Pens From Europe!

Stockholm, Sweden

In July, my husband and I went on a cruise that left from Stockholm and traveled to several European countries. We had an extra day on either end of the trip in Stockholm so I had a chance to do quite a bit of browsing for both office supplies and everything else.I took this opportunity to purchase a lot of pens and paper in Stockholm and Visby, Sweden.  I have always loved the idea of buying the supplies that "the locals" use so this was my chance!   

We saw a lot of amazing things on the trip, but Stockholm was one of my favorite places. To quote my husband, "Three truths I have learned about Stockholm: 1) Stockholm is an IKEA the size of a city. 2) Every store is apparently a TARDIS, from the street they look like a small storefront, but hold more stuff than a Wal-Mart. 3) There are only about twenty different stores in Stockholm, they just repeat every few blocks.

One store that I only came across once in my travels, was a department store called Ahlens. This is where picked up the Muji markers above and the unknown short makers in the photo.  The pen test is for the white markers.  I think the real winners in the maker set are the  purples, there are a lot of very subtle shade differences that make each color unique.  If there was a tag with these markers, it was long gone by the time I took the pictures, so I am not sure what brand they are.  There is a tiny tag inside the zippered pouch they came in, but it says made in China, so that isn't much of a clue. (The Muji pens below also came from Ahlens.)

In Visby, I stopped into a bookstore and they had a large stationery section.  I picked up several of the pens in the following pictures from there.  I think my favorite one has to be the retro looking, retractable, teal BIC pen.  I also like the orange BIC pens because they are fine point and they aren't sold much, if at all, in my area. 

 

The pen above the Faber-Castell pens is a "b.n.t/office pen." I do not know much about this pen, and a quick google search didn't shed any light on it for me either, so I am not sure if it is sold in the US or not.  But it seems to be very similar to a Pilot G2 pen, only in ballpoint.  Surprisingly, I do not have a G2, otherwise I would compare them side by side to be certain that they are as similar as I think they are.

I know I have a few more pens hanging around that got adsorbed into my pen drawer at work so they weren't available for review.  I also have around 10 notebooks that I picked up in Sweden, but I'll save all that paper for a following post!

If there is anything you want to see a better of picture of or would like more details about, just leave a comment and I'd be happy too oblige!

Quick Cheap Pen Review

Tomorrow is my first day at my new (old) job. Needless to say I have continued to fantasize about how I am going to supply my new office and have been dying to make the rounds to every office supply store and website known to man. Unfortunately, a rowdy going away party and homework limited my shopping time this weekend.

Because I was short on time, I decided to visit Wal-Mart to get my pen fix! I picked up a package of pens by Papermate. I liked the clean white styling of the pens and I thought they might go well with the white supplies at Poppin. I also picked up a pack of Elementz markers made by inc. I really have no need for these, but I thought they could be useful when decorating my planner pages every week.

I decided to test these pens out in the notebook I received in the Germany Rad and Hungry kit. As a side note, I am so in love with Rad and Hungry! I have previously speculated on what different countries office supplies were like and it seems as though Rad and Hungry read my blog and decided to start a company to satisfy my curiosity! If you aren't yet signed up with Rad and Hungry, you should do it right now, or you are going to be the only kid on the playground without a notebook from Latvia and paperclips from all over the world.

Back to my review... the Der Brunnen Block notebook paper is 70gsm and reminds me of the writing tablets that you used to see everywhere, both in size and the weight of the paper. I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the grid lines on the paper are done in grey, rather than blue. I like this better than normal grid paper simply because of that fact.

The Papermate pen is a Silhouette Elite and is classified on the package as a medium pen at 1.0mm. It is really just your standard ballpoint pen. It wrote smoothly and didn't seem too goopy. There is nothing fancy about the pen, but nothing bad either. I can see filling an office supply closet with this type of pen if you wanted to get away from the stick pens or avoid gels.

Closer view of the ink shows a little bit of skipping, but I think it is because it is brand new. I don't think it would be a problem long term. The pen comes in blue and black.

The Elementz markers very metallic. The picture doesn't really do the colors justice. The package says they work well on light and dark paper. They are not listed as permanent markers, but they do say that they are fade resistant. These markers are labeled as fine tip. However, that clearly isn't the case, they are similar in size to regular sharpie, so they may not be best for very detailed crafts. I am sure I will get some use out of these pens, but they won't be something I use everyday.

Both the ballpoint and the markers showed through on the back of the paper. However, there was no bleed through on the markers. So if you are looking at them for crafting, I don't think it would be a problem.

Now that I have my pen fix in for the weekend, I have to start deciding what notebook and pens to take with me on my first day of work! I know I will be taking a lot of notes during my training and I want to ensure I have a trusty pen and a notebook that I won't mind using for awhile as i get up to speed in this new job. I am already planning on using my Uncalendar as my work "to-do" book (but I follow my own system, not the one at their website). I have all manner of bound books, office project notebooks, Rhodia pads etc. to choose from. But I would love to hear from you in the comments! What would be your must have supplies on your first day of work?