Hello! It’s Katherine. (thus the mediocre iPhone photos instead of Franz’s awesome ones with proper light balance)
I don’t think I’ve written about how I got sucked into the rabbit hole that is the fountain pen Instagram community… long story short, it was via the fantastic stationary goodies Target sells in the “dollar spot”, now called the bullseye playground.
I’ve been buying cards, post its and other paper goodies from them for a couple years now, and have found them to generally be fountain pen tolerable — so when I picked up this stationery set earlier today, I thought I’d do a quick review!
First things first — it’s $1 (+sales tax) for a matching set of six envelopes, six sheets of paper and six sticker seals.
The paper is a light mint, but there is also a pink/magenta themed set in stores right now. The bullseye playground lines seem to rotate fairly often, so I thought I should get this review up sooner than later. The stationary is manufactured by Madeforretail, who also seems to manufacture quite a few of their other paper products.
There’s a close up of the different inks above. I’d say the paper is comfortably usable with Japanese fines, but for anything broader than that, there will be some feathering, but the amount varies from ink to ink.
It’s a thick paper, with almost no show through. This is a close up of the page where the flex curls are. You can see the texture of the paper in this shot — decently smooth, but not coated, the way Rhodia is. I had no issues writing on it with a fine, or even a Spencerian grind nib, but I do have a light hand. I’d say it’s very similar in texture to most copy paper.
Here’s a writing sample on the envelope. Surprisingly, it’s a little better than the inside sheets!
Overall, at a $1 per pack, I think it’s a good buy if you like the aesthetic and don’t plan to use a super broad or wet nib on it. I wrote a letter on it using my fine VP, which, if you squint at it, does have a little feathering, but is totally readable. My one complaint is that you have six envelopes and six inside sheets — that means each letter is only 1 page long? That’s pretty short! Alternately, I’ll have leftover envelopes, which, given the cute inside envelope liners, may not be a bad thing!