Supply Love: Atyou Spica Glitter Pens by Too

So, as you already know, I have a thing for pens.  When browsing around various scrapbooking and papercrafting suppliers, I saw all kinds of gel pens.  I'm not a huge fan of gel pens - they smear too easily for my liking, especially on coated surfaces, and I'm often just not patient enough to let them dry.   Next thing you know, I've got ink all over my fingers, the item, and my work table, and I feel like that messy 2nd grader who just couldn't get the hang of the cursive 'r'. 

And then I saw two sets of glitter gel pens, made by Too, the same Japanese company that makes the very popular Copic markers. (More on the Copic markers later, because my Xmas present to myself was a set of those.)




I am a sucker for a nicely packaged multicolor pen set, and if you tell me they're from Japan I'm even more interested. My dad used to travel regularly to Japan on business when I was a kid, and he would always bring back intriguing gifts of pens, chiyogami paper-covered pencils and shiny origami paper.

I waffled for a while. These are not inexpensive pens, at around $25 per set. And did I really need 24 glitter pens? What was I going to use them for? In the end, my pen and sparkle craving won, and I bought the brighter Set A. I found another site where I could buy individual pens, and bought the clear pen, which isn't included in either set, apparently, and the handful of pens I wanted from the pastel-heavy Set B.

And man, these are amazing pens. They dry really fast. The glitter is very fine glass, so it's really sparkly in the right light. It doesn't look like the usual sparkly pens you associate with tween girls. Writing with them is really, really smooth and satisfying. They really do "twinkle like stars" as the cute packaging says.

I've found it best to store them on their side rather than upright - when I first wrote with them after storing them in my nifty IKEA hanging buckets, they seemed sort of dry and scratchy. Turned out that was user error and the pens clearly have instructions to store them on their sides. When I do more rubber stamping, I think they'll be great for coloring in small details and adding a bit of sparkle.

I love using them to write my Thank You notes to my Etsy customers, and to address envelopes. Since they dry so quickly, I'm no longer sending out smeary messes. I also use them to write 'handmade by anandi' on the backs of my cards. The sparkle makes my computer-degraded handwriting look a little nicer :)

Do you have these pens? What do you think?

Experiment 3 - Congratulations Card for the New Mama-To-Be

We have all been sick here for the past couple of weeks, passing around the same cold that came from BabyT's daycare.  It came back for me with a vengeance yesterday and I'm only just awake enough to string a couple of words together for a post.  If it's totally incomprehensible, that's the Nyquil talking.

I've got a running list of folks for whom I need to make New Baby cards and it's growing.  I love having specific people to make cards for - it helps me narrow the design options down and tailor it just for them. 

This one was for my friend N, who is about to have her 4th child (a boy).   I got her a Starbucks card, remembering her love of coffee when we worked together, and figuring that she probably had enough stuff for the baby by now.  Sometimes the mama needs a present too!  I got inspiration from a 2010 Cards magazine example that had a pocket for a coffee card. I selected the patterned paper first, to guide the color palette for the rest of the card.



MATERIALS

• Blank blue A2 card base and envelope


• Making Memories Just Chillin' Specialty Paper 8x8 - 1 sheet of lovely ombre gingham


• Jo-Ann white cursive letter rub on transfers


• Flower jewels


• K & Co Adhesive Rhinestones


• Prima cork flower embellishment


• Scrap olive green cardstock


• Sassafrass Lass chipboard stickers - numbers


• Tsukineko Brilliance Ink Pad, Coffee Bean


• Martha Stewart Adhesive / Art and Craft Glue


• Copic Atyou Spica Glitter Pen Set

TOOLS

• K-I Memories Congratulations clear acrylic stamp


• Apple Pie Memories Stamp Blocks


• Fiskars paper trimmer


• Scotch ATG714 Adhesive Applicator for 1/4-Inch Tape

METHOD

1. Using the paper trimmer, I trimmed the gingham paper just smaller than the card base.   I used the trimmed piece to create a pocket for the gift card - cut to slightly smaller than the width of the card.  I stamped the pocket with the 'congratulations' stamp inked lightly with the Tsukineko ink and put aside to dry.


2. I used the individual rub on letters to spell 'mama' on a circle cut from the olive cardstock then added the chipboard '4' sticker to the circle.


3. Now it was time to glue - yippee!  I used my Scotch tape runner to tape the gingham piece to the front of the card. I ran the tape on the sides and bottom of the smaller piece and taped it to the inside of the card, to make a pocket for the gift card.


4. I glued the 'mama' circle to the front of the card, slightly off center, and added a cork flower with an adhesive rhinestone to the edge. With the craft glue, I added four flower jewels to the bottom of the card in a random pattern.


5. I wrote my message with my wonderful glitter pens (they deserve their own post later!), put the Starbucks gift card in the pocket, wrote 'handmade by anandi' on the back, then left the card to dry for 24 hours.

SUMMARY

I was pretty happy with how this turned out, given that I had limited time to complete it.  I like that cards can be quick projects and once I decide on the basic color scheme, I just have to find a few embellishments to dress it up.   My fabulous husband suggested making the card in portrait orientation rather than landscape, when I found that it looked a little empty in landscape.  So hooray for getting a second set of eyes on it before gluing the bits together.

Cutting out the individual rub-on letters was a good idea, to get the right positioning.   I definitely did well by not gluing anything until I was happy with the placement.  Paperclips might be helpful to try out different layout ideas and not lose little pieces.

I stayed up too late working on this the first night, so I left it without gluing anything.  Coming back to it the second day was easier - I had some new ideas about placement and felt a little more inspired.  So taking a break can be a good thing, even with a deadline looming.  In my case, the "deadline" was lunch with N the next day.  At a certain point, one has to declare the project "done" - I could have messed with it longer, with only incremental improvements.  Cards are good for this too, since eventually you have to give it away to your recipient. 

Your thoughts?

The Most Wonderful Elusive Pen in the World - Uniball Jetstream

(reposted, slightly updated from my personal blog at http://www.ramancreath.com/anandi)

When I was a kid, I LOVED back-to-school shopping – all those new writing implements, pristine notebooks, folders, planners, yay!

I would start out perfectly organized, using my best handwriting for my notes (this was in the Dark Ages, before laptops were common). In college, I even had a system of using multiple colored pens and highlighters to take lecture notes. And those were some pretty notes. It hurt to put them in the recycle bin after lugging them from house to house for 10 years.

I now have free access to (mediocre) office supplies at work so I don’t have any major occasions to shop for stationery or school supplies. But I crave them.

[caption id="attachment_76" align="alignleft" width="168" caption="photo from www.jetpens.com "][/caption]

I found a pen on my desk the day I returned from maternity leave and it was a Marvelous Pen. It was like the Pen Fairy had left me a present welcoming me back to work – the perfect combination of rollerball/gel pen, with a nice squashy grip and unbelievably smooth writing action. I loved that pen. Until my coworker Michelle saw it one day, and told me it was her lost pen. She knew it was a Marvelous Pen, and she wanted it back, so I grudgingly gave it back to her.

For months I sought that pen: Target, Office Depot, Staples. For some reason I never bought the right one – I knew the brand (Uniball Jet Stream RT), but every pack I bought wasn’t quite right.

The Target pens were too light and plasticky and were more traditional ballpoint than rollerball.

TJ bought one pack for me at Office Depot, but those were too inky and not “gel” enough.

I bought another set at Staples, but the point was far too fine. At that point, I had enough pens that we’d never need to buy more, but the quest still continued.

A few months ago, I bought what I thought was a set of 3 Marvelous Pens. Bold, rollerball, from Office Depot, with a nice weight to them. But sadly, these are not the droids (um, pens) I was looking for either. They are too ball-pointy, and don’t have the nice squishy grip.  They are the closest match, but still not quite right.  I feel like Goldilocks.

I thought I was destined not to ever find these pens, but I have one last place to try.  Another coworker introduced me to JetPens, a site that sells Japanese office supplies.  Their Uniball JetStream selection is different, so I'm hopeful.  I haven't placed the order yet, though, because I'm not ready to face the disappointment if they're not the right ones.  Soon, though.

Do you have a pen story?