The Container Store Rules

More on my organizing... The container store sells these really cool shoe boxes that seal tightly and are pretty inexpensive. Perfect for pens, inks, etc. I bought about 6 and I am a better person for it. here's a link if you are curious. I now have my pens organized "by category." or I am working on it at least. Rollers, gels, pencils, markers, mechanicals, all have a fresh home. I couldn't stand putting my fountains in there. It just feels like they are left behind if I do that.

I also love that my inks have a spill proof home now. I will repost once I am completed, but stacks of pens in my office have now been gently put away in a clear organized fashion. Yeah!

This also makes me very curious how everyone else stores there pens outside of the traditional pen boxes and cups? Feel free to post and let everyone know. Have a great day!

Cartridge Filled Fountain Pens!

I was doing some organizing over the weekend and part of that was making sure I had clean pens in storage. Crusty inky nibs are not a friend of mine. I started to pile up my cartridge fillers to separate from the other types of feeds (don't ask) and took a quick shot. I probably rely on at least one of these pens everyday and keep an empty cartridge in all of them ready to go.

I clean the cartridges the same way I fill them, after they are done, I turn them upside down, and spray in warm water with a syringe until it runs clear, let dry and pop back in. It keeps from having to search for cartridges.

When motivation strikes I grab the syringe and whatever ink inspires me and off I go with a refill. I usually only fill them up halfway unless i know I am doing a ton of writing or want to keep that pen inked for a while. These are mostly Sheaffer's with a few Esterbrooks and Scripto's included but I love them all equally. (that's not true, I have favorites!) Have great Monday everyone.

Quick update

If you haven't seen it yet, Moleskinerie picked up my post yesterday and I appreciate all the RT's on Twitter. Thanks for your support, yesterday was a fun day with the comments and emails! I will back to the pen stuff in a minute but wanted to say thanks!

My Moleskine PDA Hacks

So the Moleskine talk has been hot and heavy and I have seen a few tweets about Moleskine PDA's so I thought I would share how I organize my Moleskine life. I use two versions depending on my mood and time. If I am feeling crafty, I grab about 20 pages and make notches down the length of the book with a razor blade to create little tabs to separate my sections.

If time does not allow, I simply grab those pages and use a marker to color a section. Black=work, blue= personal, red=people I should run over with my car. It works for me, I tend to just keep the "chapters" straight in my head.
I am not sure where I grabbed these ideas from and I am positive I cannot take credit for them. But I have been using this system for so long I can't remember where they came from. Googling did not help so if I am stealing any thunder, I apologize.

Click for a better view of the way I cut the pages. Dig in your thumbnail in and off you are to your favorite section! I have also done this on the top of the Moleskine whick looks looks pretty cool as well. I love to write and I consistently try to make my writing world as organized and my computer world. This has definitly helped me.

Retro 51 Roller (and an Empire Cap tease)

I love the weight of this pen. It's substantial and feels very solid when you grab it. It has a few dings on the outside but still looks good enough unless you look closely and the reason for not having a writing sample is because (of course) I threw a G2 refill in it. (Would you expect anything else?) I thought it was appropriate to put the Retro 51 on my Parker Box. If a pen thinks it is strong enough to carry the "51" label it better be good.

Here is just a peak into the Parker Box. You probably have seen about 50% of these. A few of you outside of the blog have seen the one sitting front and center. It's pretty much my favorite pen in the world. That's all. The Empire is strong.

And just a quick shot of the label. Retro 51 has a few decent pens out there (including some fountains) and a really cool bamboo pen that I really want. In fact, there are a lot of pens that I have had my eyes on lately. I need to force myself to hold off till the NE pen show. All bets are off there.

The Talking Pen

So this is kind of cool for a pen. You can record your notes, or grocery lists or whatever. It has 2 channels and the battery for the recorder has way outlasted the ink supply. Not that I ever remember writing with this, but whatever. To me this was never actually for writing. It's was more of a novelty.

I think I have had this pen for a few years and so far I have recorded "cool" and "does this come in a fine tip" and "Don't make me stop this car..."

For the writing sample...why bother. I doubt they had writing instrument in mind when they made this pen. It's fun to play with, it works as a recorder and it's going back in the box right now. Welcome to Tuesday everyone.

Sharpie Chisel Point in Black

So I am a huge Sharpie fan as seen here, but for some reason, this one slipped by all the other reviews and it just sort of popped up on my desk one day. It's a fun little Sharpie. The Chisel POint!

A chisel point on a Sharpie is a brilliant move if you ask me. I have a few regular Sharpies that have worn down to the plastic after heavy use, so I will see if this one holds an edge throughout the Sharpie lifetime.

I keep this one in my sock- like Terrell Owens and if I need it, I just pull it out and its ready to use. (kidding, I am not wearing socks) Pants yes...socks no. I try to keep that straight.

There is no need for me to go into the details on the ink stuff, that's already been done, but that tip is fascinating and fun to write with. I have been amazed at the amount of emails and comments on my little Fountain pen Experiment (using only fountain pens for a month.) It's actually much hard than I had imagined and I love my fp's, but I see May just around the corner and I need my gel fix.