Uber Cool Handmade or Decorated Pens

There is something universal about writers- we're all obsessed with "office" equipment. Pens, paper, notebooks, laptops, anything that can even remotely be considered writerly is an obsession.

My obsession revolves around pens. In fact, my first profitable sideline ever was making feather pens. You simply take a generic ballpoint pen (bic, papermate, doesn't matter), glue feathers to the end (not the end with the ink coming out!), and then wrap ribbon down the length of the pen (again, with glue). I charged $5 a piece at a cost to me of about $0.50 per pen plus labor, and nearly sold out every batch. The few unsold? Were the ones ravaged by customers' children and no longer attractive.

While many companies sell interesting pens- such as pens with scented ink, or covered in glass beads, they're still mass market items. I mean, really, where's the fun in having things that everyone else has? And I'm not even going to get into the whole import thing.

Fact is, I love small, micro, and indie biz as much as I love words and crafting. So why not marry the two, er, three.

These pens are all hand crafted or decorated by indie artisans. They do beautiful work, and I lust after their products (hint, my birthday is November 22). But I'm sharing them with you because, well, I can't afford to buy every pen I want, and I certainly don't have enough time to use them all if I could!

So have at 'em, enjoy. And when you're done buying up all their stock, come back here for links to my tutorials on decorating pens.

Happy writing!