Because life is full of adventures

Category: Things we use

This is things that I have found to use to help our family out in life and with our adventures

What is the Best Writing Tool?

Over the years I have found myself using a pencil anytime I have wanted to write. This has been my favorite way to write, although I also have enjoyed using different colored gel pens. While pens are a great way to write I have always wanted to erase things. When they made erasable pens I did try them, yet I didn’t like them. That was back in the 1990s, so I just continued to write with pencils.

My favorite kind of pencil has been a regular number 2 pencil that you sharpened. I have used and still occasionally use mechanical pencils. I enjoy the fact that they never had to sharpen. Still, I prefer a regular pencil even to a mechanical one.

Besides the fact that you can erase a pencil, I cannot tell why I prefer using it over a pen. I feel some of it is the way that it is so easy to write with and flows very nicely. Pens can do the same things yet I seem to hold a pen tighter causing my hand to hurt.

Earlier in the year I was taking a Creative writing college course and trying to get more creative practice. While I am always trying to find ways to spark my creativity, I also am looking for tips from successful writers. In my search for tips, I came across an interview on YouTube with Author Neil Gaiman, by Tim Ferriss. This was my first time watching this YouTuber. If you would like to check out the video you can find it here.

In this interview, Gaiman talks about notebooks he prefers to use when writing a first draft, advice he has for aspiring writers, the way he works on projects, his preferred writing instrument, and a few other things. While I had heard of Fountain Pens, I had never thought of them as a good choice for story writing, but more for things such as calligraphy and fancy writing. Upon watching Gaiman’s interview and hearing him talk about these pens I had the desire to try one out to see how it writes.

Well, I did not just go out and buy a pen. Gaiman mentioned that not everyone is a fan of the pen. The tip he gave on finding one if interested, yet the place he mentions I know there was no way for me to be able to get there. I looked at a few on Amazon but did not purchase any. When Amazon notified me that one of the pens I had looked at was on a lightening deal I used a gift card to purchase it. When the pen arrived, I tried it out and I am so grateful to have learned about this pen.

I earned the gift card from Mistplay where I play games for points. If you are interested in checking out Mistplay use my link here. The link allows me to earn a small amount of points.

Since I was taking college courses over the summer and I enjoy using different colors for the different courses, I ended up purchasing a pack of colored fountain pens to use for my classes. The first pen I bought happened to be one I could buy new ink for to replace the vials.

I would recommend giving them a try. Here are a few options from Amazon. There had been an Amazon Basic one that I bought, but it seems to have been sold out. You can get 20 vials of black ink for $12 here. There are color vials for sale for about $9 for six different colors here. I thought that fountain pens would be expensive, but there are a lot of options on Amazon that are fairly priced such as this one.

I feel as though you just have to find some good ones. Discovering that I enjoy using this pen over any other pen. This pen just seems to glide over the paper and is easy to use.

Let me know what kind of writing material you enjoy using. I am interested in finding new things to use and love learning what others like to use. I am looking for new notebooks to use and would love any suggestions on some or suggestions about good fountain pens.

Crafting with SVGs

As I have mentioned in a previous post I have been exploring ways to get my creativity flowing again read about here, as well as finding myself and remembering things that I enjoy doing. First one you can find here, and the second one here. One of those things is to put together my photos in a scrapbook and even though I have not been doing this for a few years, I wanted to get back to it. For a little while I had been subscribed to an art journal subscription and enjoyed doing this. The artist Jessi who created the monthly boxes, I believe, talked about how putting your momentos together in a book is considered Art Journaling. This reminded me of how much I have enjoyed doing this and how I still keep a hold of items from different things we have done over the years to put into books.

Well all of these thoughts lead me to remember people talking about die cutting machines and how I had been interested in these throughout the years, yet had never tried or looked into them before, so I felt like asking for one for my birthday a few years ago. After remembering about die cutting, I remembered hearing about the company Cricut and thought it was a die cutting machine company. While Cricut is a cutting machine, it ended up being a lot more than what I thought I was getting into. I received my Explore Air 2 for my birthday back in 2020 when we were shut up in our houses at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Upon receiving this new machine I realized it was not what I was thinking I was asking for. I will admit that I did not research a Cricut and the die cutting machines that I was expecting to receive. While Cricut came around and started out as a die cut machine that you used templates with, it has evolved into more.I became a little overwhelmed with how exactly to use the machine, what an svg was, where to find them and all the possibilities I had with this new machine.

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