#Ad Items gifted from Pen Heaven for purposes of this review
During Plastic Free Month we’ve been making small changes to reduce the amount of single use plastic we use around the home. We still have a long way to go but it’s been an interesting experience. One of the changes I pledged to make during my plastic free challenge was to start using a refillable fountain pen. During my school to university years I always used a fountain pen with a pot of ink but in recent years I’ve sadly started throwing a bag of plastic ballpoint pens (wrapped in even more plastic) into my supermarket trolley instead. Read on to find out how I got on using more sustainable stationery from Pen Heaven.
Pens Make a Great Gift
Pens make a great gift. They are both useful and thoughtful. They would make a lovely present for teachers and graduating students at this time of year. A refillable pen is a gift for life and many can also be personalised with engraving making them an extra special memento.
Sustainable Stationery Essentials
I write a lot. In the past I’ve gone through a lot of plastic pens and plastic covered notebooks. By investing in three new refillable products (and their accessories), I can cut down my single use plastic enormously.
Here are my three sustainable stationery essentials:
- A refillable pencil (again I always used to use one, why did I ever go down the disposable route?)
- A refillable pen
- A refillable notebook
The latter two items do contain plastic but they are items that are designed to be reused which is a far better alternative to single use plastic pens and notebooks.
Refillable Notebook
I chose the Filofax Classic A5 Notebook (£13.20) in fuchsia. It is also available in dark blue and black. I chose to have my initials embossed, you can also choose to add a name or subject or message. It has a leather look design and comes with an elastic to close it up neatly on the move.
The notebook spine is flexible and can be folded flat or back upon itself for ease of writing. It contains 56 lined pages, 4 squared pages and 4 plain pages.
It comes with a ruler/page marker which I always find handy.
It also has 4 index dividers to start with. You could add more if needed.
I love it! No more notebooks for me, now I only need to refill the paper.
Refillable Fountain Pen
I chose the Lamy Logo Fountain Pen (£26.92) with a Medium Nib. This pen can be used with cartridges but I chose a Lamy Z27 Fountain Pen Convector and ink pot to reduce the plastic waste.
The Lamy Logo Fountain pen is well presented in a gift box. This is handy to store spare cartridges, convectors and nibs (the nibs are easily changed).
The Lamy Logo Fountain Pen can be engraved too.
The convector is easy to fill. Dip the end in and twist until full of ink.
The Lamy T52 Ink Bottle (50ml, £9.90) even cleverly houses a ream of blotter paper in the base to clean off the ink after filling.
The Lamy Logo Fountain Pen was easily filled and put back together. The lid does fit neatly onto the top of the pen when in use.
Writing with the Lamy Logo Fountain Pen
I couldn’t wait to put the Lamy Logo Fountain Pen to the writing test. I have missed writing in ink since my uni days. However, I’m left handed so I did worry whether I’d find the nib scratchy or incur the notorious left handed smudge as I wrote along.
Thankfully, I had no need to worry. The Lamy Logo Fountain Pen is a joy to write with. The ink came through quickly after refilling and I found the medium nib very smooth. The ink dries quickly and no smudges occurred while i was writing. In recent years, I’ve put my poor handwriting down to less practice but I think it may have been down to the lack of a good pen and nib.
“So I’m going to keep this hour sacred to writing to you. Though this won’t be a love-letter. I have a scratchy pen and I can’t write love-letters with a scratchy pen… or a sharp pen… or a stub pen. So you’ll only get that kind of letter from me when I have exactly the right kind of pen.”
Anne of Windy Poplars . LM Montgomery
I’m sure Gilbert would have received a lot more love letters if Anne had used this fountain pen. It’s exactly the right kind of pen.
I really love these new items from Pen Heaven. They’re great quality and designed to be long lasting which is the standard we need in order to help preserve our planet.
We’re definitely going to invest in sustainable stationery when getting the kids ready for school his summer!
Looking for ways to reduce your plastic use? Read 31 Ways to Reduce Single Use Plastic
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Thank you to Pen Heaven for supplying the items above for purposes of review
