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Chocolate Musings

Set your goals - make the plans - artfully create your life - live it beautifully. Grab the good chocolate and find your muse.

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Home » product review » Page 2

Product Review: Tombow’s 12 New Colors!

November 18, 2018 3 Comments

Product Review: Tombow’s 12 New Colors!

Tombow's 12 New Colors - Color Reveal, Product Review + Video | ChocolateMusings.com #tombow #lettering #handlettering

I’m so excited – I picked up Tombow’s 12 new colors. They haven’t added new colors to their dual brush pen line up in a long time.

Tombow added new colors to their brush marker repertoire! 12 to be exact. Confession: I haven’t picked up a brush pen in a good long time (hides face in hands). I think it’s because I frayed the tips SO badly from when I first learned to letter that it’s frustrating! But now with 12 beautiful new colors, the excitement overwhelms me handletter again.

My husband expressed his dismay when I told him I ordered the new markers. Christmas is just a few weeks away. But I knew that these beauties couldn’t wait – and I’m glad I didn’t – they sold out!

Do you want to begin your journey of handlettering? Start here!

New colors in the pack:

  1. #131 Lemon Lime
  2. #291 Alice Blue
  3. #379 Jade Green
  4. #401 Aqua
  5. #403 Bright Blue
  6. #407 Tiki Teal
  7. #569 Jet Blue
  8. #803 Pink Punch
  9. #817 Mauve
  10. #910 Opal
  11. #N49 Warm Gray 8
  12. #N52 Cool Gray 8
Tombow's 12 New Colors - Color Reveal, Product Review + Video | ChocolateMusings.com #tombow #lettering #handlettering

Some colors are hard to capture by themselves! Aqua, Alice Blue, Opal, & Lemon Lime are very light and hard to see the contrast against a white background. But blended with other colors, they create beautiful shades.

Unboxing Video

Watch the Video Below for the Unboxing and color sampling. For those who like real-time lettering, you’re in for a treat. Follow me on YouTube if you haven’t already!

I Couldn’t Wait

The blues/greens completely sold me on the box. As you can tell from the colors of my website, I love me some teal and some aqua. Tombow didn’t disappoint. I haven’t used my markers in a long time, and I think it’s because I frayed the tips early on while learning to letter so lettering frustrated me because I couldn’t get those nice, clean, thin upstrokes.

To avoid fraying, use nice, smooth paper with little ‘tooth’ with your precious markers (I use HP 32lb paper). Don’t use them on sketch or watercolor paper as I did when I started. Admittedly, I struggle with the colorless blender. The picture below shows a couple of attempts. I’m sure like anything else, it takes a lot of practice. It took me nearly 6 months of constantly using a brush pen before I got the hang of it.

Tombow's 12 New Colors - Color Revea + Video Product Review | ChocolateMusings.com #tombow #lettering #handlettering

Beyond Tombow’s 12 New Colors: Extras in the Box

Snatch one of these VIP boxes if you can – sold at TombowUsa.com. The colors are beautiful, and the extras are fun. They included laminated sheets to practice lettering (both upper case and lower case). Tricky letter combinations (at first glance anything connected to an H or an R is tricky!). They included a blending palette with updated colors (now 108 instead of 96!). If the box isn’t available, I heard they’ll be selling the colors individually later.

question mark - chocolatemusings.com

What do you think of the new colors? Which one is your favorite? Do you already use Tombow Dual-Brush Markers?

Now, I’ve got to get creating.

~Tricia

The paper I used

HP 32 LB Smooth Paper 1 Ream
HP 32 LB Smooth Paper Half Case
Tombow 96 Count Markers + Stand (not including new colors)

*I use affiliate links to support my website, any purchases provide a small commission to me at no additional cost to you.

3 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Fun with Handlettering, Get Creative, Get Inspired, Pen & Marker Reviews, Product & Book Reviews Tagged: brush lettering, dual brush markers, handlettering, lettering, product review, real time lettering, tombow, video

Product Review: The Black Page Journal

September 27, 2018 3 Comments

Oh my goodness! It’s been a while. After an unexpected break from all things (except surviving and trudging through the days) in my life, I am so glad to sit down at my computer and write my thoughts. The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of emotions and adjustment. It took much longer for my kids to get acclimated back to school and figure out a schedule. I think it’s safe to say we have our schedule pretty well figured out, just in time for it to change for the holidays. But to the real reason for this post – a Product Review for The Black Page Journal.

Product Review for The Black Page Journal

I’m excited to do something a little different – a product review of the latest notebook I’m trying out! It’s a black page dot-grid notebook, larger than the normal A5s and a really fun experiment. I thought it was completely appropriate for October & Halloween. I planned on using this notebook for September and October. This notebook was purchased with my own money, and all opinions are mine, I was not compensated for my opinion.

Watch the Product Review below – and subscribe to my YouTube Channel!

Book Stats – The Black Page Journal:

  • Roughly 7×10 inches or 180 mm x 255 mm
  • 100 un-numbered pages
  • 30 dots across per page x 45 dots down per page
    • I count square sections made by dots not dots themselves – so to me, it is 29×44
  • Approximately 5mm dot grid with gray dots (the grid is not precisely 5mm)

Black Page Journal what to use in a black-page dot-grid notebook for bullet journals + Video review

My Thoughts:

The quality of the journal could be better – a majority of the pages were cut at a slight angle, so there are some white edges on a lot of the pages. Some cuts are worse than others. Having run a copy center for 9 years, I know the process and would have made one of my employees redo the job or adjust the cuts if possible. However, if this were a white-page notebook, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.

You can’t use a pencil to sketch out your designs because the eraser leaves marks on the page, so everything had to be freehand. Later, I discovered that I could use a black pen to replace my correction tape in my regular journals and correct mistakes. Which, if you’ve seen my YouTube videos, I try to leave any and all mistakes in the editing. One reason to show how to fix mistakes and the second to show you that I’m not perfect, nor do I claim to be.

The pages are a little rough in comparison to the notebooks I typically use. I wouldn’t use a brush pen on them anyway since it’s a black page journal, so that doesn’t really matter.  White gel pens stood out, and so did other colors. (I linked the products I used below – check them out). After doing the video review, I used Prisma colored pencils and was astonished at how well the colors stood out and popped off the page. I would definitely use more white and pastel colors for future pages of color pencil.

Color Pencils on black page notebook look amazing! + Video Review of this Black Page Notebook

Conclusion – Would I buy it again?

All in all, I paid about $5 USD for the book. It was a great experiment and if I wanted a black page journal again, I would probably buy it for the same price, but I’d think twice if the price went up and I knew the quality stayed the same. I loved the color pencils and how the gel pens contrasted with the black pages and want to try out some more dark paper specifically for the pens and pencils. If you buy one, make sure to carry a gel pen so you can use your notebook anywhere!

By the way, if you want a good laugh, look at the description on Amazon for the book. I didn’t read it before I bought it, I got a good chuckle from the description.

 

Black Page Journal Pen Test - all the favorite pens for use in a black-page dot-grid notebook

 

Products Used on the Test Page for the Journal (affiliate links):

(** are products I like the most on this journal)

Black Page Journal

From the Pen test Page:

**Metallic Bullet Pens – Classy Shop – bit.ly/cm-metallicbullet use Choc15 for 15% off discount
**Metallic Brush Pens – Classy Shop – bit.ly/cm-metallicbrush use Choc15 for 15% off discount

Pilot Silver Marker
Pentel Gold/Silver Gel Pens
Sharpie Metallic Fine Point Markers – Copper, Gold, & Silver

**Uniball Signo White Broad Pen
**Pentel Milky Pop 4-pack Gel Pens
Sakura Gelly Roll

Prismacolor Pencils

**Helix Circle Maker – One of my all-time favorite products
Pentel Click Eraser Stick
Eraser
Kneaded Eraser
Micron Pens

Chalkboard Sticker (desk)

——–
Logitech WebCam
Microphone Blue Yeti
Camera Tripod
Adobe Premiere Elements/Photoshop
——–

 

3 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Get Inspired, Get Organized & Start Planning, Notebook Reviews, Product & Book Reviews Tagged: black page journal, Circle, circles, product review, video

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About Me


Hi! I'm Tricia, the creative behind ChocolateMusings.com, I know how it feels to lose your inner muse. After years of darkness (which I call the dark ages of my life), I found my inner muse hiding in the forgotten corners of my soul, I vowed never to lose sight of her again.

Bullet journaling helped reignite the passion for art and living life again while organizing my days. I also discovered modern calligraphy and watercolor. Since then, my use of the bullet journal system has evlolved and I call it 'creative planning'. Here on the blog, I show you how to use your planner to ignite your inner muse and explore creativity and art while staying beautifully organized and living a joyful life.

I invite you to grab some good chocolate and dive into my musings. Let’s ignite your inner muse.

Read more on the about me page. You can also find my policies and disclosures here.

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