Category: Stalogy

Colorverse Butterfly Nebula/NGC 6302 – Special Edition Ink!

I was late to the show with this ink color. One of my workshop attendees had shared an inky swatch she had from the Colorverse table. It was so mesmerizing to see the lovely shimmers. You know how I love a good shimmering ink and especially one from Colorverse.

After my workshops were finished for the weekend, I immediately went to the Luxury Brands table to find this lovely shimmering ink. It was sold out! All I could do was look at the lovely swatch they had on their table. I was given some information and was told they would be releasing it to the local retailers in a few weeks.

Fast forward to now and I have this lovely ink in my hands. I could not resist turning my bottle of Butterfly Nebula to see what shimmering colors would appear.

Do you see the interesting colors inside my bottle?

It looks like purple shimmers inside the bottle. When I roll the bottle to the other side, the shimmers look pink.

This Colorverse Butterfly Nebula debuted at the 2022 DC Pen Show. It’s so special that this is the first time Colorverse has released a glistening ink in a large 65ml bottle. Colorverse is also the first ink company to be put on the cover of the Pen World Magazine.

The Butterfly Nebula is packaged with the Colorverse NGC 6302 in a 15ml bottle.

I looked through my swatch cards to see if I had something similar to NGC 6302. The two colors that came close were Sydney Darling Harbour and Hail Storm. The Colorverse NGC 6302 a dusty green ink color with blue & beige underlying colors.

For Butterfly Nebula, the closest color I had was Summer Storm which happens to be much darker and leans a bit more towards pink. I would call Butterfly Nebula a dusty periwinkle (lavender blue) ink color.

This ink shows pink shimmers on my swatch card.

I ended up creating two swatches for this ink. The first one on the left came out so light in color, I ended up writing over the ink name twice. For the second swatch on the right, I let the ink settle a bit in the bottle before dipping my pens. I was able to capture a darker ink color. Once the swatch dried, I was happy to see a some green appear on the card.

Here’s another look at the two ink colors on my Stalogy paper. Now, the Butterfly Nebula is showing some green along with some blue colors as well as the pink shimmers. It’s also the same colors shown in my bottle (2nd picture above).

Both ink colors have interesting personalities and are unique compared to other inks I have in my collection.

I was surprised how light the Nebula Butterfly ink color was compared to what I saw at the pen show. I wish it was a tad bit darker for my writing purposes. The writing samples on my swatch cards and on my Stalogy paper were written with a JoWo #6 Fine nib. I will definitely try this ink in one of my pens with a stub nib.

Inks: Colorverse Butterfly Nebula (65ml) and NGC 6302 (15ml) from Federalist Pens and Paper

My First Bottle of Black Ink (Dye Based)

I can’t say how many bottles of ink I have in my collection. I’ve lost track at number 130-something. I have a few boutique ink brands that I had to try out like Birmingham and Franklin-Christoph. I have my go to brands like Diamine, Robert Oster, Van Dieman’s Inks, and Jacques Herbin.

I noticed I was lacking a basic black ink color. I do have a bottle of the Platinum Carbon ink, but that is a pigmented/permanent ink that I use primarily for sketching.

I recently purchased my first bottle of black (dye based) ink and it happens to have two beautiful shimmering particles.

Here is my lovely Jacques Herbin 1670 Shogun by Kenzo Takada & E3. They call this a twilight-colored ink which represents a beautiful night of stars and is coated with red and gold shimmering particulates.

This black ink is gorgeous in person. In normal lighting and looking at my writing sample straight on, this ink looks like an average black color.

Upon further inspection and looking from a different angle I can see the red shimmers. To me it looks pink in normal light, but when I take it outside the red definitely pops on my paper along with the gold shimmers.

I never thought I would be excited about a black ink color.

To me, it’s a subtle black ink. I’ve seen a few folks comment that it’s dark brown. From my swatch and writing sample, I do not see any brown at all. This ink has a lovely flow in my Lamy pen. The sparkles are subtle and beautiful at the same time.

I’ve been writing for a bit and the shimmers still appear in every line I write.

Pen: Lamy LX Marron with Fine nib

Ink: Jacques Herbin 1670 Shogun by Kenzo Takada

Paper: Rhodia

Journal: Stalogy 365 Editor’s Series

My BUJO (Bullet Journal)

I have a BUJO that I use on a daily basis. I started this back in August 2020. I would do a page a day of my to-do lists, reminders to drink water, exercise, declutter, organize, run errands, etc. I would decorate each day with stickers and add thin strips of washi tape around the edges of the paper.

That lasted a week. As my days got busier, I had less time for decorating. My detailed lists became brief and shorter.

As time went on, I continued to create my daily pages and tried out different formats that made more sense to me and my lifestyle.

My monthly calendar page changed from pre-printed calendars to a two page spread that I drew out with my fountain pens and inks.

My daily pages were a waste of space and I was able to come up with another configuration of putting all seven days across a two page spread. That made a huge difference in my ability to see the whole week at a time.

It was back in early 2021 that I started this monthly and weekly configuration you see here from the two pictures. As I have limited space, no stickers or washi tapes are used. I might occasionally sneak in a sketch or two.

The little red cups I sketched out are reminders to drink water throughout the morning and afternoon.

I also record the weather outside (sunny, cloudy, rainy) and the temperature for the day. This activity allows me to do a bit of sketching in my daily BUJO.

My Stalogy journal holds a lot of pages and can get chunky as a result of all the washi tape and sticker applications. It’s a lovely journal I can leave open on my desk and the pages lay flat.

Pens: TWSBI Swipe in Pear Green with Stub 1.1 nib. Narwhal Voyage in New Orleans with Fine nib. Pilot Prera Red with Calligraphy Medium (CM) nib.

Inks: Colorverse Brane. Jacques Herbin Vert Atlantide. Diamine Pink Glitz.

Journal: Stalogy 365 Editor in B6 with Navie Travels Journal cover