink), and this Steel Blue.

Its a really sweet, blue-green, dark turquoise kind of colour.

I normally like my blues blue, or else leaning towards grey or purple or a blue-black, rather than into teal or turquoise, but this is my second fill on my Custom 92. I think it’s because it’s such a pretty ink, while not being too light, and of course I can’t resist a good, rich shading ink.

The post Winter Ink Shipping + Diamine + New Steel Blue appeared first on Wonder Pens - Life Behind a Stationery Shop.

A couple of weeks ago we received in most of our shipment of Midori Traveler’s Notebooks 2017 dated inserts and the special edition stickers and items for this year.

Some of the dated and special edition items released from Travelers Notebook for 2017

As someone who runs a stationery shop, I can say that there is something very satisfying about boxes of neatly organized notebooks, all packaged up and staring up at you, ready to be distributed to the world. I think there’s something about the Midori inserts in particular, because they’re very heavy, but slim, so you get a very full feeling in the hand.

We have the regular and passport size Midori Traveler’s Notebooks, the leather covers, in black, brown and the most recently released camel. I am personally using the blue Pan-Am edition that is now sold out, but I am contemplating whether or not I need a camel, since I can’t resist that warm golden brown. These are the leather covers that you can buy inserts or refills for, to use as you’d like, including these dated agendas below.

Here are the dated inserts we have:

We have the monthly in both the passport and regular size for 2017 (and there’s also a blank one as well, in case you don’t want to commit to a whole year).

Monthly insert in both passport and regular size.

We’re carrying the two different weekly inserts for 2017. There’s the vertical one (with the week across two pages, and each day is a vertical column) and there’s a weekly + memo one (with the one week on the left page, each day one row, and the facing page is a blank grid.

Both of these come with two notebooks – one notebook for January to June, the second for July to December, so you don’t have to lug around quite so much weight all the time.

The weekly vertical diary for 2017 – one week across the two pages.

Weekly + Memo, with the days coming down the left page.

If you’re unsure of which you’ll like better, you can always test out with open-dated agendas before the year’s out before committing to the whole year in one format: the weekly + memo and the vertical both come blank with no numbers, so you can fill them in yourself. Because it’s blank, even if you just use some of the weeks, you can pick it up again later for a specific project or give it to someone else who prefers that format.

The dated passport weekly only comes in the one format here, along with the monthly.

More exciting, though, at the special edition items Midori has also released.

There is a set of stickers to help you customize and use your Midori as a planner and organizer, and are vintage Pan Am themed, which I just love.

I’m getting a bit better about being less precious about supplies – actually using them, even these sorts of special edition items or discontinued things, rather than saving them for a ‘special occasion’ – so hopefully I’ll be able to make good use of them throughout 2017. These would also look great on snail mail.

Traveler’s Notebook “Customizable Sticker” set for 2017 – the monthly tabs are in the top left corner.

It also comes with a sheet of tabs to help you organize your inserts – two sets of monthly ones for the regular size, and one set for the passport, as well as some ones labeled “important,” “list,” “information,” etc. for you to use as you see fit.

The tabs are great because the part that sticks to the page is clear, so you don’t cover any information. When attaching them to your notebook, you should get the tabs fairly close together or else they won’t all fit, but they are also ever so slightly removable, so if you mess up, you can move them around cleanly once, or maybe twice.

The two monthly tabs for the regular size are different colours, so you’ll be able to differentiate if you’re using them for your monthly insert as well as a weekly. Even though one of the sets (the third) is smaller, and designed for the passport, you could of course use it in the regular size for another purpose.

And lastly there is a writing board underlay, a stiff plastic with more vintage Pan-Am and other TN history inspired designs, in both a passport and regular sizes, which helps with writing when you’re on the go and you don’t have a table to write on.

The regular size underlay on the left, and the passport size top right.

***

We had a few people waiting specifically for these dated inserts, but I kind of waffled around for a few weeks (hence why this blog post is so late!).

I think because it’s “just” November, but when they first came in, I hadn’t quite sorted out what I was going to do. While I’m always kind of thinking about what my analogue system and notebooks are going to look like next year, I hadn’t actually sat down and made any sort of decisions or plans.

I’ve historically used the weekly + memo, but I think this year I’m going to go with the vertical.

I used to go with the weekly + memo because I had projects that were ongoing, or had some interesting theories about when I would write a blog post that ended up being way off. I thought I needed the flexibility of the one page on the right, but I’m going to see how things go with a bit more structure, and I can also use it to help organize things that need to happen at specific times of the day, like Caleb’s classes or appointments.

And just for fun, I thought I would share a picture I discovered just minutes before sitting down to write this blog post. Caleb loves stickers, and he’s put some of my favourite ones onto one of his favourite activities, turning on and off the lights.

I didn’t even realize he had the organization to get these from my desk and to put them somewhere specific, instead of just randomly on the walls or his pants.

He had surprisingly good placement – the people are fairly centered, and both straight up, not tipping to one side – on the light switches for a kid who usually can’t tape down bubble wrap with 14 pieces of masking tape.

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