Bought a fancy pen set for my bullet journal and it was a total waste

I saw a video about these special artist pens and thought they'd make my weekly spreads look amazing. I spent about $75 on a set of eight, thinking it was an investment in my journal. The problem is, the ink bleeds right through the pages of my regular dotted notebook. I tried using them for headers and borders, but now every page has ghosting on the back. It basically ruined two weeks of planning because the pages look messy and are hard to read. I feel pretty silly for not testing just one pen first. Has anyone found good pens that don't bleed without needing super expensive paper?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_william2mo ago

Feel your pain, that ghosting is the worst. I switched to Pigma Microns for my Leuchtturm and they never bleed. The 01 size is perfect for details. They're way cheaper than artist pens too, like a few bucks each.

the_faith2mo ago

My friend spent months trying to find a pen that wouldn't show through her Moleskine pages. She bought these expensive archival markers that feathered like crazy. Someone finally told her about Microns, and she said it was like finding a secret cheat code for note taking. Now she buys them in bulk and gets weirdly excited about office supply deliveries.

simonk982mo ago

My wife caught me hiding a box of 12 Microns in the garage last month. I told her they were for work but really I just like how they feel on paper. Maybe we all have a weird office supply thing we get too into.

val_shah15d ago

Nah, 12 Microns in the garage is rookie numbers. My wife found 47 different pens in my desk drawer last spring, all separated by color and tip size like I was running a tiny museum. I told her they were "samples for work" but really I just like the way an 03 Pilot G2 glides across a receipt. She found a box of 500 ink cartridges in the closet and gave me that look, you know the one. It's not hoarding if they're organized by brand alphabetically.