OhDeer Archives - The Blog of the Mad Hattress

Papergang January 2022

Remember me talking about a goodbye in the review of my last Papergang box? Well, I might have been a bit dramatic when I wrote that down. When I am writing this post, I am not sure if my One year review of Papergang has already been uploaded or not, but just to be clear I did in fact cancel my subscription at Papergang. But that does not mean that I can’t get boxes anymore 😉 Basically, my plan was to not pay for a full year of boxes from which 60% or more might bore me but keep an eye on what boxes are to come and only buy the ones I am really interested in. That’s exactly what I did with this one, so let’s take a look at it together 🙂

This month’s box seems to have been inspired by calligraphy much, which is actually why it caught my eye. Calligraphy is something I do enjoy in my free time and what I saw in the pictures on their website, looked like something good. This box contains one debossed Daily Planner(dotted), some ombre sticky notes, a 6-sided ruler with measurements and markings designed for lettering, a refillable fountain pen(which comes already filled) and an Art print.

My camera picked up the colors here in a very strange way but I sadly only realized later :/ That’s why the next picture will look different, just so you know 😛

I mostly wanted to get this box because of the fountain pen, on the pictures, it looked like a high-quality pen which I thought might be specially made for using it for calligraphy. But when I open the box and took a good look at the fountain pen, I was really disappointed. Not only does it feel and look like very cheap quality, the nib is also no different from the fountain pen nibs you can buy at every store for school. What I was expecting was a fountain pen with a wide nib for example, or a nib that widens when you press it down or even multiple nibs you could interchange. But what we got, was less impressive than any normal fountain pen you can buy for cheap. The only thing I liked, was that there is a small hole right under the screwline that lets you check on how much ink is still left in the cartridge.

The next thing that I was kinda surprised about was the fact that they put an art print in here. I remember that actually, last year’s January box had an art print too, of two flowers. I also remember it has not been received very well since art technically is not stationary the people subscribing could use it practically. This print is no different other than it having a holographic foil finish on the letters. I also feel like with lettering and calligraphy as a topic, for an art print there would have been more possibilities. Of course, that’s a personal opinion of mine, but I feel like to introduce someone to lettering, you could have used different fonts in different sizes. Even with only two words, you could have had some decorations, different colours and so on. The text on the paper even feels a bit small, as if something would be missing.

The rest of the box is mostly okay, nothing that I could talk about for long. The planner is a great addition to the first box of the year since people can start using it for important dates right away and sticky notes are also always relevant. I am not a huge fan of the designs, since you can barely see or feel the debossing on the notebook and the dotted design on the sticky notes, feels like a wasted opportunity to incorporate some guidelines for people who are actually somehow inspired to do lettering or any other form of calligraphy after receiving this box.

The only thing in here, that I personally feel like actually using is the interesting metal ruler. It has the quality that I was expecting all of the items had, it feels sturdy, the measurements can be read very clearly and with its six different sides, it can be used for many different things. Like making your own guidelines on paper, measuring the size of different letters and so on. And it’s also the only item that to me feels like it is really connected to calligraphy.

My final verdict on this box is, that sadly Papergang can still disappoint me in different ways. This time it was not only kinda boring, like most of the boxes from 2021(which is why I cancelled my subscription) no it did feel almost deceiving. Because I don’t feel like I was the only one with expectations for a box designed like this. I feel like more items that are actually connected to calligraphy should have been included in here. And the ones which are, should have been better quality. All in all I feel like they could have done so much better with only some small changes.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 1

Papergang December 2021

Things were a bit rough at the end of the last year and also the beginning of 2022, which is why I only returned back home in February, where one Papergang box still waited for me to open and review it 😉 So let’s do it together!

The December paper gang box has a jungle-like theme again very similar to another box from 2021, but its contents are very different. This box really feels like one preparing us for the new year because amongst them is a fully customisable Wall Calendar, 2 pairs of 2 different sticker sheets, three dual-ended highlighters, an HB pencil with gold foiling and an A5 Deskpad.

The last paper gang box of the year actually really surprised me since at this point I had already decided not to renew my subscription for 2022 (more on that in a later post) and basically was waiting for it to end xD This might sound a bit tough, but almost all of the last boxes have kinda disappointed me so I really did not expect to love most stuff in the last box that I would get for 2021!

I loved the calendar for its design, every page has a calendar sheet on one side and a beautiful drawing on the other. My birth month march has an owl which I appreciate very much! The calendar sheet is so customisable that you could even use it for another year than 2022 if you might already have a calendar for the upcoming year at home. That’s because only the numbers are printed on the paper, but they are not connected to any days in the year, those are delivered with the stickers or you can just write them in by hand.

The stickers can basically be used to mark every important event in the year: you get some balloons for birthdays, aeroplanes for upcoming travels, a beer and a wine glass for a party maybe? There are also some less obvious ones like question and exclamation marks, some smilies and just coloured dots. Next to the day stickers you also get some that say “Important”, “Holiday” and “Day Off”, all in matching colours to the beautiful calendar.

Last but not least let’s talk about the pens. The highlighters come in a very pastel yellow, blue and red. I actually just found out that they are dual-sided because I made the review and it’s in the explanation sheet, but visually it’s not very obvious xD Visually with the also very pastel coloured paper of the calendar, I feel like they might be a bit too pale to really show. But on the other hand, using brightly coloured highlights might have not looked good either. So I guess it comes down to personal preference.
As with the graphite pencil… I said again and again that I don’t think graphite pencils are a good tool to write something down for the long term. On a small post-its it might be no problem since that’s not used for long but in a notebook or a calendar like this, a smudging pen is not what I would want to use. A fineliner or a ballpoint pen would be the better choice in my opinion. But considering the rest of the box was so great, I think it’s a forgettable detail.

All in all, I would say I am pretty happy to have gotten this box as my last one out of the big subscription, it sadly could not make the disappointment of the other ones go away, but it was a nice goodbye. The calendar is really nice and can be used multiple times, depending on how you decorate it. I only wrote the birthdays in mine, so I can appreciate the beauty of the calendar for many years 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

December 15

Papergang VS Scrawler Box October 2021

Before I was financially reminded of Brexit and the problems that come with it, I wanted to venture out and find some new subscription boxes to try out! The Scrawler Box was something that meet all of my criteria: its a monthly subscription that perfectly fit into my mailbox and delivers me some things I am passionate about. It can’t be compared 100% to the Papergang Box because it has a different theme, where the Papergang surprises me with unique stationery every month this box is all about art supplies. Still, the size and the number of things inside were close enough that I wanted to review these two boxes side by side. Quick Disclaimer, because of some personal issues I am actually a bit behind on reviewing them, so the two boxes you will read about here are both from the month of October 🙂

Right from the start, we can see the biggest difference between the two boxes which is appearance. Where the people behind Papergang try to come up with a different design for every box, the scrawler box has the same, kinda dull design on the outside since it launched. But it’s not all about what is on the outside, but also what is on the inside, right?

Let’s start with the new box, like the Papergang box it comes with an instructional menu telling us about the content of the box. But instead of doing it like a folded brochure the scrawler box actually comes with a little booklet, which does not only show us the contents but gives us an interview with the artist featured, tips and tricks on how to use the materials, an art gallery showing what fans created with the previous boxes and something called “scrawler extra” which in this case is an article about Movie Magic 🙂
Hidden under some paper are the highly anticipated art supplies, in October we’ve got three differently coloured Copic markers together with special marker paper, one fineliner, one graphite pencil and a kneadable eraser from Farber Castel. Ontop of that we get a unique sticker designed to look like the boxes logo, such as an exclusive artwork and some British candy.

The Papergang Box contains an A5 Notebook with a “Midnight Garden” pattern which can also be seen on the box cover, one birthday greeting card with a gold foil finish, a foldable pen pot with a pink chevron design, three pencils with gold stamped quotes and gold-dipped ends, five A6 sticker sheet and two stainless steel gold coloured metal straws in a pink cotton pouch. Since I want to keep it fair and some of you might not know the folded brochure which acts as a menu guide here also has an interview with the artist they feature in this box such as a colouring sheet fitting with the overall pattern.

As I have just mentioned both boxes are working with a different artist every month, for the Octobers Scrawler box the artist is called Alexandra Olivia and for that month’s Papergang collaborated with Olivia Burton. I have to say, since I am such a Halloween enthusiast I had actually somewhat hoped for a Halloween theme for both boxes, both have kinda disappointed me. But I have to say the Papergangs collaboration and Burton’s design seem a bit more fitting than the brightly coloured markers and art from the scrawler box. But I guess that’s more personal preference than actual minus points 😉

Unlike with the Papergang subscription which I have been reviewing for the whole of 2021, I only have one scrawler box to go off, so I try not to judge the whole subscription too much based on it since maybe other months boxes have done it better. With that that in mind, what disappointed me was the few contents of the box. I remember seeing more in the boxes I saw online. Though I have to say that most of the things came from name brands, which can be quite expensive, so that might explain why there are only three markers. And they are more of less primary colours in a bit more pastel versions, which means you can combine them to get a bigger range of colours in the end.

I did like the artwork that comes with it, which is something that I actually would love to see in the Papergang boxes too. They are working together with artists, after all, I would be happy to have something from them to hang up on my wall. But I know some other people only want stationary and are annoyed by too much art content, so maybe something like the Scrawlerbox really is the better subscription to include something like this.

The people who follow me for a while now know that I love to look for a kind of theme or activity to do with the contents of the box and with Papergang I often fail at this quest. But Scrawler Box seems to really be focused on this kind of experience, which is why you get a small amount of the right paper to use with the supplies to start ASAP with whatever inspiration the box might give you. You have everything you need: A graphite pencil and eraser to make a sketch, a fine liner for the lineart and the markers to colour everything in. You even get a small snack to boost up the creative process, which I really love! And as a person living in Germany, when do I get the chance to try British candy otherwise? 😉

Seeing the outside of the Papergangs October box really got me excited, because that’s the kind of aesthetic that I like, even though it had nothing to do with Halloween whatsoever. I loved being able to keep a part of it in form of the stickers and birthday cards. Of course, there is the notebook too, but it’s mostly white for the writing of course and the cool design rests on the edges of the paper. Here it would be the perfect opportunity again to include an artwork piece, but as I just said, I know some people get upset, so it’s not something I want to judge, but something I wanted to mention and maybe wish for 😛

The pencils are the signature of OhDeer, the company behind the Papergang, but I never really liked them much. The whole point of a graphite pencil is to sharpen it until it’s eventually gone. Meaning that at some point the quote will begin to vanish too, leaving some words without context reflecting the light of their pretty gold foil in the end. Also, I feel like graphite pencils might not be the best utensil to take notes with since it smudges on the paper and does not feel as smooth as a ballpoint pen. But that might also be a personal opinion.

What really got me thinking were the metal straws… It’s not that I don’t need them or do not get the idea behind them, saving the environment and so on, but with the debate about the artworks in mind, these are not stationery items. Yes, I could make myself a hot beverage to accompany myself while writing with the supplies, but with that explanation, I could also use a cool piece of artwork by the featured artist to hang up above my desk to get into the right mood. The straws also have some ridges on the top to mimic the part where you were able to actually bend a plastic straw, which is also a design choice that I can’t really get behind.

It’s hard to say if I can determine a real winner in this review competition since both have their advantages and disadvantages. The scrawler box really seems a bit less nice and luxurious with its brown carton on the inside and on the outside, so the nicely designed Papergang box definitely gets the point there.
But judging on the inside of both boxes, I feel more drawn to the Scrawlerbox having a clear theme and activity to do after the initial opening. With the Papergang boxes, I sometimes catch myself just putting the pencils inside my pencil case without trying them out further.
These October boxes in particular both kinda disappointed me more than they surprised me. I was expecting something Halloween-ish but got nothing. Instead, I got some markers ins colours I don’t like and metals straws that I can’t bend. But that’s more a me-problem 😉

All in all, I would say both boxes have their respective rights to be in the categories they are in. People who want to have more of an activity to do should get the Scrawlerbox to create something right after you have unboxed it. If you are more into collecting unique pencils, note blocks, paper and other stationery you will be happier with the Papergang subscription. That way everyone will get what they are looking for and in my case, I guess I should consider getting them both in 2022, to get all of my needs satisfied!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Scrawler Box, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

October 8

Papergang Box September 2021

The September box actually arrived almost immediately after the August box came in the mail, meaning I had to pay the before mentioned taxes again -.-” If you want to know more about the situation take a look *here*. But hopefully, this will be the last box with those extra costs and I try not to let it ruin the opening of the box for me 😉 Let’s take a look inside together!

In the box, we get an A6 daily planner with a beautiful yet simple mountain-type design, similar to the front of the box. We also get 3 birthday greeting cards with fittingly designed envelopes, an A5 art print which I like the most out of all we have gotten from Papergang this year! Last but not least we got some sticker markers with different designs and 6 differently colored felt tip markers.

I am very happy with this box, everything can be used together and I like the designs and earth colors they used very much 🙂 Like I said the print is my favorite up till now and the sun going up and down in the sticker marks is pretty cute 😛 What is a bit disappointing are the felt tip markers, they are very reminiscent of the german Stabilo markers, but they feel a bit cheap compared to those. Having “Papergang” written on them has a nice touch, but not if it’s in exchange for quality, you know? Aside from that, there is nothing to complain about 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

October 6

No subscription boxes anymore…

… at least not the ones you are used to by now :/ Today I want to write about something that I find very sad, but which also made me very angry last week. I actually received multiple packages for which I had to pay the post-delivery service for custom taxes I did not know about. As a student, I don’t have that much money and since I had bought many packages recently, I had to pay almost 100euros just for taxes. You can imagine that if I would have known about it, I would not have bought so much in the first place. Let me tell you what exactly the problem is and why it looks like I won’t be able to get any more of my beloved subscription boxes in the future…

Since I know that my readers are scattered all over the world, I know that tax problems are not the same for everyone. But I am sure you all have heard about the Brexit situation that was going on for the last 3 years or so. Basically, some politicians in the UK joked about making a public vote about if the UK should stay part of the EU or not. After that joke, they could not take it back anymore and the public vote actually forced them to exit the European Union. You might think it’s not a big deal if they are part of it or not, but it actually is because countries within the EU have special rules applied to them, benefits so to say which do not get granted to other countries. For example, as a person living in any EU country, you can travel and even move in between other EU countries without having to apply for a visa ever.

Another benefit is that you don’t have to pay certain taxes, mainly at the different countries customs, making trading in between countries just easier for everyone. And when the UK had forced itself to make the decision to leave the EU, they tried to still keep some of the benefits and they tried to assure everyone inside and outside of the country that they would not have to face many problems because of it. They would try to make trading treaties and such with the country leaders and the private person who wants to buy something, will not feel a difference. Well, I felt it and it’s a big one.

Basically because of all of these promises they made and treaties they wanted to get, the whole process of the UK leaving the EU took much longer than expected and for the normal person, it got really hard to tell what was decided on and when it will be an official law. The media did not even report on the Brexit news anymore, because people were tired of hearing it, and also nothing seemed to change for some reason. But in July this year, something seemingly did change and I did not know about it. Basically, it seems as if the treaty for trading and not paying customs, which they had talked about would to be a problem, did not get to be made, meaning that you now have to pay the normal taxes for any package from the UK which you have to pay for a package from any other country.

My biggest problem actually is, that no one informed me about that. I have a year-long subscription to the paper gang stationary box and neither in my emails nor on their website have they ever informed any of their EU members about the change. Which I find very unfair because I would basically have to pay 10-20euros more for it now, per month. And it’s not the only subscription I have! Being so positively surprised about the Artfulboxes I also made a year-long subscription to them JUST RECENTLY. If I had known about it earlier I would have not done it and I feel scammed in a way.

You might think, July is over 2 months past, why did you just learn about it? Well if you follow my paper gang reviews you know that even before July there were some problems with the delivery of the boxes. It always seemed to have been a different problem, but it often lead to my boxes either arriving later or not arriving at all(being replaced). So I actually have not gotten any boxes for the last 2 months because of what I thought was a similar problem again. I also was not worried about it, because I thought it would be able to be solved like the other delivery problems were. And again, nobody told me about what was wrong, so there were no steps for me to take.

Sadly all of the boxes I have received up to now and a new box I will be receiving soon(but had to cancel for the future already) are shipped from the UK. Meaning that if the companies themselves won’t find a solution, I can’t afford to get them anymore. While writing this post, I am about to ask the Company OhDeer about why everything happened the way it happened and if they plan on taking any further actions or not. Depending on when they answer, I will update this post. Wish me luck I guess, but sadly I am not hopeful 🙁

UPDATE: Actually the customer service at OhDeer never seems to disappoint! They have gotten back to me very quickly, apologizing for the chaos and trying to explain to me that they might have actually found a solution to the tax problems! I assume they either did not tell their customers about it because they wanted to solve the problem ASAP, hopefully without anyone noticing, or because they would actually not have known how much everyone has to pay because it seems to be different in every EU country. Either way, I think they should have told people about it, just to prepare for chaos like the one we are in now. But I guess everyone makes mistakes and since they are trying everything to make it up to us customers again, I think we can forgive them 🙂

As I have just mentioned they seemed to have found a solution to the tax problem by finding a delivery service which lets them take care of any extra costs instead of us the customers. In my case, that would mean that since there are no custom taxes to pay, the mailperson won’t have to get it from the custom center so technically I should be charged nothing in the end, which is what I had paid for in the beginning, right? So I am pretty happy IF everything works out the way they explained it to me. I will definitely keep you updated, reaaaaally looking forward to the October box now. Hopefully, I will be able to keep my subscriptions, at the least the ones at OhDeer. But if anything changes, I’ll let you know!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

October 4

Papergang Box August 2021

After many many troubles, about which I might even make a post on its own, my august Papergangbox FINALLY arrived! Actually, I have not that much to say about it, other than I really like the colorful block design on the front, let’s take a look inside!

In this month’s box we have an A4-ish Notebook with lined pages, an orange pencils case with a chunky metal zipper, a pack of A5 sticker sheets in 2 different designs, a ballpoint pen with black ink, and 3 erasers with rounded edges 3 different marble effects and printed quotes.

I have to say that I am VERY happy to finally have gotten a pencil case for all of the pencils I got in my previous boxes. To be honest, if we view it as a year-long subscription, I would have liked the pencil case earlier, to be able to store everything I will get from early on. But asidefrom that, I have no complaints about it, the pencil case feels very nice, it looks great and it’s spacious^^

Let’s talk about the other items in this box 😉 I do like the marble design of the erasers very much and I know quotes are kinda OhDeers signature trade, having them on books, pencils, and erasers for sure, but I feel like the marble design would have been cool on its own. I do like the design of the ballpoint pen too, even though it feels a bit cheaper than other supplies from them and I would have loved a marble design on it too^^

What is really confusing to me is the notebook, because when I saw the sticker sheet I thought of bullet journaling, which was (or is?) a great idea for a boxes theme! Even though I would have liked some more pens to highlight text or use different colors for headers and stuff. But what I would really need is a BLANK notebook, to be fully free in the designs I want to make, to stick my stickers everywhere I want. With the lined notebook we got, I feel somewhat restrained, because I can’t use all the space exactly as I want, without the lines guiding. And bullet journaling for me is all about not being guided and doing my own thing.

So, the theme, if there was one, seemed a bit lose to me. If it was about bullet journaling we have not got enough pens and the wrong notebook. If it was about taking notes in general, I feel like the stickers are too detailed. And why do we have cool erasers but no graphite pencil to go with them? Maybe I am searching for something again, which is not even there intentionally, which would be a wasted opportunity for me. But all in all, I was still very happy about the box, mostly because I finally got my pencil case 😉

And do you remember the “extras” I was promised for the delay of my packages, this one in particular? Well, I think that I have gotten them, but they are not what I had expected. I guess I should not complain about free stuff and I do like some of it, I just had something different in mind. I got 4 different cards for different occasions, I love the fox the most but sadly can’t give the card to myself, right? xD I also got one very random pen with a random quote, but it has a very small tip, which is very interesting!
But I do have to say, I like the cards that we get in the Papergangbox, in general, the least from everything, because you can’t do anything with them, you can’t create something because it has already been created. So getting 3 different cards as an extra to make up for the stress I had recently did not really sit that well with me. Still, I take it and I will find someone I can send the cards to. And since I am currently in contact with them anyway, talking about compensations for different problems, I hope to be satisfied in the end. Because their customers service never let me down up till now 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

August 25

Over half a year of Papergang boxes!

When you are following my blog for at least a month, you might have seen that I am doing a monthly review of a subscription box called Papergang by OhDeer. It’s a box that gets a new design and content every time and I have had a one-year subscription for a little over half a year now. So I thought I might give you my first thoughts about what I liked and what I did not like so far. Keep in mind there are still 5 boxes coming(while I am writing this review), so they still have time to improve upon some things. But let’s start with the impressing stuff!

Impressing stuff
This monthly subscription box was the first one of its kind that I ever got. Even though I really love the concept of it, I think they might not be as popular in Germany, which is why many have never heard of them before. I can’t even remember how I got to know about this box in particular, but I am very glad that I did! I do love stationery and art and this box combines them both and it feels like the people behind it are very passionate about what they do and with whom they work together.

I love that the box is designed in a way, that it fits into a regular mailbox with no problem. Especially since the pandamic hit, I really hate taking on parcels personally, so I love to send them to special package stations in Germany. The only problem is, that these package stations can only be open by the customer and the workers of DHL, the biggest german mail company. Meaning that if I get something from outside the country, which is not shipped with DHL, I can’t let it be delivered to one of those stations. So having it fit into my mailbox is almost as good, if not even better, because I only have to go check my mail, to get it out 😉

I had some troubles with getting the boxes shipped to me in the first place, which might sound like a bad thing, but it’s actually nothing the people over at OhDeer can be blamed for. It often was a customs problem, in the time where the UK was leaving the EU and some parcels just got missing. But the customer service at the Papergangs HQ, has never let me down. They answered emails fairly quickly and always tried to either explain to me what happened and calm me down, or got to work on a solution right away. And as of now, all the missing parcels were replaced without a problem.

Things to improve upon
Sadly I have to say that not everything worked out as expected. What got me into wanting a year-long subscription of the Papergang boxes for 2021, were the pictures I saw of the boxes from 2020. Mainly the October and November boxes got me hyped up and very sad about not getting one of them! They were not only beautifully designed but also packed with great stuff, on some pictures I was even surprised to see how many things fit into such a small box. And I know, there should not be quantity over quality, but I feel like both of these things have gone somewhat down.

What I mostly miss in the boxes is a theme, a thought behind why exactly these stationaries were chosen for a particular box. Are they part of a kind of letter set, that I can use to write my penpals? Or are they part of a note-taking set, an office supply set, and so on. Because oftentimes, especially with the last 3 boxes, it felt as if they would have just randomly put together some stationary, put a unique design over it and call it a day. As I said in my reviews, stationery is never too much, I will always find a use for a pen, or a notepad, or something similar. But the boxes just don’t get me as excited anymore, if it just feels like I am getting random supplies. I really hope they can improve upon that with their last 5 boxes of the year because that will really be the tipping point for me to decide if I want to get another subscription of them or not.

This last point might be a bit contradictory to the last point I spoke about in the “impressive things” category because it’s again about shipping and customers service. As I am writing this review, my august box has still not arrived and it’s less than a week till the next month(as of me writing the review, might post it later :P). But I knew that would happen because I got an email saying that some shipping errors arose again and my parcel will only be shipped at the end of august or the beginning o September. Someone took responsibility for it this time and promised some “extra gifts” to compensate for the inconvenience. Now I have not received these gifts, but I really hope they will be there in the first place. Because even though I can understand why the shipping errors happened at the time of the Brexit, it does kinda get annoying when it happens over and over again. And before this email, I got nothing to compensate for it. So I guess if they really will be following up on this email, it will an improvement, if not, I know what to talk about in my full years’ review of the boxes 😉

Final Thoughts
The Papergang got me into subscriptions in general, which I am super happy about and grateful for. But I have to say at this point, I am already thinking about if it would make sense to keep up my subscription or to use my money on another one next year. Just because the excitement I got in the beginning, did not really last until now. And like I said, I think that’s because of the “randomness” that I get with many of the boxes. When the next 5 will be better, I will change my mind and I would gladly do so. Because I still really love the idea behind the boxes, not only just repackaging some products and shipping them, but designing them, working with artists, making it a very unique experience. That’s what I bought my subscription for, that’s what I loved seeing the old boxes. So please Papergang, fill me with this excitement again!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

July 21

Review of the Artful Box: Calligraphy

If everything goes according to plan, you have already read my review on this quarters Artfulbox with the theme: Watercolor. If you have not, but want to, just click on the unterlined text to get there 😉 If you are new to this: Artful is a quarterly subscription box from the UK, made by OhDeer the same people that came up with the Paperganboxes! Due to some Brexit issues most of my subcription boxes from April-Mai got lost in the mail, so did this one, which is why I am reviewing it only now. Gladly I got a replacement for all of my boxes and I was especially looking forward to this one, because I already have some experience on the fiel of Calligraphy and Handlettering. Though I have to say that the box itself does not really match it’s contents, I think Calligraphy has nothing to do with the ocean and fish, so I was a bit confused at first. The Artwork is great of course, but I would not have choosen it for this theme. But enough talk about the outside, let’s take a look inside!

Inside of the box: Many diffrent colored tombow markder lay beside a pencil and an earaser, ontop of a small book and blank greetingcards.

The box was made together with the company Tombow from Japan, which is a well established brand in the community of letter art and it’s actually diffrent from the newest Box where they made their very own supplies. Just something I have noticed, maybe getting what is needed for a good watercolor set was easier than making theirown brushpens or it was a matter of money and they just had more to put into the watercolors box 😉
In this box we get 8 Tombow Dual Brushpens in a very limited color scheme(we don’t get a yellow for example), 5 Tombow Twin-Tone Dual Tipmarkers, a Tombow MONO Ereaser and a HB graphite lead pencil, aswell as an A4 Bristol 250gsm drawing pad and 4 blank greeting cards plus envelopes.
Let’s talk about the 112 page magazine! Structuerwise it does not make a lot of sense to me… The table of contents begins on page 10 after a “the brief history of typography” and an editors note, after which the first thing we see is a making off of the boxart itself. A making off is always intresting to me, but not when I waited to get into the process of creating art, after waiting so long to get my box. Then comes the first interview and a tutorial which has nothing to do with Calligraphy or Hand Lettering at all. On page 30 we get the first glimpse of what creating letter art could look like with the first tutorial of blending colors together. But that also is a bit nonsensical because we get to know about the basics of how to use the brushpens and how to create letter art on page 50 and 66! Please tell me what was the thought behind that…? I guess you could argue that the box was not meant for beginners, but if that’s true we would not have needed the basic tutorials at all and could have used the space for some more interviews and advanced tutorials. Maybe they wanted to show first, what different kinds of letter arts could look like, but I don’t think they made the right call here and for a beginner that might even be a bit overwhelming. I know they already got better in the next box, so I don’t want to complain about it too much, since they seems to have noticed their errors, but I still wanted to mention it.

Collage of the before mentioned book with text that says "Let's learn about calligraphy + other stuff" on the right and on the left it's a picture of the bristol paperpad from tombow.

As I said in the beginning I have some experience when it comes to this topic, which is why I was confused again. When I think of Calligraphy I think of quill pens with metal nips tipped in ink, sliding across the paper. But I have to say, that’s western-style Calligraphy over in some Asian countries Calligraphy was always done with brushes. Calligraphy itself might be a kind of umbrella term, describing the art or lettering. So I would say they did nothing wrong with the title, but I would have loved to maybe let it be more specific. Because what we got in the box, were supplies for what I and many others call Hand Lettering. The difference for me really lies in the supplies you are working with and the different techniques you can use because of it. You can’t do the same strokes with a brush of course, that you can do with a metal nib and vice versa. I can’t really speak for Asian Countries and if their traditional style of Calligraphy is different from that, like maybe what I think is traditional western Calligraphy is, is using metal nibs and old fonds, recreating the traditional feel of it. Maybe traditional Asian Calligraphy is using special brushes, with only black ink, which might be why they too would say the supplies given are more for a modern type of Calligraphy. For me both of these types of letter art are cool, so I am okay with getting some great Tombow supplies, but I think some people might expect something different and get disappointed because of it, so maybe boxes like this could use a longer title like “Modern Calligraphy” or “Calligraphy: Hand Lettering”. And I would also love if maybe traditional wester and Asian Calligraphy could maybe be a future boxes topic 😉
The tutorials themselves are interesting, I will separate them into tutorials for beginners, advanced techniques, and tutorials that are not tied to the topic. The tutorials for beginners are very good, you can’t really go wrong with that, to be honest. But I would have loved to maybe get a separate sheet to practice on(there is one in the magazine, but maybe a separate one would have been better, since who likes to write in books, right?), since I to this day struggle with what the right amount of pressure to put on the brush to get he result I am imgaining. I think especially for beginners that can’t be hard and a sheet like that can always be very helpful.
The more advance tutroials would be the ones talking about blending and using the special twin-tone markers, since that’s not something a beginner need to learn ASAP. You can go a long way just with the basics and being creative 😉 Since I have never worked with the twin-tonw markers before, I am looking forward to creating something with the help of the tutorials.
The last typ of tutorials kinda used the brushpens in diffrent way to create drawings. Of course, you can use your brushpens for drawing, but including these tutorials felt like as if the people behind the box though using the markers only for lettering purposes did not do them enough justice. The lettering is not “real art” or something like that. I really did not get the need behind including them if I am honest. We could have used some more inspiration or maybe diffrent alphabeth and fonds to copy better, especially for beginners, but I am also up for learning new alphabeths even though I am lettering for some time now.

With my last box, I tried to make a greeting card for someone’s birthday and since many people’s birthdays are coming up, I made another one with this box too! For this one, I used the twin-tone markers and the faux calligraphy technique. I have to say I really like the bright colors(which we have not gotten with the big Tombow markers) but I might have used them wrong… when going over a certain spot multiple times, the paper flacked very fast, which was quite surprising to me, since it was specially chosen for this box. But I have to say, it might be a user error, still something I wanted to mention. The tutorial on how to use them did not help me much since actually the person in the “tutorial” also used them for the first time xD And the “tutorial” was more about using the thin tip for outlining and the bigger one for coloring in the lettering art. So I have to say it was not very helpful :/ The other tutorial about putting a shadow behind the letter, was as helpful to be honest. It basically goes like this:
1. Write a word(not showing hot to do that with the brush pen the best way)
2. Put shadow behind it in different colors.
3. Done
I have to say I am a bit disappointed since that’s kinda what I could come up with myself, a tutorial would really take its time to guide me through the process step by step more, especially when I either have problems using the brush pens or have never used them before. I felt kinda let down. But I am still kinda happy with the card I have made, maybe I can put some more details in later, but I really like the colors, I have to say I rarely work with them, so it was nice to do that for a change.

Greetingcard done by me with the paper and diffrent pens from the box. It has a white backround and a text in tghe middle saying "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag"(meaning Happy Birthday in German). Left and right of the text are two party canon that fire simply drawn streamers and confetti. — “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag” is the long version of german people saying “Happy BIrthday” 😛

All in all, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the box. The supplies we got were high quality, but I can’t really understand why we got those limited colors for example(still kinda mad about not getting a yellow), why there was no blending pen or a sheet of a practice alphabet. It just kinda feels a bit random to me. As random as the order of the chapters in the magazines, to be honest xD The whole box did not feel very thought through or maybe put together by someone, who does not enjoy Calligraphy very much. Maybe that’s why I am so disappointed in it, because Calligraphy is something I always liked to do, which is why I was looking forward to it so much! But I have to say again, this box came out before the watercolor one and it feels like they found and fixed many of the mistakes they made in this box like for example having a more structured magazine and less random supplies! So I will keep an eye on future boxes and their themes and I will definitely try another one sometime in the future 🙂 So you too should maybe not only judge them on this particular box and keep an eye on them, if you are interested in the general idea of these boxes! Now that I think about it, I am quite happy that I accidentally bought the watercolor box too, so that I was able to review both of them and see how the company has improved^^

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

July 7

Review of the Artful Box: Watercolor

I am back with another mystery/ subscription box review, this time it’s all about the Artful box, which is done by the same people who do the Papergang boxes too, so I had to test it out eventually 😉 The concept of both boxes is pretty similar, only that in the Artful box instead of stationery you get art supplies for a certain project and you don’t get it every month but one box every quarter of the year. I did not have the money for it in the first quarter of 2021, so I had now reordered the box and got it shipped in May.
Sadly same way with my Papergang boxes, there was a shipping/ delivery problem that led to the box that was shipped in May being lost. I did get sent a replacement box of course, but in the whole chaos, I kinda overlooked that instead of just buying one box, I actually made a subscription, so I got sent the next box already too. But to be honest, I am not mad about it, since it also sounds very interesting. Let’s have a look at it together!
So many things can be considered art, so there are many possibilities of what could be inside an Artful box. The people behind it thought it would be the best idea to highlight a certain type of art with every box, focus solely on that, and give the best supplies needed to start a project. This Mai box’s theme was Hand Lettering, which I actually did some years ago, so it was a great box for me to restart an old Hobby! The next box I got has watercolors as its theme and since the watercolor box actually arrived first, I will also review it first 😉

Insides of the box: a small glas container with white liquid, a blue box, a big aquarallpaper pad with an orange cover, blank greetingscards and a light blue metalcase for the watercolors.

The box came with a set of 24 watercolor half pans, a 29.5ml masking fluid bottle, special watercolor paper, 4 blank greeting cards, 5 different brushes, a pencil such as a pipette, and a 100 pages magazine with tips and tricks. The book was actually what I was interested the most in since the last time I painted with watercolors was in primary school and I absolutely hated it. I really hoped to get new motivation and learn new techniques which helped me use this type of art in a different way. The artwork on the book and within is very pretty, they even show how to draw one of my favorite animals a red panda! They start with some pages of general information about watercolors, assuming that you don’t know anything about it, which was great for me! But this information only uses up about 10 pages in the book, so if you already know how to work with it, you could start right away and still have enough input and ideas for your new projects 😉 So only judging from the book, I would say the box is both beginner-friendly, but also useful and interesting for people who search for art prompts, step-by-step guides, or interviews with artists who work with that particular craft.

Photo shows the metalcase from the inside, it's white, has 3 sides with diffrenty patterns and you can take the colors out one by one.

Like I mentioned, working with watercolors always felt like a chore to me, since it was the go-to color technique in almost all of my art classes and I still never seemed to fully master it. I also don’t think we were really introduced to how to work with them properly. For example, I never heard of a masking fluid before, even though it does sound like a cool way of creating certain patterns and would have been surely helpful!
As I am writing this part of the review, I still have not used the art supplies yet, but I wanted to let you know what I am planning on doing and later I can tell you if it has worked out of not 😉 I am actually a bit scared to try the very professional-looking animal drawings in the magazine and wanted to try something more abstract first. Since I also like to design greetings cards for my friends and family and there were some birthdays recently, I wanted to play around for a bit with the blank cards and use the watercolors to create an interesting background. Sadly there seems to be no real chapter on how to do that, only on some blending ideas in general. So I guess I will have to look for some other tutorials on the Internet. Maybe a small negative point: I would have loved to not only see realistic drawings, but some guides create abstract art too.

Close up of the artsupplies in from the blue bos: brushes, a pencil and a cartrage.

When starting to use the appliance from the box, I opted for watching videos on youtube in the end instead of using the magazine itself. I just learn better with visual input and the guides in the books were a bit too advanced for me. I watched a video by Shayda Campbell and tried to recreate a flower greeting card she made, testing out different colors and trying to blend them together.
One of the things I learned right away is that the colors are way more potent than anything I have used before! When using watercolors at school, we would mix them in the pan with the pigment itself and put it on paper, repeating the process over and over when the brush was dry again. With these watercolors, I take a bit of it on my brush, use the pipette to get some water on the mixing palate, and mix the puddle with my brush. Then I use this puddle for my illustrations and I only use the color again, when I am mixing a new one. It might sound kinda dumb to you, if you have worked with good watercolors before, of course, that’s how you would use it, right? But I have never done that, so it was all new to me xD What I realized because of it is that the half pans you get, which might seem very small at first, last longer than expected^^
The brushes felt like very good quality, but when working with watercolors, the liquid has a mind of its own. So even though they did not shed, but glide over the paper, the water often finds its own way xD If you will be more trained to use it, things like that won’t happen that often I guess, but for a beginner like me, it was not avoidable. The paper was really great to work with too! I did use a lot of water on it, because I wanted to try out different techniques and it never leaked or ripped, it only warped a bit, nothing some heavy books couldn’t fix. I did not get to test out the masking fluid, since it felt a bit too advanced for me yet, but I still appreciate having it in there for future use, when I got better 😉

Picture shows a greetingcard done by me, with diffrent colored flowers, vines and a text saying "Alles Gute"(german for Good wishes). — It’s was a birthday card, “Alles Gute” means “Good Wishes” in German^^

I would say I was pleasantly surprised by the box! The contents were very high quality, though all of them are produced especially for the box, which some people seem to be mad about(they even talk about it in the magazine). The way I understood it, there are certain brands being associate with “good art” and if you use any other brand, your art might not turn out as good, in some people’s opinion. I can’t really speak for them, since I have not used many different art brands when it comes to watercolor, but I would say it’s always good to try out new things 😉 And what I can say is, that the contents: brushes, colors, and paper were lightyears better than everything I have worked with so far and I can highly recommend it^^ The magazine itself is pretty interesting, especially the interviews, the guides are a bit to advances for a beginner. Of course, you could say that this box is just not made for beginners, but I do think it’s made to suit everyone. They are releasing a new box every quarter and it’s all about learning new things, so maybe there should be more projects for people beginning the craft. So I am looking forward to using my next box!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Artful, Mystery Box, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

June 11

Papergangbox April 2021

You all might be wondering where the post for the Aprils Papergang box went or why it was missing: The reason actually was that my Papergang box for April got lost in the mail :/ But the nice people over at OhDeer helped me out and send me a replacement box which arrived today(the 02.06.2021)! So now we can take a look into what we got together 😉 Enjoy!

Cover of the box from April 2021 with the words "Papergang By OhDeer" in golden foil.

This month was a bit special since 4 different designed boxes were sent out. I got the one with the orange dots, if you want to see some of the other designs check out Papergangs Instagram Channel^^ But even though the outside of the boxes was different, the contents were the same for everyone! We got 16 letters with the 4 different designs the boxes were designed in too, 32 letter sheets in different colors a small stencil made out of metal with some geometric shapes, a 60 sheet sticky notepad(also with the 4 different designs on it), 2 transparent penicils filled with rainbow gel ink and last but not least a washi tape 🙂

Inside of the box with a notepad that says "Hello it's me", a template with diffrent geomatric shapes, diffrently designed envelopes, a chalcered wahitape, a checkered sticky notepad and some pens.

I have to say when I saw the designs of the boxes on Instagram I was not very hyped, since they looked very geometrical and I just thought April’s box will not be for me. Geometrical is not my style which is why the washi tape and the stencil impressed me the least, even though I like that the stencil is made out of metal! All the stencils I own are made out of cheap plastic, unfortunately, so I guess they have at least somewhat impressed me with that 😉 There is always a use for sticky notes, no matter the design or size, so I won’t complain about them at all xD The idea behind the rainbow ink in the gel pens is cool too since you will first write in purple, then pink, blue, green, orange, and yellow until the pen is drained. But what I would have liked better(and I have no idea if that is even possible to do with gel pens) is writing in rainbow colors the whole time. Do you know these pencils which look like a colorblind test at the tip? They change colors way quicker and back again and I love the effect that creates! And I kinda expected that when I saw this pen, but of course it works a bit differently 😛 Still, a cool idea to not only have a one colored pen^^

Photo shows only the four envelopes your are getting in the box. The one on the upper left say "oh hi" and is mostly white with some blue boxes. The one on the upper right has a white backround with big organe circles on it and the text "happy mail". On the lower left the envelop has a white backround with orange stripes from left to right and up to down, creating big white boxes, the text says "greeting." the last one has blu strips from left to right and says "hello".

I do really like the envelopes, especially the blue one which says “Oh hi”, I don’t know why it just made me smile 🙂 The only problem I have with those in the size. I already own a letter set from Papergang(from the November box 2020) so I have already used them and they are quite strange. I measured them just for you and they are 8x16cm, for comparison a normal envelope would be 12,5×23,5cm 😉
Of course, the letter sheets are a perfect match for those small-sized envelopes, so there is no problem there, but you can’t write as much, without using many sheets. Maybe that’s just a problem for people who like to write long letters like me, for others they might just be cute 😉 The letter sheets themselves fit better into this month than they would have in April since they are bright-colored in almost rainbow-like order 😛 But we only have yellow, blue, pink and orange, which still look very intense and very great. I think I never owned such colorful lettering paper and I will definitely use it soon!

This is a GIF of the letter blog, shwoing the diffrent coulors the papers come in. From last to first: yellow, blue, pink, orange.

So, all in all, I can say this box pleasantly surprised me with its colorful theme and I am glad that I have got a replacement. The may’s box also has not arrived yet, but I hope it will come soon 😉 If it’s there I’ll let you all know!

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT