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terriko ([personal profile] terriko) wrote2025-03-31 09:00 pm

March 2025 ink palette & journal supplies

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.


I took these pictures back at the beginning of March and never posted them, so you get them on the last day instead!





A set of supplies for my journal in March 2025: three sets of dino themed stickers, 1 pencil, 2 thin washi tapes, one wooden mechanical pencil, 5 fountain pens with inks (described further in the post)
Image Description: A set of supplies for my journal in March 2025: three sets of dino themed stickers, 1 pencil, 2 thin washi tapes, one wooden mechanical pencil, 5 fountain pens with inks (described further in the post)




Stickers






  • The cat calendar sticker, as always, is from By Mossy Pine.




  • The dino stickers are all from an old stickii pack I grabbed during a sale called “Rawr!” or something similar.





March’s Fountain Pen/Ink Combos:






  • Kaweco sport <medium> filled with Diamine Twilight, a dark blue-black ink. This ink was a present!




  • Nahvalur Original+ <stub> filled with Diamine Aurora Borealis, a dark teal ink with a very tiny amount of red sheen. This ink was also a present!




  • TWSBI Eco <medium> filled with Diamine Noble Fir from the 2024 inkvent calendar, a bright green ink with shimmer. This one carried over from last month’s palette.




  • Pilot Metropolitan <CM> filled with Pilot Iroshizuku yama-budo, a dark fuschia ink with some green sheen. I’m using a refilled cartridge to see if I like it better than the included converter, and it *is* nice to be able to see how much ink is left, but it means I’m reluctant to change the ink (and potentially wear out the cartridge faster).




  • Pilot E95S <medium> filled with Pilot Iroshizuku ama-iro, a bright sky-blue ink.





Since this is the end of the month, I’ll say that all of these worked out pretty well, but I did have a bunch of hard starts on the Nahvalur pen, likely due to my inexperience using a vacuum pen (I’ve had this since the fall but haven’t always had it in rotation). I’d hoped to maybe use this as a travel pen eventually but I probably should have gotten a thinner nib on it for that to work better, I don’t know. It’s kind of a moot point as travel has become unappealing at the moment.





I’m also realizing that I *really* appreciate the converters when it comes to changing inks every month, and the piston fillers can be kind of a chore in comparison. I may need to rethink how often I change inks and plan my palettes differently so more colours carry over depending on which pen they’re in. I’ve slowed in my pen acquisitions now that I’ve got a range of nibs and such to try, but I did pick up a small box of cartridge-filled ones as an impulse buy at Powell’s so you’ll see at least one of those next month.





I haven’t finished this iroful journal yet, but I’ve decided to leave the rest of the pages for pen testing and ink swatches since I like the paper for that but don’t love it for writing journal entries or todo lists. The plan is to pull out a notebook with faster drying paper for April.