8th Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

Welcome to the 8th Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper, founded by Nifty of Notebook Stories. The Carnival highlights posts of interest, amusement, and information through submissions as well as nominations by the editor (in this case, yours truly Pocket Blonde).

This month we have lots of great posts encompassing pens, pencils, inks, notebooks, and...other entertainments. Enjoy the reading, and please do invite your friends to drop 'round by posting a link to this website.

The 9th Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper is scheduled for May 4, 2010, and will hosted by Julie (Okami) of Whatever blog. You can submit entries (either your own posts or nominations of other posts) using the Carnival submission form.


Editor's Choice

Leigh Reyes at My Life as a Verb showcases an impressive Nakaya Long Piccolo fountain pen with a roll-stopper that's a show-stopper.

Brian at Edison Pen Co. has an in-depth look at steel nibs: a quality modern steel nib will offer virtually everything that a modern gold nib can, with the exception of flex to provide line variation.


Pens

Tom at Goldspot Pens presents Review : Cross Affinity Crimson Red
Fountain Pen,

A morsel of Mont Blancs at My Supply Room, and I wonder if he's got a Pentel Rollerball I could borrow?

The Amateur Economist reviews the Uni-Ball Jetstream Hybrid Pen.
The workhorse of the pen world is the Esterbrook, and Julie (Okami) at Whatever has a nice post featuring an Esterbrook J Double Jewel black fountain pen.

Lady Dandelion shows off her Yard-O-Led Retro broad nib fountain pen and 11 inks currently in rotation.

The Pen Addict looks at the 0.38mm Muji retractable gel ink pen in orange.

A Penchant for Paper takes a look at the Pentel Slicci 10 Colour Set.

Grease Monkey Hands reviews the Pilot Falcon II and includes lots of great pictures of the blue one.


Pencils
Bleets at Scriblets has a great post on the Uni-Ball Kuru Toga Mechanical Pencil.

Kid Sketches reviews the Paper Mate Write Bros. 0.7mm Mechanical Pencil and Col-Erase pencil.




Inks
Woodworker at Inkyjournal reviews Rohrer & Klingner Sepia, a dark brown-black ink, and Sheaffer Red, the "perfect" red ink.

Clement Dionglay, better known to us as The Archer at Rants of the Archer, has her own take on the best red ink as she reviews the amazing Camel Scarlet Red. And check out her review of Daycraft's Signature Notebook.
Over at Everyday Correspondence there's a review of Rohrer & Klingner's Morinda, the color a cross between dried blood and rose red (the perfect ink for Stephen King is he used a fountain pen).

Another Rohrer & Klingner ink, Solferino, is a beautiful grape juice color and gets a workout over at Without Ink.

Which segues nicely to a post from The Dizzy Pen serving up a wonderful sampler of purple inks.

BiffyBeans has hundreds of great ink reviews at her place, Spiritual Evolution of the Bean. This one is for Diamine's Indigo fountain pen ink. And check out her review of the Ecosystem Blank Journal.



Paper and Notebooks

Journaling Arts reviews Artists Mediums in a Fiorentino Journal Refill (go for the review, stay for the beautiful drawings).

A pair of great posts by travisthetrout of Notes in a Book are these reviews of the Quaderno Italiano notebook and the Oxford International Notebook.

Margana at Inkophile takes a look at Clairfontaine's French-Ruled notebooks and gives her Namiki Falcon a workout on that wonderful paper. "Clairefontaine paper is outstanding for fountain pens, dip pens and everything in between," she notes. Quite true - a flex nib + Clairfontaine paper= fun!

Mark Dykeman of Broadcasting Brain submitted this great post on the insanity of paper notebooks, adding "Some musings about how we use paper notebooks - great comments section."

Passion at The Pen Archives offers a wonderful review of the D-Sign Notebook by Daycraft. Daycraft is not available in the US yet, but hopefully these fabulous notebooks and planners from China will find a distributor.

A visual diary by d'Blogala (he didn't like the Sharpie pen tattoo?). Speaking of Sharpies as the pen of choice go over to Journals of An Amateur Naturalist for a great post, Capturing Notes in the Field.

Over at Quo Vadis Blog there's a competition: Habana v. Webbie v. Moleskine, with film!

And don't miss OfficeSupplyGeek's thorough review of the Leuchtturm1917 Ruled Notebook.


For Your Reading Pleasure

TonyB of Tiger Pens writes: "We love using pens, and what better way to use them than to keep track of the important moments in our lives?" He's put together a great step-by-step guide on how to start writing a journal, and also asks the important question: Do you prefer to take notes with pen and paper or on a computer?

Over at Rhodia Drive we get the definitive answer (if we didn't know it before) to the question, "What's the best paper to use with a fountain pen?" Hint: it begins with "R" and is similar in color to a pumpkin, if that helps.

Another great post from Quo Vadis Blog, Leah posts about competitive pen spinning (which should really be an Olympic sport).

Liz from Life, Love, and Books discovers the joy of buying pens and accessories online, and shows off a JetPens.com order.



Other

Totally off-topic, but as I've taken up knitting I thought I'd showcase this amazing Citron shawl that Aimee at StupidHippy completed. The bread looks mouthwatering, too.


You've Got Mail

In Nifty's email to me outlining Carnival duties she mentioned something about emails coming my way that aren't related to the topic (a.k.a. "spam"). Why would anyone do that, I thought. Then strange submissions popped up in my mailbox. Poetry? Truck Art?
Ranjita patra presents 'That's The Life Baby' - A Perfect Novel for the Young People posted at Breaking News Online.
Robert Terrell submitted this poem from The Existential Poet.
From Brenda D. Chapman come this post from Construction Management Schools on some amazing trompe l'oeil, 20 Outstanding 3D Truck Art Images. I would love to see that in the US, but oh the accidents (and lawsuits)!

Anne Simone submits this post from Online Colleges. net on the 100 Best Places to Appreciate Art6 Online.

And Angela Martin submits this post on 80 Awesome Ideas for All Your Old or Unwanted Books from Online Colleges.net.