August 11, 2021
Finding the perfect pen or pencil for your planner may take a little trial and error. As someone who loves to write and pick the right pen and pencil, I thought I would enjoy taking a little pen and pencil test and sharing the results with you. If you’re like me and a bit of a pen snob, you’ll love today’s post. Hope you find a new writing instrument to combine with your planner. It makes a difference having a pen or pencil that you enjoy using!
This week, the Homekeeping Planner is officially available for pre-order – if you haven’t packed yours, head over to this post for all the details and for pre-order prices. If you pre-order, you will receive a voucher for the product launch in the fall – one of the new products is the 2-pack of the pictured notepad (a favorite office item of mine – I use it all the time and I look forward to it) have a style that cannot be found anywhere else is available in the shop).
The criteria I used for my pen test: I like to write in black ink and use a finer point. I tested a couple of 0.7 pens but knew I would tend towards a finer tip – if you prefer a different color ink and / or a thicker tip you may want to do your own pen test 🙂
I bought two packs of sampler from Jet Pens (I mentioned them before, love the variety and variety!). Uni Jetstream ballpoint pen sampler and the Fine Tip gel pen sampler. I arranged the pens by thickness (from thinnest to thickest) and wrote the same text: This is a pen test. This is pen text (in italics).
This helped me get a feel for how the pen dragged or glided across the paper and how it felt when I wrote in text or italic. While I was writing the text, I also wrote the brand name of the pen and a quick note about my first thoughts.
I narrowed down my 3 favorites on the left (the Pentel Energel 0.35, the Pilot Juice Up 0.4 and the Uni JetStream 0.5) and then tested them against each other and came up with my favorite: the Uni JetStream 0.5.
After choosing my favorite pencil, I tested 3 of my favorite pencils and decided on a favorite. I used similar criteria and narrowed down my 3 favorites to my absolute favorite – the Uni Alpha-Gel 0.5. I love how smooth it is and how well it erases too.
After I had my favorites, I tested them in the new Homekeeping Planner – no bleeding of the paper, no stains and it’s fun to write with!
Here you can see my favorite pen and pencil. I like to use both in my planner. It was easier to narrow down the pens and pencils, I have yet to decide which homekeeping planner to use for next year – the Lace and the Cotton Blossom. Get your pre-order if you are interested!
Do you have a favorite pen or pencil? Tell me your favorites!
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