Piedmont Stationers and Flair Markers

So I spent the week in San Mateo and had two Adventures in Pens.

The first was at Target (I was the winner of one of those "fill out our survey and win a huge gift card" contests in January, so Target is my Store of Choice these days). I lovelovelove Sharpies, especially the ones with really fine points, but I hatehatehate how they always bleed through my paper. I was happy to discover, in the same general area as the Sharpies, these new ultra fine needle point markers from Flair, which write like Sharpies, but won't bleed. I bought two packs (they're $4.99 for a pack of five - black, blue, purple, red and green). I'm markering in all my notebooks and happy to report that there is no bleeding.

My other adventure was today when I went to the Piedmont Stationers in Oakland. It's my boss's favorite stationary store, and ever since she's started her job, and become my boss, and known how in love with stationary I am, she's been telling me how she has to get me there.

It reminded me of the Sussex Stationary shops in the UK. All small and quaint with stuff stored in bookshelves and every off-beat kind of stationary product you could want. And a resident dog. They sold Filofax products, which make me feel like I'm in the UK again. And loads of European notebooks like ones by Clairefontaine.

I spent $46 on notebooks and some wonderful gel pens that are the same kind that I bought in my hubby's university store back when we first started dating. I've been hanging on to them all this time because they're special and sentimental, but now I have new ones, AND I know where to get them, so I'm going to start writing with them. Yay!

Anyway, that's the Exciting Pen Report for this week.