My whole monthly spread bled through because of a cheap pen

I was setting up my March layout last Tuesday with a new pack of pens I grabbed from the dollar store. The black ink looked fine at first, but the next morning, every single letter had ghosted through to the next five pages. I tried to fix it by gluing those pages together, which just made a lumpy mess. Has anyone found a truly bleed-proof pen that doesn't cost a fortune?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordan_owens751mo ago

My friend Sarah bought a whole set of those glitter gel pens for her journal last year. She was so excited until she turned the page and it looked like a rainbow puked all over her weekly goals. She ended up having to put a blank sheet behind every single page before she wrote, which totally defeated the purpose of a thin notebook. I stick to the basic ballpoints they have at the bank now, the free ones, because they seem to work on anything.

milesrobinson1mo ago

Actually @jordan_owens75, I love that glitter bleed look, makes my journal pages feel more lively.

jessew831mo ago

Ugh, that's the worst kind of planner surprise. It feels like this happens with everything now, you buy the cheap version to save a few bucks and it just self-destructs. I swear stuff is made so thin and weak on purpose so you give up and buy the expensive brand. For pens, I've had good luck with the basic Pilot G2, they're not dollar store cheap but they don't bleed on my average paper.