Sunday 11 June 2023

Storing your pencils

 My new fancy-pants 200 slot pencil case!

I have a lot of pencils. I mean, A LOT.

Most of my pencils were kept in pencil rolls, but although these are great, they don't hold enough pencils for me, or my full sets of pencils. My 60 Staedtler Karat pencils I had to keep in the tin, which was a nuisance. Beautiful tin, but two levels to swap around and the tin often would burst open in my pack spilling all the pencils out. Not to mention the tin being a bit heavy.

 Plus, when travelling to classes it meant swapping back and forth between the rolls and occasionally picking up the wrong roll (Prismacolour instead of Graphitint for example). Then there are what I call 'class sets', pencils in other rolls that are various brands that my students can borrow and use during class. Those are all good pencils, but perhaps not my favorite brand or shorter ones I have replaced, so I like to keep the class sets separate from 'my' pencils if possible. That can be a lot of pencil rolls to organise and to cart around.

It was becoming a bit of a headache, until I found this fabulous 200 slot pencil case online! A slot for every pencil I love, all organized neatly in chromatic order. My new case holds all my Karats, plus my complete collection of Prismacolors (52 waxed, 24 verithin, 24 watercolor), as well as the 24 set of Graphitint - with extra slots for a few graphite and an Aquash brush.... and slots left over!

Each 'leaf' holds 26 pencils, with the end leaf having 3 wider slots. The case has a wrist handle, which I doubt is comfortable or sturdy enough when the case is fully loaded, but I can add a shoulder strap, I guess. The finish is very good, I chose a black PU leather although I was tempted by the Flamingo pattern. The nylon zippers look fairly robust, but I suspect they may burst eventually - will worry about that when or if that happens. Fully loaded the case weighs just on 1.6kg (about 3.5 lbs). That might sound heavy, but it isn't too bad and a good tradeoff for the ease of transport and organization!

My beloved Karats. Aren't they beautiful!

The case in black PU

Side view showing the 4 zippered 'leaves'

Open view

So, I hate to push products, but if you are looking for a case like this one, I found it on Amazon for $38.79US - delivered in just 5 days! This brand is a BTSKY 200 Slots Colored Pencil case (201 pencil slots and 3 larger slots for erasers/sharpeners, etc), and it comes in a variety of colors and patterns. There are other brands out there, but I liked this one best.

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