Filtering by Author: Sarah Read

Beverly Sealing Wax Set, featuring Howl’s Moving Castle

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

It's so easy, with stationery, to think of things in terms of usefulness, practicality--to think of our supplies as tools instead of toys, and we forget to play. Then something comes along to remind us to be playful, too. Do I need sealing wax? No. Did I have the most fun ever playing with this sealing wax kit? You betcha.

It first caught my eye because of the Studio Ghibli Howl's Moving Castle theme. That's one of my favorite movies, based on a beloved book. And then there were pretty colors and fire, so... It was a necessity.

The Beverly Sealing Wax set comes with everything you need to entertain yourself for an afternoon, or everything you need to make some seriously adorable wax seals. It has a wee bottle filled with wax pellets in themed colors, a small candle, a melting spoon for the wax, and a wax seal with a themed stamp. There's a set for Kiki's Delivery Service and Castle in the Sky as well. It all looks like something you might find in Howl's bedroom (iykyk). It all comes in a lovely gift box.

To use the kit, you light the candle, place 3-4 wax pellets in the spoon, and hold the spoon over the flame until the wax melts. Then you pour the melted wax over the spot you want to seal, and press the stamp into the pool of wax. Hold it there for 5-10 seconds, then lift it carefully. Pro tip: The wax takes a few minutes to fully solidify. Maybe resist the temptation to touch it. Maybe. Bonus pro tip: The spoon, which was just in fire, is going to be hot for a while, too. The spoon did get a bit coated in soot, but it wiped clean easily.

Once dry and cool, the wax seal is quite solid. You can make the seals on paper, or cut them out and glue them where you want them, or make them on a plastic backing that you can peel off. Basically, go nuts. Seal everything. I know I plan to.

The whole set costs $44.50 at JetPens, which is more than I would have guessed, but isn't too unreasonable. The fixtures and pieces are good quality, sturdy metal and nice wood. You can certainly get similar kits for much less, but they don't have Howl on them, so that's no deal. These are cool enough that folks on BlueSky are asking me to send them Howl-sealed letters, so they're bringing communities together during the death of social media, and that is priceless.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on February 6, 2025 by Sarah Read and filed under Wax Seal.

Paperian Make-a-Memo Sticky Notes Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

In my stationery life there is a tug-of-war between me searching for solutions for my "scattered small pieces of paper" problem and my indulgence in scattered small pieces of paper. This product allows me to indulge in that vice. Wee papers everywhere. Huzzah.

The Paperian Make-a-Memo Pads come in a variety of formats. There are to-do lists, shopping lists, ledgers, planners, and this handy review sheet. As a frequent reviewer of both stationery and books, it was the format that seemed most useful to me. It has five stars at the top for coloring in a review score and spaces for the date and a description. I found them immediately handy in reviewing the notes themselves.

Paperian Make-a-Memo Sticky Notes Sticky

Each pad contains 40 sticky notes. The paper is good quality, better than standard office sticky notes. It is coated in a way that makes liquid ink slow to dry, so it works best with ballpoint, rollerball, or pencils.

Paperian Make-a-Memo Sticky Notes Writing

On the downside, the sticky isn't very sticky. If you want truly sticky sticky notes, these aren't them. However, I prefer gentler adhesive, especially if I'm using them in books or journals. Archivists hate sticky stuff! If I need a small piece of paper to stay put, that's what cute washi tape is for. (I have to justify my washi stash somehow.)

These wee memo pads cost $3.60 each at JetPens, which is a fantastic deal. It's right in that "I need to add a few dollars to get that sweet free shipping" range, and they're cute and useful at the same time. Perhaps a miss if you need super sticky notes, but if you're as addicted as I am to scattering your notes across a debris field of tiny paper, these are a fantastic addition to one's desk.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on January 30, 2025 by Sarah Read and filed under Paperion, Paper Reviews.

Blackwing Colors Colored Pencils Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Stressed? Me, too! Coloring helps. I did a little coloring this week, and decided to try the Blackwing Colors Colored Pencil Set. I'm a big fan of their graphite pencils, as many are, so I was excited to see if I'd like these as much. If their graphite pencils are my favorite to write with, would their colored pencils be my favorite to color with? Sadly, no, but they are very decent--just not as superior as their daily writers.

The set comes in a box with a foam insert that has all the pencils safely nestled in their little cubby. The box opens like a book, which is nice for use while you're coloring. It's much easier to use than a top-opening box. You can see exactly what you're reaching for, and it helps protect the pencil tips. It's also magnetic, which helps keep the pencils safe in transport.

Speaking of tips, the pencils do not come sharpened, so your coloring session will need to be preceded by a sharpening session. They do sharpen very neatly, though. One pencil did not cooperate. The black pencil core broke when sharpening once, but then continued to break as I tried to use it. It was obviously broken in several places internally, so I gave up on it. But the rest never broke at all. I usually expect some breakage with colored pencils, so only one is not bad. The clay-based cores of most colored pencils are a lot more delicate than graphite pencils.

The cores of these colored pencils are very soft, and that's because Blackwing has created a wax-based core for them. I used a Kum Masterpiece two-step sharpener to put a pretty good point on these, but that point wore down very fast. These would not work well for those very detailed coloring books with lots of very tiny spaces to color in, which is most of what I have. But the soft cores are wonderful for blending and shading, so they'd be great for artists creating their own images.

The colors are well-pigmented, with even the lightest colors creating very vibrant tones. The bright colors and smooth texture remind me a lot of the Prismacolor colored pencils that were the Cadillac of my high school art classes. Overall a good coloring experience, though not as nice as the Derwent colored pencils that I've been using over the past decade.

One thing these colored pencils have that most don't is the signature flat Blackwing eraser. Erasers aren't usually as effective on colored pencils as they are on graphite, and that's still the case here. The eraser formula on these is different than for a graphite pencil. They're paler, more textured, and a little crumbly, because Blackwing has included sand in them to make them more effective. They work better than a regular pencil eraser would, but you can see that they still aren't removing much of the pigment from the page. A bit, yes, but the erased lines are still visible except in the very palest colors. The erasers are refillable, though, so if you find yourself erasing a lot, you can replace the end.

The set of 12 pencils is $30, which is on the high end of colored pencil prices. For comparison, a 12-color set of Prismacolor erasable colored pencils is $9. Price-wise, they're up there with the fanciest Faber-Castell colored pencils ... but I don't think they're as nice as those. They are very fancy, though, with fine cedar wood, wax cores, sand erasers, etc. A lot of thought did go into making them good pencils. Sales of these pencils also benefit music and arts education programs, so some of that extra cost is going to good causes. So if you're a Blackwing fan, these might be the perfect colored pencils for you. But if you're looking for a fantastic coloring experience because the world is falling apart around you, you might want to try some alternatives.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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