Finding the perfect pen or pencil for your planner can take a bit of trial and error. As someone that enjoys writing and the process of picking out just the right pen and pencil, I thought it would be fun to do a little pen and pencil test and share the results with you. If you’re like me and a bit of a pen snob, you’ll love today’s post. I hope you find a new writing utensil to pair with your planner. It does make a difference to have a pen or pencil that you enjoy using!
This week the Homekeeping Planner is officially available for pre-order – if you haven’t grabbed yours yet, head to this post for all the details and to get in on pre-order pricing. If you pre-order you’ll get a coupon for the fall launch of products – one of the new products is 2-pack of the pictured legal pad (a favorite office supply of mine – I use them all the time and am excited to have a style not available anywhere else coming to the shop).
The criteria I used for my pen test: I like writing in black ink and using a finer tip. I tested a couple 0.7 pens but knew that I’d gravitate toward a finer tip – if you prefer a different color ink and/or a thicker tip, you might want to conduct your own pen test 
I bought two sampler packs from Jet Pens (I’ve mentioned them before, love the variety and choices!). Uni Jetstream Ballpoint Pen Sampler and the Fine Tip Gel Pen Sampler. I kept the pens in order of thickness (from thinnest to thickest) and wrote the same text: This is a pen test. This is a pen text (in cursive).
This helped me get a feel for how the pen dragged or glided across the paper and how it felt as I wrote in text or cursive. As I wrote the text, I also wrote the brand name of the pen and a quick note about my initial thoughts.
I narrowed down my 3 favorites on the left (the Pentel Energel 0.35, the Pilot Juice Up 0.4, and the Uni JetStream 0.5) and then tested them against each other and came up with my favorite: the Uni JetStream 0.5.
Once I decided on my favorite pen, I tested 3 of my favorite pencils and decided on a favorite. I used similar criteria and narrowed down my 3 favorites to my absolute favorite – the Uni Alpha-Gel 0.5. I love how smooth it is and how well it erases too.
Once I had my favorites I tested them in the new Homekeeping Planner – no bleeding through the paper, no smudges, and enjoyable to write with!
Here you can see my favorite pen and pencil. I like to use both in my planner. It was easier to narrow down the pens and pencils, I still need to decide on which Homekeeping Planner I’m going to use for the next year – the Lace and the Cotton Blossom. Get your pre-order in if you’re interested!
Do you have a favorite pen or pencil? Tell me your favorites!
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