Ink Swatch: Sailor Red Brown

Mmmmm... I love red-browns and red-blacks. I find myself really attracted to dark inks with colored accents, like Montblanc Racing Green, a green-black, and this Sailor Red Brown.

What's your favorite base color/accent color combo?

A Very Bubbledog Thank You

To express my appreciation to Karen at Exaclair, for the nifty gifties she send me last week, I sent her a thank you note written one of the fantastic Bubbledog cards I won I while back.

I think that all the pieces for the card went together really well. Obviously, the card is a powder blue with a polar bear on it. But then, I wrote my message and addressed the envelope in J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe, a frosty blue-green.


And, to top it all off, I remembered reading on the Quo Vadis blog that Karen has some connection to Alaska... the commemorative stamp for which recently arrive in my mailbox and goes perfectly with this card-ink-envelope combination!

I was really quite pleased with the whole thing. Don't you love it when things just happen to fall into place?

Everyday Correspondence Community Project Proposal

Dear Readers,

These last few days, I've been giving serious thought to producing a zine for and from the Everyday Correspondence community. For those of you unfamiliar with the medium, think of mainstream magazines like Newsweek and People as the big studio movies of the periodicals industry. A zine would be like a student art film, shot on a camera phone and edited on her parents' computer.

The idea is to put out a call for submissions around a TBD central issue theme. And then for me to put them together, add whatever necessary elements for the zine to be cohesive, and then publish it at my local FedEx Kinkos. Distribution would be by mail.

Why? Because while the internet is well and good, sometimes it's nice to have something to read on a road trip, to place on your coffee table, to write on with a pen, to cut out an amazing picture, and to hold in your hands as you to say, "I helped make this."

So, before I get too far with this idea, is anyone interested in participating?

Itching for collaboration,

James

Handmade Stationery

I recently received a letter from a pen pal who, in the spirit of the season, hand painted/drew her own stationery. As you can see, it's amazing, and my photographs don't even do it full justice.

This pal always knows how to add special touches that make her letters an absolute joy to read!

Ink Swatch: Montblanc Blue

Yup, this is what it looks like. It seems a little on the powdery side for me. Has anyone else had any other experiences with Montblanc Blue? Fountain pen inks often differ depending on how long they have been sitting, or whether they have been shaken before use or not. So, I'm wondering if this sample that came to me from a pen pal is truly representative of the color, or if it's an outlier.