Stationery Pulse: Does the TwinFlip really hold five pens?

August 31, 2026

New here? The Stationery Pulse is a short weekly letter for people who still think on paper. Every Monday I round up what's worth reading in the analog world: pens, notebooks, planners, and the people using them well, then close with whatever's new from Planning Engineered. Everything I have tested lives on the Shelf, linked at the bottom. One letter, once a week. That's it.

Does this pen earn its daily use, or does it sit in the box because it looks like a collector piece? That question is exactly why I wanted to see if the Galen Leather TwinFlip could really hold five pens instead of just claiming to. I also carry a wallet and my notebook cover with a few Field Notes in there, a pocket woodcase pencil, and a pocket pen, which I've talked about in the past: this is my go-to on-the-go everyday note-taker, and I enjoy it. I'm still looking for a pocket-sized notebook that is more fountain pen friendly, but again, I do enjoy the Field Notes quite a bit, just the way they look. Something that may be worth it is a mechanical pencil, because that's something I don't carry with me.

What's new in analog

My Top 5 Stationery Favorites for August (AlexanderWrites): Alexander's August favorites skip the daily-use gear entirely, the Rotring 600 and the Mi Plus, and open instead with a bonus pick: Sting, a letter opener a friend gave them at their 30th birthday Lord of the Rings party. Five newly discovered picks follow that origin story, so open it for what actually earned a spot in the rotation this month, not the usual suspects.
Sunday Reading for August 30, 2026 (Gentleman Stationer): This week's roundup pulls together a mechanical pencil comparison spanning 25 cents to 100 dollars, a piece on building handwriting that's genuinely your own, and dispatches from the SF Pen Show floor. Skim it for the range alone: a quarter pencil and a hundred-dollar one get the same fair shake, plus a full pen show recap still to come.
The Pocket Notebook That Will Unlock Your Thinking (Rachelle in Theory): This video opens with a number worth sitting on: the average person spends five hours and sixteen minutes a day on a phone, enough by its own count for a half marathon or a full novel. The pitch is substitution over willpower, swapping a phone that does everything for a notebook that can only do one thing at a time.
Cleaning my 3D Printed Fountain Pen (Mark Your Pages): Mark walks through cleaning out his 3D-printed fountain pen from the Endless and Arclayer Kickstarter collaboration, using the pipette that shipped with it instead of running it under the tap. Cleaning gets called the favorite part of pen ownership here, not a chore, and the process itself is just a rinse, a tap-out, and an air dry.
3 Reasons to RUIN Your Pocket Notebook (Gare the Bear): A viewer's fear of ruining a Field Notes sent Gare digging through their own notebook for proof that damage is the point, starting with a literal spot of hot Cheeto dust on the corner. Gare's case is that every scratch and stain records a notebook's life cycle, from stiff and new to broken in, so open it if you've ever babied a notebook instead of using it.
Journal Catch-Up & Chatting About 2027 Planner Plans 🤭 (The Coffee Monsterzco): The Coffee Monsterzco stitches a week of catch-up footage into one video, filling gaps left by a week and a half away in Chicago where daily entries went into the Hobonichi Cousin but the Weeks, reading journal, and commonplace journal sat untouched. The video is upfront that there's no real plan here, just voiceover chatter about 2027 planner ideas while an August that mostly went unrecorded gets filled in.
I Thought I Needed More Fountain Pens… I Was Wrong (Mark Your Pages): Six writing samples, from extra-fine to a broad stub, all came out of one fountain pen in this video, because the nib got swapped instead of the pen each time. The real question underneath it is whether another pen is needed at all, or just a different nib on the one already sitting in the collection. Shop (affiliate): Monteverde USA Innova Ti (Titanium) Numbered Edition.
September Planner Set-Up: World In My Hands (Well-Appointed Desk): Well-Appointed Desk's September spread runs on a "world in my hands" theme, built around globes, back-to-school season, and a personal push to recommit to goals for the month. It's a peek at real page layouts rather than a tutorial, useful for anyone hunting a fresh monthly theme instead of starting from a blank page.
What I pull out instead of my phone (Rachelle in Theory): Waiting rooms, train rides, and long elevator trips are where this pocket notebook comes out instead of a phone, pulled out to write rather than scroll past strangers. The habit gets called messy and weird on purpose, with the point being not neat pages but breaking the reflex to fill dead time with a screen.
This is My Fountain Pen Collection! (AlexanderWrites): Alexander's new fountain pen display case cost twenty or thirty dollars off Amazon, picked specifically to cap the collection: if a new pen doesn't fit, an old one has to go first. It's less a showcase video and more a defense against the overconsumption named as the biggest fear with any hobby.
Where Has My Bullet Journal Taken Me? (Bullet Journal): An email from the Bullet Journal newsletter, "Where has your Bullet Journal taken you?", sends this writer back through a stretch of life spent full-time teaching during the pandemic, having a baby, and finishing grad school all at once. The usual question gets reframed, asking not where the journal was taken but where it did the taking, with community answers ranging from a tent with a headlamp to a car parked outside a job someone wasn't sure they wanted to walk back into.