Embracing real ink #StationeryWednesday

I’m loving my current work with Bureau Direct. Not only do I get to choose what to review every month from a fantastic range of stationery goodies, but I’m also rediscovering how much I love writing with a pen – something that I suppose I’ve gradually stopped doing seeing as I spend so much time on a laptop or tablet.

After embracing ink pens these last two months – both the Herbin rollerball and the the Lamy Vista – it seemed like there was just one ink challenge to overcome: real ink.

Bottles of ink scare and thrill me in equal measure. At primary school I remember one boy Amit who was the only person I knew that brought a bottle of ink to school. We were all slightly in awe as whenever any of the rest of us were let near ink we ended up with blue fingers and a spill of some sort. Yet, Amit always looked incredibly smart, there were never ink blots on his school books and his fingers always remained clean. I never understood quite how he managed it though.

All these years later and I still don’t think I’ve mastered it, but the beautiful range of Herbin ink colours that Bureau Direct stock has tempted me to have one more go. With a universal fountain pen convertor and a bottle of green J. Herbin ink (Vert Empire as my beloved Lierre Sauvage wasn’t available) I put it to the test.

Once my Herbin rollerball was loaded up with ink I found that it wrote beautifully, possibly even smoother than it did with a cartridge in it. The ink colour (Vert Empire) actually wasn’t all that different from the Lierre Sauvage that I’d used previously either. I’m also completely in love with the ink bottle itself and am imagining how pretty the window sill next to my desk would look with a load of different coloured inks lined up so that the sun could catch them. Anyway, I digress a bit…

But, and it’s a bit but, I’m sorry to say that I still found the whole process of getting the ink into the pen a bit messy – but maybe that’s because I’m doing something wrong. I can’t believe that all these ink lovers all spend time being as messy as I am. So, I’m putting the question out there – how do you do it? How do you manage to fill your pen with gorgeous ink without spilling it all over the place and ending up with coloured fingers? Let me know your secret and then hopefully I’ll be able to put together a video guide as to how it should be done.

Disclaimer: I was sent the mini universal fountain pen convertor and the Herbin ink to review as part of my role working with Bureau Direct. The Herbin rollerball was reviewed for Bureau Direct last month. All views and opinions are my own.