Adult Coloring Office Supplies

For the last year or so, we've seen a huge rise in the popularity of coloring. What was long considered a children's activity has proven to be quite therapeutic for adults. It makes sense when you think about it. In a fast-paced world filled with technology, it lets us slow down and get off the phones for a few minutes. Coloring is hands on, requires some degree of focus but no real stress, and the end result is a pretty picture filled with your input. Sales of coloring books has seen a marked increase over the last year, and should see another spike during the holidays.

Smead SuperTab Coloring Folders

But why stop at books? There are now all sorts of office supplies available with coloring patterns. These capably fulfill their office duties while also allowing you to indulge in coloring. After all, in the middle of a busy work day in front of a computer, there may be no better respite than taking some time off for a coloring break. Smead has several designs of folders, At-A-Glance, House of Doolittle and Blueline have calendar desk pads, and there is a nice assortment of notebooks and binders as well.

Tombow Dual Brush Pens

You'll also want comfortable coloring instruments. Colored pencils tend to be the favorite, and there are plenty of options from classic Crayola to finer Prismacolor pencils. Tombow Dual Brush Pens are comfortable to use with a pleasing stroke and have quickly become a favorite. Crayons, of course, are still an option, and now they're retractable with Mr. Sketch Twistable Gel Crayons. Yes, they're still scented and yes, it's okay to smell them. Everybody else does.

We've got a nice page with all of our Adult Coloring products and supplies here, along with a place to sign up to download several coloring sheets for free!

50 Ways To Use a Sharpie

The classic Sharpie marker has been around forever. Everybody knows, uses and loves Sharpies for basic purposes like labeling and creating signs, but the versatile markers can do much more. We've covered some creative uses in the past, and now we're celebrating all the different functions of the Sharpie- at least 50 ways to use one.

Sharpie products are great for many work environments and can create fun and unique charts, sketches, drawings and artwork. Sharpies can be used everywhere from the office or the classroom to building sites or research facilities. They can add creativity, organization and efficiency to any project.

Sharpie Clearview Highlighter

In addition to the popular marker, Sharpie is also available as highlighters, pens and liquid pencils, offering even more potential for even more projects.

Jetstream Premier by Uni-Ball

If there's one thing I'm pretty good at it's judging. Some of my friends have even told me to put away my judging finger. I guess my ability to make snap judgments, even when they are wrong, leads my interest in Judge Dredd and the Pope. Even if they make a decision that ends up being wrong... too bad, it was correct at the time.

Speaking of him (Judge Dredd, not the Pope), have you seen the trailer for the new Judge Dredd movie? For some reason they have left "Judge" out of the title. That doesn't make any sense it's like leaving "Warlord of Mars" off the title of a storied science fiction franchise.

That's not the point though. The point is I like to make snap judgments. One of the things I like to judge quickly are pens. If a pen feels light or has more girth than it needs I'm pretty quick to push it aside as an also ran. If you recall, the weight of the pen was featured heavily in my review of the InkJoy pen series. So when a Jetstream Premier from Uni-Ball crossed my desk the other day, I ripped open the packaging, dropped the pen in my pen cup and went about the rest of my day-to-day business. When I had a few moments to think, I went back and picked up the Uni-Ball Jetstream and it didn't pass my completely subjective size-to-weight ratio test (not a good sign). In the interest of fairness to the people at Uni-Ball I thought I'd give it a quick test run and see just how poorly it compared. I clicked the clicker and HOLY CUSS!

Uni-Ball Jetstream Premier Rollerball Pen

Much to my shock, the pen has an almost silent click. I don't know if you've ever sat in on a meeting with a obsessive-compulsive-pen-clicker and an anti-pen-click-stick-in-the-mud but the fireworks fly. This pen could potentially solve all the pen click-related problems that have been keeping the United Nations from actually making progress toward ending famine and getting Bono's plan for world peace off the ground.

I was sure that the silent click of the pen was just a gimmick and that it would be a standard ballpoint pen, but I was wrong again. The black ink from the Uni-Ball Jetstream surpassed the much loved InkJoy. The lines were smoother and darker. It had me intrigued... what else is there to know about this pen?

I went to Uni-Ball's page, since I had thrown away the packaging, to see what they had to say about their pen. They identified the silent action and smooth ink, but also touted its quick drying ink. As a right-handed person who writes small I rarely run into the problem with smearing ink when a portion has yet to properly dry. So I had to setup a test to give it a run through. I'll draw a circle with my right hand and immediately drag my left pointer finger through it to see how it smears. True to their word the Uni-Ball Jetstream Premier does dry faster than the competition. The difference between the Jestream and the InkJoy was almost negligible, but I'm sure it makes a difference to somebody. Just for the sake of argument I performed the same test with a Gel pen and they just got ink all over my finger.

Is the Uni-Ball Jetstream a nice pen? Most definitely.
Is the Uni-Ball Jetstream worth the premium price? Maybe if you are left handed or are a compulsive pen clicker, but not to me.

InkJoy Pen Review

I'll admit to you from the start that I'm a gel pen aficionado and I've never really had much time for standard ballpoint pens. I recently had a collection of PaperMate's InkJoy pens fall across my desk so I proclaimed "game on" and gave them a proper run through.

I have to say that an InkJoy ballpoint pen is the best ballpoint pen I've ever been fortunate enough to use. There isn't the usual harsh dragging or slow ball rolling or gritty grind I usually experience. I dug through my desk to find a couple of other ballpoints to make sure I wasn't just confusing myself, but my findings backed me up. These InkJoy is the smoothest ballpoint pen I've ever used.

InkJoy 100

Let's start at the bottom and work our way up. The InkJoy 100 is your base model pen. It comes as a standard stick pen with a cap or in a retractable version. Either way you are going to get an extremely basic plastic tube surrounded with plastic bits. As cheap as this pen feels and as little as it costs you are still getting the full advantage of the InkJoy system so your pen will produce great lines. The InkJoy 100 is the only version of the InkJoy line available in the stick format. All other InkJoy pens are the retractable format.

InkJoy 500

The InkJoy 500 is the real workhorse of the InkJoy family. The smoked semi gloss is replaced with a matte finish and a rugged looking rubberized grip that is reminiscent of a tire tread has been added. The plastic clip from the 100 series has been replaced with an actual metal clip. These are welcome upgrades as that bit of rubber helps to keep your pen in place and the metal pen clip isn't going to break off after repeated use. I'm sure we've all had hundreds of the plastic clips break, but I've only ever broken a metal clip with some severe pen related trauma.

InkJoy 550

Visually you can immediately see that additional chrome accents have been added to the plunger and the tip of the InkJoy 550. You can't see it from the photo, but an additional thin piece of rubber runs along the back side of the pen to keep it from slipping when it is in your hand and meets with another rubberized portion at the back. The back rubber doesn't really do anything because your hand shouldn't be making contact with the back side of your pen (maybe it is aesthetics, or it helps to keep the rubber strip in place). Although the rubber appears to be thinner than the 500 in practice, it is negligible as the rubber on a pen is never designed for softness but for grip. The 550 has a glossy barrel with a slight ergonomic curve while the 500 has a matte barrel with an exaggerated bump.

InkJoy 700

When you first lift the InkJoy 700 you'll be pleasantly surprised that it has a bit of heft. Some people prefer pens to be like basketball shoes and be as light as possible, but I think a pen with a little weight helps so I don't have to apply as much downward pressure. Since I'm naturally curious (and it hasn't killed me yet) I went and took apart the pen to see just where the weight was added. I was glad to discover that the tip of the pen, previously a chrome piece of plastic, was replaced with an actual piece of metal. This means that all the extra weight is properly positioned to help you draw easier and smoother.

The InkJoy 700 is clearly positioned as the executive version of the InkJoy series. It throws out almost all ergonomics to give it a slender hourglass figure with a high gloss finish. It has a full chrome plunger instead of a chrome wrapped plunger and then even included a slightly nicer spring in the pen to make sure every click is tight and strong. As nice as the black InkJoy 700 is I recommend that you give the InkJoy 700 in white a look as well. They will look great next to your white iPhone and when you buy the complete pack it comes with 1 red, 1 blue and 2 black pens.

White InkJoy 700 Pack

Buy Wacom Inkling Refills

Wacom recently announced a new product to their line of digital drawing paraphernalia.  The Inkling is a device that allows you to draw on your favorite drawing surface (notebook, paper, whatever) and with the special pen and special receiver it allows you to digitally capture your drawings for simple transfer to a computer.

Refills Circled in Red

Because the Inkling at its core is just a regular pen with a bunch of electronics strapped to it, you do still need to draw real lines on your real paper.  So you are going to be using real ink.  Luckily the people at Wacom were smart enough to realize nobody is going to be replacing electronic pens regularly, and their ideal customers are not going to be interested in some old Bic Stic ink so they designed the Inkling to allow easy replacement of the ink reservoir. 

They claim it uses a standard mini 1.0 mm ballpoint ink refill, but I have no clue what they mean by that.  Nobody in the refill business will tell you that their refill will be universal because they want to make sure you buy their pen, so you are left guessing.  Just what is a standard mini ink refill?

Proposed Inkling Pen Refill

Since I don't actually have a Wacom Inkling I can't tell you exactly what refills will and won't fit it, but the Cross CRO85184 sure looks like a dead ringer.  It looks a lot like the refills pictured in the product imagery and the product specs seem to match.  Amid several references to ball point pens and compact and mini refill size,  I don't know if I can find a better solution.

Does anybody out there know more about this setup and which pen refills specifically fit it?  I can't seem to find any easily available accurate info.

Our Picks For Filling Your Bracket

We know that Office Supplies Talk is not the first site you'll check for advice on filling out your NCAA tournament bracket this year. Except for picking all four Final Four teams in 2009 (and still losing the office pool to our warehouse manager), my record has been less than outstanding. But although we can't help you decide who will win that crucial Vanderbilt-Richmond game, we can still help you fill out your bracket by answering the most important question: which pen or pencil should you use?

Like many people, I fill out about a dozen brackets while trying to determine which one is worth entering in the office pool. This year, I tested several different writing instruments to find one ideal for picking winners. As the choice between pencil or pen is a personal decision, I tried a good sample of both.

Unfortunately, my pencil test was somewhat flawed as some of my stock are 0.7mm and some are 0.5mm. Some of the slots have very limited space, so 0.5mm is preferred. Other criteria included how well the lead disperses, the eraser erases and your hand holds up. Hand cramping must be avoided to have a deep tournament run. Otherwise you may pick BYU over Florida just because it has fewer letters.

Pentel Twist-Erase CLICK

Despite only having a 0.7mm on hand, Pentel's Twist-Erase CLICK impressed me the most. It writes well, features a latex grip for comfort and lead advances with a side click instead of through the eraser. The eraser is sturdy, effective and can be replenished with a twist at the top. Best of all, it is available in a 0.5mm to make sure you can fit "Connecticut" in that little box. Honorable mention goes to the Uni-Ball Kuru Toga, which has strong, fine lead and writes smoothly. As mentioned before, it does have a small eraser with a troublesome cap, so the indecisive should be cautious. It is, however, lighter than the Twist-Erase, so consider it if you fill out several brackets in pencil.

Pilot Precise V5 RT

For pens, the important factors were smoothness, legibility in small spaces, lack of smearing, weight and strength of schedule. While I don't normally prefer them in everyday writing, needle point pens became the clear choice for all bracketing needs. The needle point allowed detailed writing in tight spaces with no noticeable smearing. None stood out more than Pilot's Precise V5 RT, which is light and keeps your hand fresh for several brackets. Best of all, it is available with an extra fine point. While a little heavier, Pentel's EnerGel Needle Tip is worth a flier as well.

If you must know who I have winning the actual tournament, mark me down for Kansas.