Editing The Pen Addict 206/transcript (section)

== Ink Properties ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like Bravo to me. Yeah. Like pat on the back time.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' And kind of a chance to say, these are sort of my favorite things I did over the last year. Um, this is what I'd like to do better. Um, yeah, I just, I think it's an important thing to do to kind of just take stock and, um, and think, and it's just good for mine that it, um, that I started at the beginning of the year. So it kind of falls in good timing with a lot of kind of, um, not news resolutions, but, you know, that sort of.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You start type stuff.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So one of the things like you can tell, like, you can see like the growth from, you know, year one to year two, and you started implementing more videos and you do all these, um, like your station or stationary organized neatly project is really cool. Um, and then you mentioned something, um, in this year two one that, you know, I don't know if you want to talk about, but I'm going to ask you anyway. You talk about opening your own store. Tell me, uh, tell me about those thoughts.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Uh, it was one of those, like, if you don't put it out there, it's not going to happen kind of a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's why I wanted to, to make you go public and put the pressure on you.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Oh no.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, yeah.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' So my ultimate dream would be to open a brick and mortar store to put myself on that Google map. Um, but I'm not someone that can just quit my job, get a loan, open a shop. Um, I have to start very slow and kind of learn how things work. So I thought the sort of first step of doing that would be to open an online store, kind of learn the ropes, see how it goes. Um, yeah, I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, but I think I'll just start small. Um, in that post, I think I said the summer because it seems so far away. But, um, obviously now that's almost here and I need to get my act together. Um, but yeah, the plan is to kind of start by just sort of selling, um, other people's stuff that I like. And I'm hoping that the people that like what I do on my blog and like my aesthetic would be the sort of people that would buy the products that I would sell. And then sort of down the line, I've sort of got vague ideas of things that I would like to make myself. I've got one prototype on the go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, this is, you are going through the natural evolution of a stationary blogger, right? Look at Brad, right? Like you're, you're so like deep within it that eventually you just make your own. There's only one person I know that's kind of gone in the reverse, which is Myke Dudek, who started making products and then started a blog. Like he kind of went the other way around, but it feels like, and I get it. It's like, it's like a natural type of thing. You, you know what you like. And it's kind of like the same reason that you started the blog in the first place. You know what you like and there was nothing around that was fulfilling your need. It's the same reason that you started like the map, right? Like there was something that you wanted and there was nothing there to fulfill the need that you had. So it makes perfect sense that you would make your own stuff eventually, or at least have your ideas too.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Yeah. I think, yeah, I, I know station. Well, I feel like I know stationery quite well now. So why not put that knowledge to good use? Hopefully. I don't know. It might not work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I think it's exciting and I think you should go for it. And I know you would have the full support of the community behind you. And I love hearing, hearing talk like this. I think it's, it's, it's really, really cool. So if that wasn't enough pressure on you, you had a very high pressure event this year and you got married.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' I did. End of last year. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' End of last year. Okay. So this is my single favorite post you've ever done. Yay. And I read them all and I've shown this post off. I've talked about it. So, so not just any wedding you had, I won't call it a stationary wedding, but the title of your post was stationary at my wedding. So your, your husband, your now husband, then fiance, he's, he's behind this stationary obsession a little bit because you got, you got pretty far in all the things you did for your wedding. So why don't you talk about him, talk about that and how you got stationary so involved in your wedding, because this is so cool.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Okay. So yeah, my husband, Harry is a designer. So I think with that comes a love of stationary anyway. So yeah, he's totally with me on the whole thing. Um, and he actually proposed on a pencil.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, so you taking, you taking notes, Myke? Nope.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Um, yeah. So he, he handed me a pencil that said, Tessa, will you marry me? Um, and he had also, um, used a notebook as a sort of ring box in a way, like he'd cut out the shape of the ring. So he opened the notebook with the ring inside, um, it's making the rest of us look bad. Well, he made me wait like 10 years, so he had to do a good job.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's right.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Um, so yeah, when it came to planning the wedding, um, it was him actually that suggested that we kind of bring the pencil thing into it somehow. And, and I was kind of like, oh, it's so obvious. Like people will expect it, but he was pretty forceful that we should, um, go down that route. So yeah, there were a few different ways that we brought it in. Um, we had pencils made on the day, made for the day, um, that said like Tessa and Harry and the date of our wedding. Um, so we put one of those on each person's, um, place setting. Um, and we got, um, pay sort of, yeah, paper, um, tablecloths with the idea being that people could, uh, write on the tables, which as they got drunker, they did, uh, which had some fun results.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you post all those pictures? I see some of them.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' I put one up on the blog post, which I think is probably enough.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that was telling enough.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Um, what else do we have? We, um, so my husband designed a big vinyl, um, sticker thing and got it made to, um, a big pencil vinyl to go on the wall. Um, which was just kind of, it was just a big white space. So it kind of just something to go on the wall. Um, a friend of ours made her boyfriend a, um, a bow tie, um, which was made of, um, material that had, um, pencils all over it. And he wore, um, a pack of colored pencils instead of a pocket square, which was genius. So it was good that kind of other people bought into that as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, the, um, the, the brass Kaweco.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Oh yeah. My, my wedding gift on the day. Um, yeah, he, in the morning, he'd got my bridesmaids to give, um, me, uh, a gift, which was, um, a brass, um, Kaweco sport, which I've wanted for ages and it seemed to kind of make sense. And it's got a little engraving on it on the back, which I'll keep to myself. Um, yeah. And I also, um, I really enjoyed doing the, um, the place name setting things myself, which I, um, got some advice from Elaine from, um, our link calligraphy on, cause I saw she'd done similar, um, for a friend's wedding. So I kind of copied her, um, on those as well. So yeah, that was my wedding.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I mean, you couldn't have pulled it off any better. I, it's just fascinating. I look at this, I, I'm not joking. I look at this post all the time and I just smile cause it's really, really cool. Y'all that, that was awesome. And, and belated congratulations to both of you.

'''Tessa Sowry:''' Thanks very much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What did, what did you get them for their wedding present, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't get an invite, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I turned it around. You did, you did. You dirty rotten scoundrel. All right. So I want to talk about, um, I want to talk about what you're using these days, Tessa. I think everyone wants to know, you know, what are the current things that are, have taken hold with you? Have you found any, you know, new products that you're really enjoying more than anything? Do you have a favorite that you've had for years that is always there and useful? So let's, let's talk about pens and pencils first. Like what kind of things are you using these days that are some of your favorites? Yeah. Yeah.