Paper Review - Il Papiro of Italy

Just a quick note to announce a new paper review which I have posted at the Fountain Pen Network!

You can read it here: Il Papiro of Italy - Luxury Writing Paper and Envelopes.

Some New Paper - Il Papiro

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Melbourne last month - what a wonderful city! My husband and I are hoping to go again later in the year.

I only got to check out one pen shop while I was in Melbourne, and that was Taft's in Westfield, Doncaster. I was very unimpressed... since I have not been to any other Taft's stores, I can only assume that the Doncaster store is carrying just the "popular" brands.

All the usual suspects were there - Montblanc, Visconti, Dupont, Caran d'Ache, Montegrappa, and Lamy. I asked at the counter whether they had any Japanese brands like Pilot or Sailor, but the woman had not even heard of those companies making fountain pens! (I was a kind of surprised, because I didn't think Japanese makers were still *that* niche, but apparently they are.) She also had no idea about the caliber of pens being produced in Japan, this was evident by her showing me a very cheap student range of pens from Korea, saying this was all they had from "Asian companies". Needless to say, I found it very easy not to buy anything. :)

I fared better when I visited the beautiful Il Papiro in Degraves Street, which I stumbled on by accident while I was looking for an art store. Il Papiro only has a handful of stores, two in Australia, two in the US, and the rest in Italy. There were a lot of gorgeous leather journals to look at, many Murano glass dip pens, beautiful writing sets and lots of pretty bookplates and labels to personalise correspondence with.

I could have easily spent a lot of money, but I was most restrained, and only left with a set of writing sheets and envelopes, and a couple of sheets of labels, all embossed with my initial:

As yet, I haven't decided what pen and ink combination to use on my first letter... I'm thinking a nice ink would be Pilot's Iroshizuku Edo-Murasaki, though. :)

A more thorough write-up about this paper will follow.

Rhodia Webnotebooks

Yesterday I received a rather nice gift from a very kind FPN'er - a Rhodia Webnotebook! (I don't know why they are called "Webnotebooks" - but they are.)

I received one in Orange, A6 size. The design and styling is pretty darn cool, and the little logo on each corner of the page doesn't bother me in the slightest. Tragically, the paper isn't the usual Rhodia standard! (Why Rhodia, why???)

Here's my Webnotebook, along with my sexy little Montegrappa Micra, freshly inked with Noodler's Golden Brown:


All things considered, these are nifty little notebooks - let's hope that Exaclair prevail and manage to have Rhodia revisit their paper decision.

Lovely Paper

This morning I discovered the online store of a Melbourne-based retailer which carries my favourite paper, Original Crown Mill! The store is called The Source Online.

This is exciting stuff - The Source have a good range of OCM products, especially concerning the Pure Cotton items which I could previously only mail-order from Monograms in Brisbane.

More Paper

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Original Crown Mill Stationery, an extremely nice paper I was able to buy locally. The quality is comparable with G. Lalo, which is great; because that was the paper I most wished I could buy here in AU. While I can buy Crane & Co., it's very expensive.

I ordered a couple more OCM A5 pads in Cream today, and some C6 Cream envelopes with different tissue linings - Chocolate, Bordeaux, Kraft, Bamboo and Navy. Yummy!

OMG 2007 !!!

Yes, 2007 is upon us.

(How horrifying! Where have the years gone?!? My life is passing me by at a great rate of knots! I remember my 21st like it was yesterday, dammit!)

But, enough panicking. What's new in pendom?

1. Original Crown Mill Stationery. I picked up a pad and envelope set from this Belgium paperier just before Christmas and I love it. It is cream laid paper with a beautiful texture and feel. Currently I have the classic correspondence set in Grey. OCM is also available in A5 pads, which is what I prefer, because pads vs. sheets are much better value. Also, they offer C6 envelopes in Cream with your choice of 21 different coloured linings. Excellent stuff.
2. Richard Binder. I have finally sent my 10 pens to Richard for nib customizations. The wait will be awhile, but it will be so worth it. :)