Editing The Pen Addict 693/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 693
| title           = Get 'em, Ana - Holiday Gift Guide 2025
| date            = November 27th, 2025
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = [[Ana Reinert]]
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/693 Episode 693]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/613/clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/penaddict693.mp3 Audio Episode 693]
| length          = 61
}}

Welcome to The Pen Addict episode number 693. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery and Squarespace. I'm your host Brad Dowdy and joining me today for the wonderful Gift Guide podcast, Anna Reinhart from the Well Appointed Desk. How are you, Anna? Just fine. How are you? We're here again. Here again. Here again for the Gift Guide. Not as late as usual. Still on the latter side. I don't know. I am definitely, things have snuck up on me this year. I have been more prepared in years past just to like get into the spirit of whatever the spirit is. And it has not happened yet. So I'm like, this feels really early in the Christmas or any other holidays. It's like, yeah, starting soon. Like in a few weeks.

I think part of it is the weather. Like it did not start to cool off here until a couple of weeks ago. So like I'm ready. I'm ready for Halloween now. Like it's cooled off. The leaves have started to change color. They're starting to fall. I'm like, let's get the pumpkin spice lattes out. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not ready for Christmas. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not at all. So I was, I was thinking, I already am giving myself homework on how many years we have done this Gift Guide episode. I don't know that we've gotten to 10 years on this, but we're definitely up there a little bit, but I'll have to look.

It's 10 years have passed. We may have skipped a couple of years just because schedules didn't align. I think I mentioned this somewhere this past week, which was the same. I was like, I didn't look it up either, but I'm pretty sure we've done this at least 10 times. I'm excited. I'm excited to do it again. And, and we're going to get to it a little bit later in this episode. I got to pick your brain about a couple of things. I got brewing before we do that. But like last year, I think last year's idea worked very well. So we're going to roll that back for everyone.

You're going to have to wait and see what it is here in a second, but it's a fun, fun way to look at the Gift Guide. I think it's something we'll probably keep doing going forward. So before we do that, I always have to catch up with you, even though it hasn't been that long since we've talked this time. So I'm not going to get a lecture offline about how long it's been since we've talked. True. True. Thank you. True. So anything, anything going on you, are you done traveling for the season anymore? Any more things going on? What's, what's up in your world?

The furthest I'm traveling is like two miles from, for, for the, for the remainder of the year. I'm, I'm done traveling. I'm, I'm looking forward to just staying in one place, but probably my biggest news since we talked, and we may have mentioned this briefly, but I took all of my sticker business that I had been doing and I found a local printer to print all of my stickers. So up until this point, all the sticker designs I'd been doing, I had been doing myself and cutting machine, cutting them myself and the whole thing. And it got to where that was all I was doing every day, all day.

Um, and I realized that that was no longer sustainable because it wasn't, it didn't give me time to make new designs, which is one of the more important parts of this whole process. So very excited, but, um, I've had him, the printer reprint. So all of my stickers have been reprinted. My whole inventory now has switched over to this, to the new fancy printing, fancy cutting. Everything is, is done perfectly and it looks great and everything. And in some instances I actually had to change some of the designs because he had different parameters for how close things could be in order to cut them out.

So that also meant that I had to re photograph everything. So it's taking me forever. I didn't realize how many designs I had, but, uh, yeah. So before we got on this call today, uh, I was once again, trying to photograph these and make them look nice and professional and everything. And some days that I have better luck with that. And other days it's a, it's a crap shoot. Please, please, please. That's good. That's big news. Like that is, that is no small feat like for, for any small business owner.

Yeah. So I have over, I think over 50 designs like that are currently in my catalog. I dropped a couple designs. One of them was like the 2025 calendar because I don't figure anyone will need those next year. Um, and a couple others that just did not particularly sell well or have been replaced with a newer design. I don't know. Do you still have any of those 2024 calendars in stock? I might could use a rewind. I might actually have some spares leftover that I can put in the mail to you. I'll poke around. Just saying.

Yeah. Just in case you needed to add them back into an old calendar. Um, but I will have like 2025 coming out soon and a bunch of other stuff. And like, I just got, um, my Christmas, uh, proofs to look at. Um, cause he'll send me a proof before he prints the whole lot. Um, and that's always kind of exciting cause I get to see him, but he doesn't cut them when he sends them to me. So it's just one big sheet. So I'm often just like peeling the whole sheet off and just, I've stuck it to the wall. And then, yeah, I've been mad at myself for it. So.

Oh, that's real good. That's kind of all I've been doing is trying to kind of backtrack, you know, it's like anytime you have to like redo something, you don't realize like how much time it took because you had done all of them in like little pieces before. Yeah. Yeah. Like switching shops or whatever. Big undertaking, big undertaking for sure. Yeah. I've had, um, spoke design launch here in the past, past couple of weeks. That's taken up a lot of my time. It went really well, been super busy. You've been, uh, nice, uh, to me being flexible with the scheduling.

Cause I was like, Oh my God, I'm buried. We need to, we need to push. We need to push. And I'm just like stressing about, uh, getting time to talk with you, but it's, it's been great. And we'll talk about this later. We'll talk about, we'll, we'll plug ourselves in the gift guide for sure. But that's really kind of the only thing I've been up to is, uh, no more. That would sound like a big undertaking. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. You know, lots of assembly and lots of parts moving this time, which is, is something we do purposefully, but it puts a big, it's, it's, it's a lot of SKUs as I like to say.

It's a lot of SKUs and matching all that and managing inventory. So good times, good times. But, um, another little project I've almost wrapped up was updating my top five pens list. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I've gone over this, uh, several times and gotten a lot of feedback on it, but I kind of wanted to pick your brain for a few of the main topics that I'll talk about just to get a different perspective on some things. Um, and I, I just want to tackle like the gel ink pens. Like I talk about micro gel ink pens and then I have a different category for gel ink pens you can find in the store.

So those kind of like crossover, like I have as much love for like a Uniball Signo DX in the micro category, but I also love a Pentel inner gel, which you can go down to the store and get in like a 0.7 and purple and things like that. So in just a general, not pinning you down to a tip size, what gel ink pens are your favorites? Well, I did take a look at your list because, um, I kind of had a bit of this conversation this week on my podcast when I talked about, um, an article from the strategist about, uh, lefty, uh, lefty pens.

Yeah. Get them on a. Oh my goodness. Um, but kind of my, my takeaway, particularly for people who are left-handed like myself is that I do tend to lean more like you to more of a micro gel pen just because the ink dries faster. Um, I write kind of small anyway, if you write larger, obviously a larger tip size is going to work out better, but I'm kind of, I'm not picky so much about like Uniball Signo versus Zebra Sarasa versus Pilot G. Yeah. Oftentimes those decisions are based on what colors they have.

And if I want a specific color, like I really like the, I think they call it the classic black classic where it's like the, the, the Pilot juice ups that are like blue, black and burgundy black and dark green. Like I really like those colors. So I reach for those more often just because I like the color. Yep. So my, my OG favorite DX of all time is lavender black. And that, it's just the best. And so, yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. So the same thing, like, I don't think I have a lavender black of the Sino.

So if I got one, that's probably, I would probably pick that up more frequently, but I, I'm kind of like unilateral on all of them. Like Pilot, Uniball, Zebra, like all of those, if you're looking at gel pens, like if you're looking at the Japanese ones, they're great. Like it's, it becomes a, do you want it with a squishy grip? Do you want it with a knock? Do you want it with a cap? Yeah. Yeah. You're totally right. Like you could, there is very little difference. Like a ranking in like the top, like four to five brands is almost just like throw them all in a, in a box, pull one out.

You're going to be happy right there. None of them make like bad products in, in those categories, especially gel pens these days. They're all really good. And I mean, then there's plenty, like you can find like the random paper mates are good. Like they did the ink joys. Like those were good, good pens. Like you can just grab and go, you know, a friend of mine handed me a handful of those. She had them and she wasn't liking them. So she's like, Hey, do you want them? And I'm like, I don't know that I've tried them.

And I wrote like two words with them and I handed them to Bob. They were 0.7, which is just way too wide for me. Yeah. They, the ink for me, that's like the ink will never dry. It'll be on the page forever and it'll be all over my hand. And so I just handed them a Bob and I'm like, you'll love these. They write like crayons. That's why I recommend the inner gel, but I don't use the inner gel. And they have a couple of specialty tips that I'll buy. There's one called the Euro needle. That's 0.35 needle tip.

I'm in like, but I will tell everyone else to go buy the inner gel because I really think it's the best of that. If you're going to like the 0.7 in the, in that range, which is like the most common and most popular, I'm going to take inner gels every time. I did notice that you put friction pens on your top list.

It's an interesting conundrum because that's where the break happens, right? Like we got our good brands up there. I didn't put the pilot G2 in there. I think that's in your, your big box store list. Yeah. The friction has such an interesting use case that has done way better broadly than I ever anticipated it would be. So I feel like at a minimum you should, people should consider it if it's something that's going to fit them right for what they want to use. Even though like if I pick up a sign of a 0.5 or 0.7 sign of and, and right, right alongside

the same tip size friction, I'm not going to like the friction as much just because the ink color, like the ink color matters more to me. It's going to be darker in the traditional gels. But I think people should consider it because I'm shocked at how good it has and how much they like really continue to work on it and make it like a viable everyday option. And as opposed to the weird erasable gel pen, it's like actually a thing now. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I just find that the ink consistency, um, the ink is kind of inconsistent when you're writing,

um, in the way that sometimes like ballpoints will have that sort of oily streak through it, but these are, it's a different substance, but it still has sort of a slightly. And then I also don't like the potential for environmental changes to like make your writing disappear. I don't know. And I know that that's why, that's why people like them because you can use the friction to, you know, or heat whatever to make the words go away or your writing or whatever. Um, and then you can stick it in a freezer and make it come back.

But like, I would hate to be like, I accidentally left my planner in the car and then I can't read anything because what am I doing? Like holding a glass of ice water over hoping the words will come back. Like, I just, I'd rather just cross out or use tape or put a sticky note or something. Um, but I know that people like them because of this technology that that's available to them. Um, apparently my life isn't that climate controlled. Same. Yeah. The other benefit, which is a little bit strange in just the broader pilot pen lineup is that

they will not hesitate to change those barrel designs and make something cool. Like they've mixed up the friction lineup all kinds of ways. Like if they did that with the G2, I would probably like the G2 more, but it's that same black rubber grip earwax plug in the refill. Like that's just been there for decades. The ugly clip on a G2, like that is a thing. It's like, it's a great pen, but I like of all of them, like you look at a pilot juice up and it's a very sophisticated, clean design. And you look at that G2 and you're like, this just looks like a big box pen.

Yep. It's got a big kind of squidgy looking clip. Yeah. It's, it just, it just points out that I'm a snob aesthetically. I know. So that's also, that's why friction gets like a little extra, like a plus half point there, right? First style. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. All right. What about beginner fountain pens? Like what is, what's the one you're going to, uh, you know, if you're going to meet up with some friends and they've been curious, like what, what fountain pen are you going

to throw out in front of them and say, Hey, pick this up and try it. Honestly, looking at your list, almost everything on that list, I would pick like the platinum, like depending on, depending on the grade of friend, if it's just like, you know, a coworker or whatever, like I'd hand them a platinum preppy every single time and just be like, here you go. Off you go. Have fun. Enjoy it. Um, you don't have to bring them back. Like a closer friend, I would hand them something like, uh, um, like a Cuico sport, you know,

as a gift for their birthday or something like that. Um, the one that you had on the list that I'm just like hard pass is the pilot explorer because it has that big honking logo on it. Again, I'm going to be a snob about aesthetics, but I'm like, it's the same way that I'm not going to be walking around with a, you know, a FUBU sweatshirt on. I'm going to date myself age wise, but you know what I'm talking about. I was going to make an old joke there, but I didn't. Yeah. Big branded sweatshirt. You know, like I, I'm, you're, I paid for the pen.

I don't need to advertise for you. Yeah. Make the logo smaller. To their credit. And actually this is probably why it's taken so long to get there. Aside from the price, it's a little bit on the edge for like, you know, just brand new. Take a, take a jump on a fountain pen. They have backed off and are just doing solid colors and the porthole and the clip. So it's a lot, it's a lot tamer now. They've, they've taste, they've tamed it down. Cause I remember, I think I was at the, when we were at the Toronto show is when they released

it back in 2018 or something. And I just looked at it and I'm like, no, no, I don't care how good it is. I don't care how cheap it is. I'll take a metropolitan over it every single time. For sure. But yeah, cause it was just like, it's just like the logo is like the entire side of the pen. I was like, so that's the first time it's made the list. Like it's taken a while. Right. So it's there. I can see that. I'll have to take another look. Yeah. Then what are you upgrading to? Like, you know, if you, if you learn that you can use the preppy, like, oh, like, oh,

I actually can use fountain pens. I like them. Like, what am I looking for next? What, what are you grabbing or what are you recommending? Um, so from your list, like I took a look, you had the Lamy, you had the TWSBI Eco. These are all like when I, you know, work at pen shows and things like these are all pens that I frequently recommend. They're not my favorites. Sure. No. Don't tell anybody. Um, honestly, if you're willing to spend a tiny bit more money at this point, cause those pens have come up in price, but the Prera, the Pilot Prera is probably my favorite

cause it comes in right at about 55 ish dollars. So it's a little bit more than like a Lamy at 28, 38 kind of a thing. Yeah. But, uh, aesthetically I think it's, it looks a little more sophisticated. It still comes in bright, fun colors. Um, so that would be like the one that I'd probably switch out with maybe like your novel or on the list, because I do know people love the Ecos. I have an Eco Jinx whenever I pick one up, um, it's inevitably scratchy. If someone else holds it, it's fine. But when I touch it, it's scratchy.

And like, I had a whole slew of people once in Atlanta sit me down at a bar and just continually hand me their TWSBs. And I'm like, nope, these all work great. They're lovely. If I go and buy one, it's going to be scratchy. Oh my gosh. And I'm like, it's not, it's just a Jinx. I have a personal Jinx. I have one TWSB Eco. It is a 1.1 millimeter stub that works fine. Yeah. It's great. But I don't normally use stubs on a daily basis, but I have tried the extra fine, the fine, the medium and anything bigger is too broad for me.

So. Yeah. Um, I, I, I'd be remiss if I didn't give my prayer a stance, which is well known. Um, it is one of my favorite pens of all time and it is priced incorrectly. Like it just is like it it's, I, and I don't. The problem is I don't understand it. Like I try to think too hard about that. Like when they introduced the Metropolitan all these years ago, it was $15 and it was a brass pen. At the time, the prayer was still like 45. Like it's gone up in price since. Even then when it was 45, I was like, God, like, what do you like, how are you introducing

this wonderful $15 pen, which is now 25 or $28. 30. Yeah. It's almost, it's, yeah, it's about 28 to 35 depending on. Yeah. And then the prayer at twice that I was like, I make this make sense. And I've never been able to. So yeah, I will. Absolutely not. I'll die for the prayer, but it is just priced incorrectly. It is priced incorrectly. But I feel like, you know, if you're splurging. You are, yeah. Mid price range. Like it's still under a hundred. And you can get something aesthetically that matches you.

You can get a translucent with a hot pink, you know, finial. Yeah. Or you can get like a solid blue or red or yellow, you know, like the new colors that came out look great. Yep. All right. Well, let's get into this list. I did. I wanted to get some, some like great opinion here from, you know, someone who's smarter than me. So I appreciate you suggesting that more than anything. I think you were looking for me to argue with you. We're going to, we're going to continue with that here in a minute.

Actually, we're probably not going to argue at all. Actually, I have one minor argument, but we'll get to it. But first let's hear from our good friends over at Squarespace. This episode of the pen attic is brought to you by Squarespace. They are the all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow

your brand and get paid all in one place. So I've been using Squarespace longer than Ana and I have been doing this gift guide and it is just always worked, always been a great platform for me. You know, I mentioned it on the last time they sponsored us, you know, when you have a problem, customer service is there to help you out. That was a huge, huge relief for me to just be able to have someone look at the site, troubleshoot what the issues are and help me out. So they also have some extra tools that you can use that are really just integrated into

their system. So you can get discovered fast with integrated SEO tools. Nobody wants to build a beautiful website only for zero people to see it. That's why every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto generated site map and more. So more people find your site through search engine results and you can offer your services and get paid from consultations to events and experiences. You can showcase your offer offerings. Like for example, I have a shop and a storefront on there.

They have customizable website designs to attract clients and grow your business. Think built-in appointment scheduling, email marketing tools and more. Plus keep everything cohesive with on-brand invoices and get paid easily with online payments. So head over to squarespace.com slash pen addict for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code pen addict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash pen addict. Offer code pen addict to get 10% off your first purchase and to show support for the pen

act. Our thanks to Squarespace for this support of this show and all of relay. All right, let's get into what I titled last year, our, our maker's gift guide. But I think the, the appropriate title for kind of what we're going to here is the small business slash maker's gift guide. And as a caveat, pretty much everyone, even the biggest players we deal with in our industry are small makers, right? Yeah. But I do think that it's thinking about it from the perspective of even people that we think of within the pen community as being a large retailer, still a small, mostly family

run businesses. And so what I'm going to talk about today, I don't want anyone to think that I'm suggesting that you don't order from your favorite online retailer. Really where we're going with this is maybe not Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. This is a, we have so many great creators and makers and then retail storefronts that are just run by, you know, people like Anna and I, people who love this stuff, people who are passionate about this stuff. And that worked really well for our guide last year. So I pretty much brought over the categories.

I think I maybe added one category this year. I don't know if it was one or two. Um, but let's kick things off with, uh, and again, this is a gift guide, just some suggestions for y'all to go look at. We might have one for a category. We might have multiple for a category. Um, you know, and just to give y'all some ideas of maybe brands you've heard of, or maybe brands you haven't, and just really something to explore. So we're going to kick things off with a pen maker and Anna, I'll let you have the floor

here with some wonderful choices. So my problem was trying to narrow it down to just one. Yeah. And so I started looking through some of my favorite small pen makers, uh, their online sites only to discover that almost everybody is currently sold out for the season. So I, it was like, I, so what I decided to do is I'm just going to talk about three that I really like. They don't, I don't think any of them currently have pens available. Some have, uh, options to pre-order those types of things, but like their inventories

are all really low. And again, probably mostly because they have done what we have been doing, which is going to tons and tons of pen shows. So they've depleted their inventory and are spending the holidays making so that they'll have things going forward into 2026. So I chose, uh, Zodiac pens, Maverick pens, and white bear. And part of the reason is, um, all this year, everywhere I went, Bart and I were within spitting distance or shouting distance of each other. Oh, that's unfortunate. Oh no, we had a great time.

I just gotta love Bart. He knows I love, gotta pick on him. He's, he is wonderful. Um, and in San Francisco, he was sharing a table with Maverick pens. So I got to know them a little bit as well. And, um, white bear is a female, an entirely female run pen maker. And so I appreciate being able to support, uh, small lady, lady run businesses. Yeah. Heck yeah. Yeah. Michaela rules. Every, like, this is hard people like just to kind of frame it in like the top five list. People always say, why don't you make a top five makers list?

I said, it's because I don't want to rank my friends. A hundred percent. So like, this is like, we're going to leave someone off here. It's like literally all of them. But yeah, like I own pens from all of these makers and they're just all such enjoyable, great people to meet in person, great people to hang out with. And like on the similar line for my pick, um, I did the same thing. I was like, I knew what I wanted to pick. I was like, let me go to the website to see if they actually have anything in stock.

Because like Anna said, it's literally, they've just finished a season, right? Of travel and selling and making and selling again and making again. And then they didn't have much time to catch up now, uh, towards the end of the year. But, um, I'm, I'm throwing out Skogsie pens to go into this list. So Zach Skogsberg and his wife, Amy, you'll see them at pen shows, uh, more and more frequently. They make some of my favorite pens. I just really liked the style and aesthetic of the pens. Like sometimes you find a maker whose shape fits you or whose finishing techniques fits you.

Right. And like when the things just click and you know, you're going to get something good. You know, that's why I have, I don't know, I have a couple, two or three Skogsie pens now. And just really enjoy the end result. And like with the makers that Anna mentioned, they all do things a little bit differently, a little bit unique in their own way, putting their own stamp on there. Like, so you kind of know what these pens are, where they came from, you know, like Maverick with, you know, the stratified designs or Bart with his different shapes.

And Michaela with these really cool, like, I think I always think of her like finial designs and like the sparkles in there with that. And then like Skogsie has always done like micarta pens or these low volume eyedroppers that have become popular this year. So all these makers, this is just a short list of some of the pen makers that, you know, we know we've used their pens and, um, you know, uh, we really know are great people and, you know, we'd love to support them and support all our makers in our community.

So, uh, tough. That's we, we went with that one first. That's like the hardest to narrow down. It's like literally 50 people. It's picking from your friends. Yeah. That's terrible. Yep. Yep. Don't do that again. We're taking that one off next year. Yes. Speaking of terrible, Anna stole my next one. So I went, uh, I went, I pivoted, but within the same company somehow. Um, so this is a notebook or paper goods maker. This is honestly, this is a little bit more difficult category. Like we could get straight away into like your, you know, Midori's and, you know, Kukuyo's

and just like the bigger brands like that. But I was trying to look for a smaller brand, um, or a smaller retailer of paper. And I'll let Anna talk about hers in a minute, but I went with the Yamamoto paper Robiki note. So number one, I, I love what Yamamoto paper does. They're super creative. Uh, I don't know anyone that cares more about paper than Taizo Yamamoto of Yamamoto paper. Uh, besides maybe Anna, like Anna's probably pretty much up there as well. I would say. Not, not, not even close. I think he has me beat by a long shot, but I just respect him so much and respect his

business so much. And the Robiki note, like people may have heard of that and not realize it's a Yamamoto product. Um, sometimes it gets classified. Like if you're looking at retail, just as Robiki, uh, sometimes Yamamoto Robiki, but they're these really small, they're essentially pocket size notebooks in different formats. There's like a tall skinny format, which is actually my preferred format of the Robiki note. But then they make some standard, more like a B6 size, um, notebooks with really pretty

covers, really quality covers. They do. Maybe you can help me with this terminology. When you have a cover that's then almost coated in that like waxy type feel is, is there a name for that? I forget to look that up. Yeah, it is. It's basically like a wax. It's like a wax. So like it, you don't, you feel it, but it doesn't like get on your hands, but it's like this little added layer of protection. It looks great when you beat it up, you know, keep it in a pocket. It's just going to wear super, super well paper inside.

It's great. Super fountain pen friendly. And you can get these notebooks for like under 10 bucks. You know, these are like $8 notebooks and they're just really cool as gifts. Really cool for yourself. If you get into the, the tall skinny model, they actually make carriers for those. They'll make their own pouches for those, um, which is kind of neat. And I've had those, uh, in the past, just very, very big fan of this. And, um, I'll let Anna continue the love here because this is a great product too.

So, um, I saw this thanks to Joe over at Gentleman Stationer, but, uh, he started stocking the Yamamoto Canopus, uh, which is another like highly, uh, fountain pen friendly tested. Um, and for me, the exciting part is it only comes in blank. It doesn't come in lined or grid. So I'm like, perfect. That's exactly what I want. But, uh, you can always get, uh, guide sheets. I think that comes with some guide sheets. Um, but you can always download them off of a well-appointed desk under the guide sheet

link at the top. Yeah. That paper has been great. Yeah. So it's, um, it's just one of those cases where it's like people are looking for other options besides Tomoe River. And then, you know, they went to, uh, um, what's, you know, like every single Cosmo Air Light and then that's been discontinued and like, you know, so it's like, okay, here's another one. Grab onto this. If you love it, grab a few notebooks now in case it gets discontinued. I'm a bank paper guy. Discontinued like the traditional stuff.

So, yeah. Um, so yeah, this is, was Yamamoto's kind of project to, to, to fill in that gap of just like a universally great fountain pen paper. That's going to show off the ink well, um, and hold up well to your pens and nibs and everything. It's great. And I love, you can also, there's also an option and I'll put a link in the show notes to this. There's a little folio you can buy that you can hold like a couple of pads in there. And it's just a nice little, um, compartment for the notebooks. I love the size too.

I mean, even though like, like they're, they're traditional A5, but they're not big and bulky and I don't know, it's just right. Like that's a product. You look at that product. It's so simple and you're just like, yes, I will have that. It's good stuff. It's very cool. All right. For ink maker, what do you have this year? So I kind of went through like, what inks have I picked up this year to use as a reference point? Um, and I have noticed that I have been really collecting dominant industry ink this year.

Um, so I was waffling between that and tono and limbs. That was my, that was my number two. We'll give them a shout out. They were, that was my number two choice as well. So tono and limbs, shout out to them. Yeah, there you go. Um, but, uh, yeah, so again with ink, all ink makers really are small makers, you know? Um, so it's, it, at a certain point we could have picked anything. We could have picked Diamine. They're technically, they're the, one of the big ones in our industry, but you know, globally, like they just make fountain pen ink.

So, uh, but yeah, so, um, yeah, I've just, I love the shape of their bottles. Um, the packaging could be improved a little bit. All of their boxes are craft colored. Um, so it gets challenging for people to like tell if they're just looking for a blue or a black, they just have to read the labels on all of the boxes. Um, so it's just like, I wish there was like a little die cut window or something where you could see the, how pretty the bottle, cause that's the other thing is that people don't know what the bottle looks like until they get it home.

And it's so good. And it's so good. Cause it's like almost like a little teardrop shape. Um, so it's, again, it's also super functional because it's a little bit wider at the base and is less likely to be super tippy. Um, there's a whole thing. I talk about tippy bottles. How is the opening on the top of the bottle, Anna? It's a good sized opening for a decent size nib. I don't know if like the ginormous King of Pen will fit in there, but any size six nib, five nib, it's going to be fine. They just invented the King of Pen.

So hopefully, uh, nib bottles will, uh, will follow it, follow up here so we can use that in our ink bottles. Yeah, there you go. So what'd you pick? I picked the wet pen, which kind of falls into the, uh, pen makers category where this is a very, very small individual maker that's making their own and they've become popular enough that they can't keep them in stock. So I got recommended this, this, this brand so many times they're out of Seattle. Um, and they make their own inks and they have great character to them.

So they're building these inks and all the reviews I'd gotten were like really good and great performance and unique colors. And then I started getting samples cause people were just buying them and sending them to me to try it. Like, you gotta try it. You gotta try it. You gotta try it. So I finally, they just had a, uh, restocking here, uh, last week. Unfortunately, I don't have them in my recent order for this episode, but I have my own order coming in from the wet pen. So I'll do a review of that coming in, but the samples I've had are just fantastic.

Just using some of the different colors, like the blue with like the yellowish green shading and just some, you know, regional storytelling, you know, being in the Pacific Northwest. I believe that's the Emerald City blue. Yeah. That's what you're talking about. Emerald City blue. Yeah. Something like, yeah. A really neat color like that. And then, you know, just, I, I like the storytelling aspect. Like I was saying, like, this is all, you know, regional to like the Pacific Northwest, Seattle area, you know, um, nature like places, you know, uh, plants things.

So I, I like those little, little stories that you can tell in these products. And so far the testing that I have has been great. And I just, uh, I think I ordered like five bottles last week. So, so we'll have some more to say about them soon, but, uh, everything I've tested so far has been great. And, uh, again, another small business y'all can check out. Cool. All right. Um, this one is a more general topic in just the stationery topic, which I think Anna and I would understand that if we talk to each other, like, you know, just a, a stationery

retailer, as opposed to like a pen or an ink retailer, um, being, you know, more in the journaling, planning, stickers, washi, that type of maker. And that's something that I love something obviously Anna loves, uh, too. Uh, and I went with, uh, cute things from Japan and they have just an insane amount of stuff that is literally cute things from Japan. But specifically I wanted to call out the, uh, the Eric small things collection who I'm a super fan of. And this goes way back to just, we write small, like I write small, I write tiny.

And what Eric has created is all these little designs, all these little tiny designs that work in these small spaces, like in your journal, right. You can get the small stamps for in your journal or, you know, different types of washi. And there's all types of products that they make. So I actually linked to the, um, to the Eric small things collection from cute things from Japan, but you can actually find a lot of the Eric small things collaborations at a lot of our retailers. Um, you know, that we see in the U S or around the world.

Um, these products are starting to, um, to show up in a lot of places and very, uh, worthwhile to check out just fun, cool, stationery themed, you know, ephemera stamp stickers, washi, um, literally everything like you name it. I, I just, I love the aesthetic and, um, yeah, I like, I need more Eric small things in my life. I feel like you need a shirt that's like printed with all the little, Oh, that would be sick. I'd wear it. It would be cool. I'd wear it. It'd be cool. I think I got the tote at, um, uh, Yoseka, uh, stationery fest, like, uh, what two summer

and a half ago. Yeah. Which has like one of the bigger patterns on there of all the little things. So I'm sorry. Just, I'm just laughing at a summer and a half ago. Yeah. Just got to let that one ride. It wasn't two years ago. So it's like, but it was a summer and a half. Yeah. A year. I'm in a year and a half, a year, a summer, a year and a half ago. That was a good one. That was a good one. Uh, so I picked, um, so this year I've gotten to go to a lot of the stationery events. So I've been able to like meet a lot of the people who have been making sort of stationery

related products. Um, so it was really hard for me to just pick one because I really like all the people who are doing this. So I kind of spread them out a little bit. Uh, but specifically I chose a washi station, um, because they work with actual artists to create the designs for their washi tape. They make a lot of it themselves, but again, they draw all the illustrations and, uh, produce all of it. Uh, they have a real love for cats. So extra bonus points there. Um, and, uh, they just make really nice quality, like illustrative there.

They look different than a lot of, like, it's not just plaids and stripes and dots and that kind of thing. There's like cool illustrations. Um, they've worked with a lot of artists. Like I discovered that they had, um, an entire, uh, roll of washi that was based on, uh, a deck of tarot cards I actually owned. And I'm like, well, I'm going to have to take that. That's what I must, I must have. Um, but yeah, so really lovely stuff. And at a lot of the stationery events, they have actually taught classes on how to design

your own washi tape. So, um, I think they have a zine about it too. So I'll have to check out the zine and the class because I have bought from them before at the California, uh, pen show. Uh, uh, let's see, what would that be? Uh, a winter and a quarter ago. I don't know. I'm just making up things now because I screwed it up. No, it's perfect early back in February. Um, at the California pen show, they were there, I think about like five rolls of washi. I was like, look at all these artists. These are so cool.

So yeah. Yeah. They're, they're so cool. And they have, they like the, the aesthetic ranges from more floral to more playful to more sort of Kauai to just like, you know, they do some of them that look like little posts, like postage stamps with a, the sort of postage decal on the edge. Yeah. I remember like, it's cool when you go to like a, a retailer like that, or like a vendor at it, not a retailer, but like a vendor at a show like that is like, well, how do you look at all, all this washi? And like, how can you tell they they'll like have big books or big boards you can look at

and there'll be marked. And, you know, I think I just remember going through almost like a card catalog, a card catalog there with like at the washi station. And I was like, okay, I'll, I'll have this one and I'll have that one and I'll have this one. So yeah, it's, it's really cool. They make it the setup real easy for everyone to just kind of look through and, um, see what they got. Um, do you know where else you can find washi and all this other cool, cool stuff that we're talking about today, it's from our good friends over at Enigma Stationery.

So this episode of the Pen Act is brought to you by Enigma Stationery. Enigma Stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs along with top brands and hard to find imports. As we enter the holiday season, Dan, Michelle, and Pen at Enigma Stationery invite the Pen Act listeners to join them in supporting the Trevor Project and their crisis intervention resources for LGBTQ plus young people. So there are two ways, uh, two exciting ways to support their fundraiser, uh, through a campaign at go.rallyup.com slash Enigma 2025.

I'll be sure to have that link in the show notes. And this is something when they were supporting, um, back in Pride Month, this is something I donated to as well. So I love the fact that they do this. So first, um, the first part is an auction that is currently running that ends at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, November 28th. So that's quick. That's coming up really, really quickly when you're listening to this. So go check it out. The auction includes the last two Enigma ink sets that will be available for 2025.

So those are very, very popular, highly sought after. And if you missed out, definitely go check out this auction. Other items up for bid include lightly used fountain pens from many top brands, as well as stationery from customer favorites like Mofusan and the Clever Clove. Second, donation perks are available for direct donations through December 26th, including stickers, ink samples, and their exclusive Pride nib wallpaper designs. I think I bought all the Pride washi tape, like so much Pride washi tape.

And the pen I bought them, uh, the Progress Pride fountain pen, a nib enamel pen. Um, I bought from them. I wear that on my, um, pen show bag that I'm always carrying around at pen shows. And I get a lot of comments on that. So that's a great, great job. And Enigma does a great job in supporting our community. So let's go support them at go.rallyup.com slash enigma2025 to participate by bidding, donation, or sharing with others. That's go.rallyup.com slash enigma2025. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show and all of Relay.

So yeah, look for those, um, look for that link in the show notes and go check it out and get in on those, uh, last couple of ink vents. That's, that's, uh, always a hot item. Um, before we continue, do you ever do the ink vents? Like, do you do like, you know, Diamine, Colorverse, Enigma? I can't remember like your stance on those. I think you do. I have done them in the past. I actually have, funny thing. I have Enigmas, uh, um, sort of, uh, Advent from last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and after I went through all of the colors, I just put all of the bottles back in.

So it's like right over my desk. I look at it every day. That's so cool. Um, cause it's, it's such a lovely piece. And I was thinking about it the other day and I thought, you know what? I need to take the Advent colors out and start using it to just put in the samples that I have recently acquired that I need to swatch and that kind of thing so that it actually becomes more of a functional piece instead of just, just a piece. I don't know. It's, it's both. Why not both, right? Why not both? It's lovely.

It's super cool. Um, I got out of the habit of doing the, um, the Diamine Ink Vent because it was too much pressure for me through the holidays to try to remember to make time to do all the things I needed to do anyway that are important to me every day. Um, and also open one of the little windows and get the ink out. So I started doing the Diamine Ink Vent in July. Yeah. Cause they would sit around until like March and I'd be like, oh, I forgot to do that. Um, and I'm like, I'll just save it and I'll do it in July.

Cause about that time is when they released the bottles of ink anyway. Um, so now I just like, I've just stopped. I just stopped. I know. Like I have too many inks. I am super excited for everybody else to do it. Absolutely. I cannot wait. I love seeing it. I want to see all your stuff and keep going. And to pick out, and to pick out from, from their samples, like which I'm going to buy in bottles. Exactly. Cause I have ended up really, really liking the inks that they do. There's usually at least three in every set that I absolutely have to have a whole bottle

of. One of my favorite colors came from one of the kits. Um, it's the darn it. I cannot remember the name of it. Uh, that's a great ink name. Olive Twist. Olive Twist. Oh, that's a cool. That's a good name. Um, but it's like an olive green, but it has blue shimmer in it and I sign all my invoices with it. So if you ever order anything, that's what you get. So I'm writing down this ink name for you. Um, for when you decide to make your own ink, it's darn it. I can't remember is the, uh, is the ink you're going to make.

Perfect. It's like, it's like the names for like nail polish colors. Like I will, I legitimately will buy an ink just because it has a goofy name, like a bottle of nail polish. For sure. I'm currently wearing a moon cats, uh, polish the root of all evil. Oh, heck yes. Oh, that looks good too. So yeah, thanks. All right, let's continue on here. We have our stationery travel slash accessory category. This is the one I put in as new because I was thinking, you know, like just small, like storage packs, containers, bags, backpacks, anything.

Um, so what'd you come up with? Okay. So I went two different directions on this one. I started off and I was like, you know what? I'm going to talk about things that you can use to plus up the things you already have, which is, um, hot dang press is a, um, crafty company that makes iron on transfers. So you buy a whole, actually you get two sheets of each design, um, of iron on transfers that you can iron on and transfer onto just about anything. And I went like completely bonkers with a set of their iron ons, uh, like the spring,

the summer and I ironed on backpacks, um, pen cases. Um, I ironed onto leather. Um, and I had met the, the couple that do hot dang press at the Chicago stationery fest. They had the table next to ours and they actually had an iron there where they were ironing things on for people at the event. So like people are literally like taking their sweatshirt off and being like, can you iron on this? And they're like, yeah, sure. You know, they take their baseball cap off and be like, can you iron on this?

And so what ended up happens like that, you know, they, their kits come with instructions on how to iron things on and, you know, be safe and all that kind of stuff is like iron light lower than higher so that you don't burn anything. Cause you can always iron again. Um, but it's like, it was super easy. And I, I did, I ironed onto a very rare not co case because I have no shame. Exactly. Do it. Like, please do it. So I have one of the Kickstarter cases now that has like one of their skull and crossbone

designs on it. Perfect. Great. Yeah. I'm going to eventually get some hot dang press. It was actually your, the impetus of you talking about them, um, got on my radar, uh, along with someone in, in, um, you know, uh, my Twitch stream was saying, well, you need to do some patches like this. And I found a company called no, so patches, N O S O. Um, and they ended up making the, um, the progress pride patch that I sell in the pen attic shop. But, uh, the hot dang press looks great. If I'm going to do like a, a sheet of like, you know, pen attic stuff or fountain pen friendly

stuff or stationery stuff and see how we can collaborate. They're in Atlanta. Yeah. I hear that. Like I'm, so you might even be able to reach out to them and do an actual collaboration because they're a great, great couple. Stuff looks fantastic. Stuff looks fantastic. What else you got there? So my other side is I have been madly shopping for a new backpack. And so now I have gone down the backpack rabbit hole, like everybody else in the pen community. If you don't go watches, uh, pocket knives, you go backpack.

Yeah, for sure. And I went backpack. Uh, so I discovered day owl packs and, um, one, they're having an amazing sales right now for like the black Friday weekend kind of thing. So a lot of their backpacks are on sale for like 30 to 40% off. Um, but I picked, I think just their standard, uh, day pack, which is big enough for a laptop. They're very clean. Um, they make all their bags, I think out of waxed canvas instead of like a nylon. So they're a little bit more heavy duty. They just look really cool.

They do. I'm, I'm getting a shout out. Yeah. I'm browsing through here as you go. It's really well made, really, uh, designed well. It's like just, um, the, the pockets and compartments, um, all look really, really nice. The interior water bottle pocket was the thing that like really threw it over the edge for me. I was like, oh, that's genius. So instead of having like a, like a pouch on the side of your backpack, there's a side zipper that lets you put the water bottle inside and zip it up, but it doesn't go into

the main compartment. So it's still kept separate. And I was like, that is kind of genius. Yeah. And they said they made them big enough to hold a wine bottle. So. Oh, nice. So you got two.

There you go. Wine bottle or water bottle, whatever blows your boat. I do like this material on here. The material looks great as well. Yeah. It's very cool. Um, I went something kind of canvassy, um, maybe a little bit more bougie. This is my bougie entry. And look, I'm a, I'm a superior labor guy. Like I, it's, it's ridiculous how much I love their products. I own like two things from them. And I say this, like, um, you know, I've got like a whole collection. I own an engineering bag and then I own like a little wallet, uh, like a pen case wallet

that we actually bought at wonder pens when we were there together, uh, back in the day. Like I still have that. And then I've added an engineering pouch, but they do a lot of accessory, like notebook covers. Like I haven't really gotten into that from them per se, but I like their pen holders and I like their pouches. Right. And they have a lot of different varieties. Some like really super fancy leather, expensive stuff down to like a canvas and paint dip pouch. That's like 35 bucks. Right. So it's not like super off the chain, but like you can, you can get there with like, I'm,

I had to close the tab on like this yellow, like leather, bridal, bridal leather. Yeah. Pin case. And then a matching. I was like, come on. Like I just couldn't, I just had to go move on from that, but it's such good stuff. And from an accessories type brand, um, you know, they're not making pens or inks or paper. They're making like the stuff that carries that stuff. Um, I think they do a great job and they're, they're just one of my favorite brands period in any category. So, uh, just want to give them a shout out.

So we'll have a link in there. You can go take a look at their stuff. So small shop kind of related to something you mentioned ago. And I know you've been there, I believe, uh, at least as part of their event, paper and pencil, Chicago, I was in your stomping grounds this summer, um, and made my trip over to paper and pencil, Chicago. So this is the categories retailer, small, local brick and mortar shops, like physical locations, um, physical location stops. And I went with a paper and pencil, Chicago, not because I think, just think that they're

great. I think their business model is so interesting. They don't sell online, right? It's an in-person only shop and it's really tiny and really well done. And the, the guys that own it are super passionate and I just love all the content they create. I follow everything that they do. And, um, if you're in Chicago or especially in the Andersonville neighborhood, which is their location, but that is that considered North side? Uh, yeah. Okay. So it's North of town. Um, just an awesome neighborhood, by the way, just that was my first time going there,

walking through there, but love the shop. Definitely go check them out. If you're in Chicago, it's worth the detour to go, uh, hang out and, uh, and talk with them and see what they're up to over at paper and pencil, Chicago. That is a good pick. I two thumbs up, two thumbs up. Um, so normally, normally in a category like this, um, I pick one of my favorite local, uh, stationery stores, which is, uh, Wonder Fair in Lawrence, Kansas. It's about a 40 minute drive for me. But, um, again, they're another shop that doesn't really sell online.

They started selling online a little bit during the pandemic because they didn't really have any other choices. Um, but, uh, I just, it's one of those shops that they've been around for quite a while and I love them, but this past year, um, our local stationery shop called Mayday, um, paper and post opened a location literally blocks.

Whoops. And while they focus a little bit more on like greeting cards, um, from small makers. So they have like a whole wall of greeting cards made by small, uh, screen printing shops and letterpress shops and that kind of thing. They have also started to fill out the rest of the store with notebooks and pens and, and various bits of, of stationery ephemera and stuff. And, uh, so they have two locations in Kansas city. The one that's near me in, uh, I think there it's considered Crestwood neighborhood.

If you are a Kansas city, uh, local. And then the other one is in West port, but you can, uh, look up there to date their times, open times and locations on their website. And we'll have a link for that. But, uh, super nice shop. Very nice owner. Um, when they very first opened, I went in and I was like, do you want to sell my stuff? They're like, no, get out. No soliciting. No, just very, very sweet. They did buy, they bought a lot of the stationery kits and she's desperate for me to make more of the stationery kits.

Heck yes. Heck yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that. Very fun. Shout out to our small local, local shops. I wish I had that around the corner for me. That sounds amazing. All right. Last category. I went with wild card, which could literally be anything under the sun. Uh, you're first in this category, but I just want to say you gave me the idea of like where to go with this. Cause I wasn't sure if we could have got, could have gone with a pen or anything. Um, but, uh, what, what do you have here?

And, uh, I thought it was pretty neat. So in keeping with the Chicago, uh, focus, um, I picked, uh, star shaped press, which is a small letterpress print shop in Chicago. Um, and they make an absolutely lovely eight by 10 stationery print, uh, that is perfect for the, uh, stationery aficionado who has everything because it's, um, what she does when she makes her letterpress prints is that she actually uses like the old metal, like icons and things like that to create her design. So like, I have one that she made, uh, that is, uh, basically like the landscape, like,

like the, the cityscape of Chicago all made out of like little dingbats. So it's like little stars and hearts and flowers and everything to make all of the buildings along the, the, the lakefront. And, uh, I have another, I think it's from her, another one that she did that says, um, I hope you have a day, um, I hope you have the confidence today of a CTA bus driver. And if you are from Chicago, you know what that means. Um, so really wonderful. Uh, it's again, it's a, uh, woman run run business.

She's really good friends with my husband. Nice, nice, nice. So plug in, plug in the friends. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. So, uh, when, once I saw that from, from you in the list, I was like, Oh, I want to do something like more art based or, or see what I can find. And then I remembered, uh, that Othan Chen, who I got to meet at Yoseka stationery fest, uh, uh, summer, a year ago, um, was, uh, had recently sent me a print of some of his artwork and he does really, really great work. But mostly what I knew him for before I knew, like he did all this really beautiful artwork,

um, was some of the stamps and stickers and ephemera that he creates. He does a lot of, uh, axolotl, uh, artwork. So I love his little, uh, stamps that say, thanks a lot. So the little axolotl on there. So it's more in like in the, in the stationery theme, like back to like the Eric small steam, Eric small things look, but like when I went over to his page to, to add him into the list, you know, we have cannoli and sushi handmade ornaments. I mean, come on, get out of town with this. Like they're super cute on sushi on top of the axolotl.

I was like, get out of town. So we're going to have to check this out. So often does great work. Really great person. Uh, pleasure meeting him, uh, in the past. Hope to see him, um, in the future at different pin shows, but yeah, definitely, uh, all of these people that we're sharing, like go check out their sites. If you're not buying anything, go follow their Instagrams or follow their stores or follow their feet. Because you look at someone like all things work, or you look at someone like a star shapes

press work. And I just like, I love that, that stationery print and like their aesthetic is like my vibe. So, you know, if I'm not going to buy the print today, well, I'm going to go follow their Instagram and see what else they're up to and things like that. So that really helps like these small businesses out. If you can just go check out what they're doing online. Um, I'm sure, sure. That's a, a, a really good benefit to them. So. And I'm sure they'll notice if all of a sudden, uh, you know, the day after this podcast drops,

all of a sudden they have 50 or a hundred new followers. They're like, what happened? Who's talking about my stuff? Yeah. And they will make somebody's day, go follow them on. It's like, it doesn't hurt anybody to follow them on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. Yep. And, and maybe buy a sushi axolotl, which is so good. So good. I'll have to work on that. All right. So that's our list. Now let's talk about our stuff. So we, we got to plug ourselves here a little bit. So, um, we make things. What have you been making?

I have been making a lot of things with spoke design, which we talked about. A lotl? A lotl. I'll, I'm going to be saying that all day. Um, and if we did show titles, uh, for this episode, we always do gift guide episode for this. It would probably be thanks a lotl. Not summer and a half. Not summer and a half. Summer and a half ago. Uh, that, that would probably be the top voted title and we, I would, I would nix it. Um, so, um, yeah, the spoke design stuff. Uh, we just launched a model seven model eight pencils, um, a week or so ago and they went

super, super well. And so go check those out over at spoke design.com. We also have a lead stream model that I will say is unfortunately sold out probably to the beginning of next year. We got to get some more grips made. That was kind of a tester run with the rest of the stuff we're doing. Uh, but the feedback was great. Um, I also have things over at pen addict.com shop where you can get, uh, my retro 51, uh, this year, which is the gloriously pink and purple and a chartreuse pen, um, design that

I like to do and, uh, lots of other cool stuff over there. So, yeah, I'm still waiting for mine. I pulled it. God, I guess I got to send it. It must be, it must just be sitting on the shelf. Uh, like, yeah. Cause just for the record, like, you know, behind the scenes here, I get number one, Mike gets number two, Ana gets number three. Which I am so touched that you do that. I was like, I had a friend in town about two weeks ago and, um, he was like, okay, I want the pen tour. He's not a pen person.

He's an artist, but like, and he's like, tell me everything. And so I'm like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to go here? And so I sat him down and I walked through fountain pens and everything. And then I pulled out my tray of retro 50 ones and I'm telling him the story about like how I've accumulated various ones. And I told him the whole story about how I have this lovely friend. And every time he makes a new retro 51 design, he always sends me one and it's always number three and like how touched I am.

And I like got, I literally got verklempt because I'm telling this story and, you know, and he's, he, I'm sure he's looking at me and he's like, it's a pen. Well, I better come through. I know I pulled it. I hope I can find it now where I certainly, it's sitting there where I pulled it too. Right. I'm sure. I'm sure. Everybody check your pens. I know. Right. So what do you have going, but do we have a new website URL? Is that what we're sharing today? First? Yes. We're going to, I'm going to say it's like for years, I was really like lackadaisical.

And I just told people to go to the wellappointeddesk.com and down the side of the page was a link for shop. And that would take you to my shop. And one of my very wise friends was like, have you not bought coloring.com? And I'm like, no. And he's like, well, duh. So I went and I bought cull, C-O-L-O-R-I-N-G, just like it is on the coloring. So now if you want to get to my shop, you just type in cull, o-ring.com and voila, you are there. So that's my big announcement. Let's, I no longer have to give this like a long rambling.

It's, you know, blah, blah, blah, big cartel, well-appointed desk, yada, yada, yada. Yeah. So, yeah, that's probably my biggest news. That and all my stickers have been updated. Nice. And, and repictured, rephotographed. Rephotographed, everything. Still working on that. But the, the inventory has been adjusted to indicate that I have many available. Gotcha. I have to, I have to ask you without looking and I don't want to get myself in trouble. Last time we talked, the, the Game of Fire Life zine, is that now available?

I think it was. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yes. Game of Fire Life is available and I have it available as a kit as well, where you get a set of stickers. You can get either the neutral color or the brights. And you will also get a set of dice with it. And I, they're randomly selected, but if you pick neutral, you get neutral-ish colored dice. And if you pick brights, you get a set of bright colored dice. Awesome. And it's a full set of seven. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So go check out our stuff. Go check out everyone's stuff that we posted or that we talked about today.

Links will be in the show notes to where you can go find these companies easy. That's another great thing, opportunity that we have is like these small makers don't necessarily have a lot of reach. And if we can put a link in that you can go follow, definitely go click on it and see what they're up to. That's super helpful to everyone. And I think that's it this week, Ana. I appreciate you joining me once again for the gift guide. And we'll, we'll keep this train rolling in the future. I want to thank our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Enigma Stationery.

I want to thank all of our listeners for listening and get at us at hello at penaddict.com or penaddictfeedback.com with all of your questions, feedback. If you have any gift guide questions, let me know. If you have a question for Ana, let me know and I'll forward it on to her. I'm not going to pass out her information, but you can contact her at wellappointeddesk.com, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So we'd love to hear from you. Love to hear your questions. And I think that's a wrap for this year's gift guide.

Until next year, say goodbye, Ana. Goodbye, Ana.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]