Pigeon Posted - A Fun Way to Send Mail

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

First of all, a very Happy New Year to you! I hope that you’ve had a good holiday season. I have been thinking about new year intentions and while I haven’t nailed down everything that I want to focus on in 2026, I do know that one of those things is sending more letters, aka snail mail. At one point, I had over a dozen penpals and was writing/sending letters almost every week. I’ve fallen off that wagon big time - I think I might have sent 1-2 letters in all of 2025. Eeek, time to write more in 2026!

While shopping at a local bookstore in the mountains of Colorado, I found these cool letter kits from UK-based Pigeon Posted. Each pack has 6 “pigeons”, which you fold up into its own “envelope” - just slap a stamp on it to seal it and it’s ready to go!

Pigeon Posted in Bookstore (upper left), Hop on Board (upper right), and Wonderfully Wild (bottom.)

The back shows the designs included in each pack.

The white space is for the recipient’s address. (From the Hop on Board pack.)

On the back, there is a blank space for the sender’s address, but some sorting machines (in the US, especially), can’t tell the front from the back, so it might end up coming back to you.

I love that Pigeon Posted uses artwork from a variety of artists, which they credit on the backs of the notes.

Unfold the pigeon and you’ll see more of the artwork.

A decent amount of space to write a short letter. There is a small white space in the upper right - some sets say “From:” (like this tone), and others it’s blank. I used that space to write the date and where I was sending it from, like “the mountains of Colorado”.

I didn’t know if they would be fountain pen friendly or not, but I decided to take a chance on a few packs. I figure, at worst, I’d bust out a Pilot G-2 or other standard pen. Let’s see who should be my first guinea pig…

A sampling of fountain pens used to write a short note to the Bossman. Hey Boss! Don’t read this letter too closely cuz you’ll be posting this article before this gets to you in the mail, hah.

A closeup of writing from the Pelikan Ineo (blue), Pelikan M800 Italic Broad (green), and Platinum Plaisir (pink). As juicy and thick as the M800 is, the paper handled it pretty well, but there is a bit of feathering, which is not surprising.

For the letter, I used a Pilot 823 Medium with Papier Plume Secondine, Pelikan M640 MCI with Diamine Golden Brown, Platinum Plaisir 03 with Platinum Pink cartridge, Pelikan M800 Italic Broad with Papier Plume Marina Green, and Pelikan Ineo Medium with Robert Oster Sydney.

You can see that the M800 had some ghosting and slight bleed through on the other side.

After writing my note, I re-folded the letter and sealed the corner flap with the stamp (I swear the skunk stamp was a random pick!). Not shown, my return address label which I stuck on the upper left, above the Boss’ info.

As mentioned earlier, it’s best not to put your return address on the back, so I put cute washi stamps on the back in that space.

It was so fun to get a quick note done, that I may have gone a little crazy and used up all 18 notes!

While I wouldn’t necessarily use these for actual pen pal letters because y’all know how wordy I can get, lol, it’s great for a short note or letter. While not exactly expensive (about $11 for a pack of 6), it’s not very cost effective if you have a lot of people to write to. That said, I enjoyed it so much that I went back to the bookstore and bought 5 more packs :-)

More Pigeon Posted packs - there are even more on the Pigeon Posted website.

I bought the Pigeon Posted packs at indie bookstore Next Page Books, but you can find them at various Pigeon Posted stockists, or directly from Pigeon Posted.

PS. Happy New Year! May 2026 be kinder to us all and bring us continued inky fun!

(Disclaimer:I bought the Pigeon Posted packs at regular price at Next Page Books. All pens used are my own.)

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Midori MD Letter Pad Review

Midori MD Letter Pads are designed with a purpose. As the name dictates, they are primarily letter writing pads, but, as someone who doesn’t write letters, I think they are useful for all types of creativity. There are a couple of things they aren’t for, too.

Midori makes some of the best paper products on the market. Not only that, but I would be hard pressed to find another brand with this much variety in their lineup. It’s astonishing, and borderline overwhelming. Even the letter writing focused pads have several different formats and layouts.

I chose a standard letter pad layout in the Midori MD Stationery Horizontal Ruled A, which includes 50 pages of Midori’s proprietary paper. Paper I know, and I love. The line format - soft grey lines 9.5 mm apart, with wide margins - is the unique factor here. This is paper with a purpose, and that is to create something fun, interesting, and beautiful, for someone other than yourself.

What it isn’t is a desk pad, or a journal. Technically, you could use a Midori Letter Pad in this manner, but why? If you love Midori, you have a dozen other choices to solve those problems. Same with the stack of unused notebooks sitting on your shelf right now. You know who you are.

So this notepad isn’t for everyone? Absolutely not. It has a reason to exist, which needs to match your reason to buy it. My reason is that I love Midori, and I love how my handwriting looks on these wide lines and wide margins. Why are the margins designed this way? To make the words in the center of the page stand out. I love the visual it provides.

It’s a large visual, too, with the paper size outside of the normal A5 boundaries. It sits at a similar 210 mm tall, but is 168 mm wide, 20 mm wider than standard. I have no idea why, but it will be wider than A5 envelopes for mailing.

Being a Midori product, my expectation is that will handle every pen, nib, ink type, and pencil I throw at it with ease. It did. It’s not the elite fountain pen ink shader or sheener that paper designed for those characteristics will show, but it shows plenty. All of my currently inked pens performed well on the page, with no feathering, bleed, or show through. Gel ink, rollerball, ballpoint, and pencil all worked great as well.

The only negative I ever list with Midori is its stock cream-colored paper for those preferring a stark white page. I like the cream, and don’t find that it takes away from my ink colors enough to take away from all of the other great features.

Another great feature? The price. This Midori Letter Pad is $8 for 50 sheets. That’s very fair, and in line with the full Midori lineup. That said, this is a specialty product, and if you write multi-page letters with one line per line, and one side of the page, you could work through one of these pads quickly. If you have smaller handwriting, you could fit two handwritten lines between the lines, which is something I may try.

Midori Letter Pads are something you may consider trying, if it fits your needs. Like I said, they have a few specific tasks where they will shine, and aren’t a big commitment. Plus, they are Midori. It doesn’t get much better than that in the world of paper.

(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Kakimori - A 2-for-1 Quick Look

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

Sometimes I look down at the pile o’ goodness that the Bossman sends me and try to figure out what to play with that is both interesting to me and to you. Most of the time, it is difficult because I’m paralyzed with so many choices! Should I review an ink? Maybe a notebook? Or a new pen? Well, this time, it was a pretty easy choice because I found TWO things that I wanted to play with, so lucky you, you’re gonna get a 2-for-1 quick look today!

I have a bottle of Kakimori 08 Zabun, which is a pigmented ink, and Kakimori Letter Paper. Thank you to Vanness Pens for sending these for review.

Zabun is one of 10 pigmented inks in their classic line from Kakimori and comes in an adorable 35ml bottle. These ink bottles were designed by Makoto Koizumi, who wanted them to look like falling drops. It’s easier to show you than describe but imagine a big round drop of glass with a flat base, but rather than an opening right at the top, it’s off to the side, making it look a little tipsy or lopsided, but in a cute way. The nice wide opening is at an 8-degree angle from the top, making it perfect for dipping as well as inking up pens/converters.

Unlike dye-based inks, pigmented inks are meant to be water, fade and smudge- resistant. It is not an iron gall ink, so it can be used safely in pens with steel as well as gold nibs. Also, because it is pigmented, you should always shake up the bottle prior to inking up a pen to evenly disperse the pigment. Lastly, pigmented inks are mixable, so if your inner alchemist/artist/colorist wants to try making other colors of pigmented ink, have at it - just be sure to use a separate clean vial/bottle for the mixing so you don’t contaminate the original colors.

Because it is meant to be water resistant, pigmented inks may be more difficult to clean out your pen if you leave it unused for a long time, or if it has dried out. Since I don’t always get a chance to rotate my pen usage as much as I’d like, I decided to ink this up in a converter (in case it permanently stains it).

I wrote a few lines on HP 28lb laser jet paper and let the ink dry before running water over it for 15 seconds.

This is what it looked like after I put the wet paper on the counter. Definitely water-resistant!

On Col-o-ring cards, you can see that it is a nice dark teal. I used a Woodshed Pen Company teal demonstrator with a Franklin-Christoph Medium nib for the writing sample. You can see that it is a nice dark teal - neither too green nor too blue. It has average flow, maybe even a teensy bit on the dry side, resulting in a little bit of shading on both the Col-o-ring cards and the Kakimori letter paper.

I put the Col-o-ring cards on the Kakimori letter paper to show that the latter has a slight cream tinge to it.

Similar inks include Ferris Wheel Press Bluegrass Velvet, Papier Plume Ink 13, Monteverde Iced Cookie, Montblanc Blue Hour, Diamine Smoke on the Water (minus the sheen), Straits Pens Sad Stormy Swedish Sea, Sailor 50 States California and KWZ IG Turquoise.

Zabun dries fairly quickly on the Exacompta index card as well as the Kakimori letter paper. It might take a touch longer on more slick papers like Tomoe River, but I didn’t really notice much of a difference for dry time.

Dry time was about 30 seconds on this yellow index card (it’s not my bad lighting this time, lol)

On to the Kakimori letter paper! The paper is blank with teal colored lines and swirls on the top and a single line at the bottom with a small Kakimori logo in the lower right hand corner. The paper is B5-sized and has a laid texture, where there are fine “lines” running across the page both horizontally and vertically. These lines feel like little bumps and can help you write straight without a guide sheet, but it can also be distracting when writing with fine or extra fine nibs as you may feel each bump with up/down strokes. The “front” side of laid paper is the side with the texture. In addition, there is a watermark which will indicate which is the writing side - if you hold it up to the light, you can see the watermark of the word “conqueror” (its placement is random on each sheet). The reverse side is smooth by comparison, but not like Tomoe River or Cosmo Air Light.

It’s a lot easier to see the laid texture as well as the watermark if you hold it up against the light.

It took me a bit to get used to the texture but it was nice not having to use a guide sheet or rely on preprinted lines/dots. The paper held up nicely to a variety of pens, nibs and inks. It handled dye-based inks (what we’d all just call “ink”), this Zabun pigmented ink, shimmer ink as well as a sheening ink, though the paper seems to have soaked up most of the sheen. Other than the bottom swatch where I released a drop of ink from the converter onto the page and smeared it onto the paper, there was really no bleed through, which is impressive. Even then, it barely bled through to the other side.

I didn’t see any feathering with any of the writing samples.

All of the inks looked fine on the page, too.

Barely any ghosting on the back even with the ink swatches.

The Kakimori letter paper comes either as 6 sheets to a pack for $5, or 3 sheets and an envelope in the letter set for $6. This can add up very quickly, especially if you have a lot of penpals or are long-winded like me. But if you wanted something a little more special, this would be a great option. And if you wanted a nice pigmented ink to address your envelopes for rainy season or perhaps use for art or just because you like the color, the Kakimori pigmented ink, at $30 for a 35ml bottle, is also an excellent but somewhat pricey option.

(Brad purchased this product at a discount from Vanness Pens for review purposes.)