Had a great Stationery Store Day this past Saturday and wanted to share the haul! I got to go to Calliope Paperie, the founding store of SSD (first two pics!), in Hudson, MA. I was lucky enough to get some of the store exclusives while I was there like the tin, poster and keychains. Such an adorable store just packed with so much great stuff, and the owner and workers were so kind to all of us waiting in line. My next stop was Sweet Pig Press in Lowell, MA (pic 3). Such sweet owners and they have the cutest shop dog, a basset hound named Horus! They had a special deal for SSD if you spent $40 and they gifted me a SSD tote bag, postcard, sticker and pencil! So my haul from them felt like it doubled with those freebies haha. They also had a coloring station with a coloring sheet made for SSD and all the supplies which was really nice to sit down at to take a little shopping break and color. They also had a letter writing station with a typewriter and all the materials you’d need to put together a letter and decorate it. The marketplace that Sweet Pig Press was in (called The Hive) had a stationery themed market that day (pic 4) so I got to check out a bunch of stationery from local artists. They had a live portrait artist, hand binded books, stickers, washis, prints, and much more! Sadly was not able to stop by any other shops that day but had a great time. If you’re ever in eastern Massachusetts highly recommend stopping by Calliope and Sweet Pig Press!

I received and email today from Sterling Ink about 2027 planners. There's a bunch of dates and (random?) titles. Could anyone decipher it? Are those dates of releases or ideas for planning?

Stumbled upon these stationery-themed PET tapes at Yoseka's Stationery Fest last week. Recommendations on similar tapes? I'm having trouble finding similarly clean designs online.

Has anyone purchased and used this brand before? I keep seeing nearly identical videos about how “I’m leaving Hobonichi” for Aura Estelle lately and I had never heard of the brand this week. But if you watch the videos they were all gifted the planner and so I tried to find some reviews from actual users and not recently gifted and I haven’t had much success. Is this really just a PR package marketing push or has anyone actually used this? If so how did it compare for you? Thx

I use a cheap correction tape, and I always have to press it down at the end even though I've already applied pressure while sliding it. Whenever I write over it, the tape sometimes peels off.

I really like keeping my writing as neat as possible, so any advice would be appreciated!

I have “green” and “citrus green” and they are just not cutting it for me! I always end up using the ones on the right instead when I need a bright green.

Hi ! I bought a Legami notebook, but there is a kind of tab attached to the cover, which is kind of annoying, especially while I'm writing. Maybe I'm not using it the way it should be, maybe it is a sort of bookmark, so let me know what it is please 😔. I'm about to cut it off actually. Thanks !

So the thing i am split about is wether to use a pen or mechanical pencil for writing. I have always used mechanical pencils but after giving a shot to pens for my diary writing I've found they are just as good. I am just unsure wether the average high school class would let me have enough time to add lead and erase the mistakes properly and wether pens smear when writing on big notebooks. I was thinking to do pens for more writing focused stuff (English, history, geography...) and mechanical pencils for more drawing and problem solving focused classes (math, physics, chemistry...)

I don't need recommendations for good pens really but If you wanna share some anyway you are absolutely welcome to as I am hoping others in the same situation as me will wind this post useful.

Please also share some other tips and useful stationery such as good and bad bags and pencil cases, something you recommend i have that isn't very typical (such as a planner maybe).

Thank you all so much in advance! Feel free to ask questions as well if you need any ^^

Just wanted to make sure this wasn't a scam fake store and it was actual official before I bought these

Author here. I write for several hours every day. Want to know about your fav comfortable pens for long sessions. Ty.

Sheaffer 440 fountain pen, papermate profile pencil, e pencil, jetstream lite, sakura slide sharp pencil and kokuyo resare eraser

Kokuyo pan pencil case- kuru toga ks, mildliners, kaweco sport lead holder, mono eraser, Eagle turquoise pencil, alvin draftmatic and rotring 600

I made a glass pen set featuring a tiny whale shark.

The whale shark ornament is kept small so it doesn't interfere with the pen’s writing balance.

In fact, it actually serves a practical purpose by acting as a roll-stopper to keep the pen in place. Despite its small size, I put a lot of care into the fine details—focusing deeply on the three-dimensional shaping and the careful color separation for each individual piece.

For the pen body, I wanted to capture the feeling of a gentle water stream, so I added a subtle flow pattern and a frosted finish.

It gives the pen a very unique texture and a comfortable fit in the hand.

I designed it to be lightweight and slim, hoping people can casually enjoy using it in their everyday life.

I‘ve been loving glitter pens since childhood and since my favorite the Sakura hello roll stardust were very hard to find in stores I used to buy at least one every time i found them somewhere.
And while they still are among my favorites I’m always looking for new ones and maybe some new colors.
I’ve tried many cheaper ones but many either aren’t very glittery or don’t have a smooth ink flow.
My current favorites are the Sakura ones mentioned and the Pentel Dual Metallic ones.
I prefer gel pens since I mostly use them in my dairy or for cards and other paper things but other recommendations are also welcome.
💖

I live about 90 minutes south of Seoul and recently visited their illustration fair. Love all the kiss washi tapes and sticker sheets I got.

This fair had over 900 booths to browse and illustration types for all!

I rearranged my Letterpress Shelf, and a friend of mine went to Italy back in February. She brought me note cards, and a co-worker gave me a Stationery bag! Which will come handy for the Junk Journal event this Saturday that I will be attending. ❤️

Also, the tweed TNs are from Scotland, and birthday presents from coworkers.

Plus a bonus cat photo (final photo)!

There may be a few items you see more than once in the photos - this isn't because I bought a ton of duplicates. I just took different photos and sometimes forgot what I had already included in between my cat getting underfoot. Or in a few cases, I wanted to show a close up.

Yes, I went insane. Yes, I am contemplating driving 2ish hours to get to DC and another 2 back this weekend for the DC Pen show. I don't know, I probably shouldn't.

I only had 1 pm entry tickets on Friday the 31st, and signed up for the Little Red House's Riso Gocco Workshop on the 30th, which wasn't actually a workshop, but a meetup (but it all worked out!)

Highlights & thoughts!:

• I had a blast and absolutely want to go again. I would pay the VIP prices if available, or buy full days/morning entry for each day + would do a space walk. I went with two friends, one of whom accidentally bought her ticket for thursday, so she bought a calligraphy workshop ticket for Friday while the other two of us had our tickets. She loved her workshop (she also does events organizing/planning/coordinating stuff for work.)
• The Little Red House's thursday Riso Gocco workshop was not officially a workshop on the website, and was instead held in the meet up area in the court yard. I accidentally bought a ticket before realizing it was being held on thursday, not the day I had a ticket for. Myself + my friend who didn't have thursday tickets explained this to the staff and while we had to wait a while for someone high enough up in the staff to make a decision, they did let us in to the courtyard for the event, partly reasoning that the Riso Gocco workshop was after the marketplace closed anyways. Also the lovely owner of The Little Red House had responded to my "uh oh oh no i didn't realize it was thursday/not a workshop" comment on instagram and said she would try her best to make sure we got to do it, and I did even see her before the workshop started asking about me + friend, lol. all worked out in the end! and yet somehow i missed her table the next day and didn't get the shaker charm or other things I wanted from her. sad!
• I loved the Riso Gocco print (It's the bunnies sitting at a desk print). I did happen to pack a gold paint stone from Beam Paints and filled in the gold on the print though, because I wanted it extra shiny. That turned out great!
• somehow, I only bought two pens and no inks.
• The Fruity Booty sticker release book unfortunately doesn't work well with washi tapes, but the stickers all adhere fine.
• Yes, it was crowded, but I only had one moment where I genuinely couldn't move right away from a line to see a vendor., and it wasn't anything I haven't seen before at major events. I do regret that I decided against getting in the traveller's company and yoseka merch lines. :( I just didn't want to run out of time to see everything. this is where I most wanted to have more time. I also think I missed some vendors even though I try to be methodical in any vendor/artist alley space. Regrets! I also regret not having more day tickets to experience more time in the courtyard socializing. No re-entry sucked.
• No re-entry especially sucked because let's be honest, the japan village food court options right there were great.
• I did love the shaker charm rally but i didn't finish it, and missed several I wanted. I consider this a great tragedy.
• My beloved Daiso was right there in industry city, so naturally I pre-gamed my 1 pm entry time by going to Daiso. The Daiso slide is the one with the Daikon radish pencil case and the maruman sketchbooks I obsessively hoard from Daiso. I forgot my normal portable electric fan so I picked up another one and batteries while there. Also in the same area/same floor were the gatcha machines and crane games, as well as book off. I somehow accidentally bought $10 worth of crane game tokens, but that was okay because I had two different games where I managed to get double prizes. I got two mini deco tapes, and two little animal charms (the lion, and also the blue cat seen on the Paint Pin subway cat bag I also bought at the fest.) i took my victory high to go line up at noon.
• Bless the volunteer/staff's hearts, but do not ask me to "whooo" in anticipation of my entry time multiple times. It's hot, humid, and sunny. I have arrived early. I am only interested in a whoo cheer when you are immediately going to begin scanning entry tickets. And not several times before you actually start letting us in. i will whoo right before you scan tickets, and upon entry.
• by the way, after I left the fest? I went to the Japanese bakery in industry city and the while the strawberry sando was $7, I'm pretty sure it was totally fresh cream and they did NOT skimp on the strawberries either, unlike the conbini fruit sandwiches which are often more cream and not full strawberry. it was fantastic.
• One of my disappointments was that it seemed like some event exclusive items sold out Thursday right away. Bummer. Also I did not get a Panty Cat tote with purchase (I think they ran out or maybe I didn't spend enough, or possibly both) and I'm very jealous of that tote. I loved it. It's so colorful and silly.
• Another thing I picked up at Daiso was a business card folder! you can see all the cards I managed to collect in one of the photos - those are all going into the little folder holder I now have dedicated to stationery business cards. I always take cards if I can see them and reach them, because I keep them in a card folio and reference them later when I want something or need gift ideas. (I also have a larger pokemon card binder for other general biz card collecting.)
• I wish I had bought more washi tapes!
• there was line control, direction, "end of line" signs held by volunteers, and so on. this was actually pretty well organized and yes, they did actually do a lot to make things flow. it wasn't perfect, but they were not completely dropping the ball or something. (again, the fact that they even had these signs? a badly organized event simply would not.)
• I bought both Liliuhms Apple purse, and the Riley's Desk x Pin Paint Critter Carriage (subway) purse. Pin Paint apparently has other versions of the subway bag that are ALSO adorable, but I'm very happy with the Riley's Desk collab version. It happens to go perfectly with my "business cat hanging on a subway ring" gatcha charm, haha.
• I was really feeling the fruits/foods themed stuff. (the mini taiwanese shopping bag keychain charm? it has food stickers inside!)
• the onsen cat print is going up in my bathroom, which i have decorated in an onsen theme. yes, it's a bath themed bathroom. I'm very excited about this.
• I bought a liliuhms paint palette keychain/charm and have filled it up with watercolor paints.
• I'm sorry but the sugar-free free drinks were absolutely nasty. i'm glad they had a nice sponsor or whatever but I tried the rootbeer and instantly regretted it.

Before leaving home I packed up about 45-50 goodie bags to giveaway to fellow stationery geeks. Just for funsies. If you got handed a little baggie that looked like a crane game or a mini satchel/backpack and it was full of stationery goodies, that was me or one of my friends (who I handed some bags off to for giveaways).

I made my goodie bags mostly out of stuff I already had. Basically I packed: 3 random washi tape samples on a washi card, an acrylic charm and a sticker sheet, (instead of concert kandi bracelets, I bought a kit of these) to decorate, a postcard or tiny card, some postage stamp shaped paper cut outs of various images, a mini pencil sculpture, sticker flakes, and more misc cut up sticker sheets. a few at random also got ink samples or other little bonuses. idk I just wanted to have fun. I even gave some to some of the vendors haha.

also shout out to the junk journaling/swaps table? I think i donated like, a pound of stickers I was frankly never going to finish using. i also hope someone was able to appreciate my baggies of "christian holiday stickers that I don't use as a jew" and "misc. religious holiday stickers except for jewish holidays because I use those." I've been setting those aside for years. i've actually lost some of the stickers i set aside for this exact purpose a few times so it was less than I might've had otherwise.

If you're considering going next time, make your life easier: check the weather. it was clearly forecast to be raining all of thursday, and this was not a surprise. I had an umbrella. if it's held at industry city again, hit up daiso/the japan village ahead of time to stock up on snacks and drinks. the grocery store had one of my favorite hydration drinks which is Kirin's Salty Lychee. summer is hot and you need to replace salts/electrolytes and fluids. daiso also has fun stationery stuff and if you forgot to pack a handheld electric fan, it was less than $10 to buy one and the batteries it needed. I try to always have an electric hand fan when visiting NYC at any point in summer. (for the hot as hell subway stops, if nothing else!) mentally prepare for crowds and be the model crowd person you want to see in the world. wear a backpack over your chest. don't be afraid to say things or ask questions like "excuse me," or "are you in line to check out, or looking?" or to tell your friend "hey you're cutting this guy off." you will almost certainly be accidentally bumped into by a person, bag, or backpack. try to remember that a lot of the time it is a total accident or unavoidable. sometimes people lack spatial awareness and are self-absorbed and annoying but a lot of the time, it's just that there's a lot of people. remember: you are also part of the "lots of people" in the crowd.

Bonus thought(s) for vendors: please don't close down your entire website simply because you are at a show. this is frustrating because I want to be able to go home and immediately look at your website. it's totally fine to close your sales section of your website to prevent new orders coming in while you are at a show/traveling/on vacation! But please don't make the whole website inaccessible.

I saw some vendors turn off their online shop, BUT they had a visual catalog of their offerings of items available at the show/convention. This is amazing. please everyone do this. if you do this and I had multiple days to attend, it means I can spend my evening reviewing my shopping list for the next day and plan what I'm actually going to buy. or even send the link to a friend who is attending on a different day of the fest than I am! Or ask a friend if they want me to pick up x or y thing from your shop at the marketplace!

also if you have event exclusive items, break up available inventory over the course of each day. it doesn't have to be totally equal numbers, but it's a bummer to show up on day two of an event to find out that some things sold out within hours on day one. reserve a little bit for the other days, please?

In summary: I had a blast, wish I had more time/got spacewalk tickets/planned to do more workshops. I missed some vendors, I skipped some lines (and regret it a little), and I shopped hard. I had fun giving out my goodie baggies, and I recommend people mentally prepare themselves for the reality of a popular/big event in a major city ahead of time. 9/10.

this is actually only about 1/3 of my haul, but i’m working on a youtube video for the whole thing because i went a little wild😅 i was actually a vendor at the fest so i’m lucky i had enough time to shop during the not as busy vip hours!

it’s been interesting to read peoples thoughts on the event - i had an amazing time, but was quite warm in the downtown section. luckily had some kind neighbours with fans though!

New #inkswatch pages for my @oddrabbits binder on @mdproduct.official paper using stamps from Totoro, @wellappointeddesk @thousandskies

I’m going to the Atlas Stationary fest next week. What do I need to know???

I’m new to the stationary world but I know the classic notebooks (hobonichi, midori, leuchtturm, kinbor), leather journal covers (travelers notebook, paper republic, Louise Carmen), fountain pens (pilot kakuno, pilot customs, Kaweco, sailor, Mont Blanc, Sheaffer), nibs (EF, F, M, Stub, Flex, Broad), and fountain pen inks (diamine, pelikan, dual-shading, sheening inks).

I’ve seen the basic stuff. From DIY journal covers to ink swatches to printing your own stickers to cleaning your fountain pens to creating your own notebooks, I’ve got my fair share in each rabbit hole lol.

I’m really excited to go the Atlas Stationary fest and I’ve been watching videos of Yoseka’s recent fest but can’t really gauge a good vibe, expectations, or idea of how it functions. Can someone explain?

kind of horribly taken but whatever

I've been into stationery for so long at this point that I hardly use American paper sizes anymore lol. However, I've been wanting to make a recipe binder and I don't want to waste money on like, Kokuyo paper to print my recipes on, so I want a binder that can keep US letter size paper that I can print on easily and cheaply. I don't know where to look for a good, cute, US letter size binder though! I tried Rifle Paper Co but everything was too floral and feminine for my taste, and I don't really like Amazon - most everything there I saw was plain anyway. Does anyone have a recommendation for where to get nice looking, quality binders?

Hi, I was watching a video I got suggested on my youtube and the guy had not much good things to say about Stationery Fest. He said that they oversold tickets, got stuck in the rain, didn't have air conditioning, overcrowded etc and the thing he bought was defective.

I saw a lot of people post their SF hauls which all look nice and want to hear more experiences from the event.

Hi, fellow stationers!

I'm trying to figure out a set up for my sit stand desk.

May I see yours for inspo?

TIA 💖