Inkmas Review Roundup

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Hi all and welcome to the last day of 2019 as well as the roundup of my top Inkmas choices. 

First let’s take a look at my top favorite, least favorite and biggest surprises before we get to some thoughts on the experiment.

Top 3 favorite inks 

  1. Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts: this ink just surprised the heck out of me. I didn’t expect to enjoy something yeah sounds as boring as “blue black” but I loved it. The story behind it also bumps it up 

  2. Diamine - Green/Black: I just didn’t think I would ever enjoy a green color. I stick to inks that have use for every day and this one honestly has found it’s way into my daily rotation, much to my shock. 

  3. De Atramentis - Document Blue: I love the idea of a functional color that will straight up outlive me 

Least favorite inks

  1. “Mystery Ink”- Colorverse Sea Europa: honestly this was my first Colorverse ink, and the fact that it was so far off I couldn’t identify it as the original color was disappointing. 

  2. Diamine - Desert Burst: I love the rest of the guitar line and will be reviewing them in the future, this one just fell in the color shade range I don’t love 

  3. De Atramentis - Document Yellow: I love the idea of an ink that will survive all time, I just hate that this one will burn my retinas out if I look too long 

Inks that surprised me 

  1. Noodler’s Blue Eel: it looked very middle of the road blue when I loaded it up, but woah does this ink POP

  2. Noodler’s Fox Red: I had no clue this ink was waterproof when I loaded it up. A waterproof red that’s a beautiful color is a wonderful shock 

On to some thoughts:

I wanted to do this DIY advent calendar as a personal challenge. I’ve been great at coming I’ll with ideas, but I’ve never been great at following through with ideas. This experiment just felt like this was something important that I try and really stick with; to prove to myself that consistency is something I can achieve. 

I don’t think I could have picked a worse time to give this a shot- I was traveling all of December for work, I decided to start two podcasts and my mom had been diagnosed with a serious illness and I was helping to care for her. 

I was posting day after day (only later learned Squarespace wasn’t posting some to the main blog page, but that’s a story for another day), not really sure how it was going but enjoying the push of a daily deadline.

The support I’ve received this month has been incredible beyond words. I’ve had 5 times as many new visitors this month as I have in the history of the blog, I’ve had folks emailing me and encouraging me. I’m so privileged to be in such a supportive community.

Thank you all, so much for reading anything I’ve ever put out. 

I can’t wait to get started on next year’s blog posts.