There’s something so evocative about autumn time- the smell of the cool air, the leaves cascading down from the trees and blowing about in the chilly wind, in truth the entire sensorial experience reminds me of childhood and puts a nostalgic, tender smile on my face as I snuggle up in my scarf and other sartorial layers.  It calls forth thoughts of Halloween costumes, attending the local Ragamuffin Parade with the other little ones dressed as ghouls and monsters, getting hot chocolate with girlfriends during our high school free periods, and… standardized exams???

Yes- standardized exams, indeed.  With school in full swing during this first semester of the year, my thoughts also inevitably lead to the stressful memories of flashcards, cramming, late-night tears, and those godforsaken little bubbles.  A, B, C, D…. my sentimental smile abruptly fades.

For all of those of you or your loved ones who are studying for exams right now, be them high school entrance exams, (P)SATs, GRE’s, LSATs, etc.: I have been there friends.  Having been in school since the ripe old age of six months and as a currently enrolled graduate student, I assure you all that I have taken my fair share of standardized tests. Thankfully, they did not start quite at the age of six months, however the quantity and frequency with which they occurred from middle school onwards surely made up for the lost time.  Lately we’ve been having many people come in asking for pencils specifically to take these stressful tests with, so as the resident academic of the pencil shop I’d like to share with you all some of what we consider to be excellent HB/ #2 pencils for taking- and conquering- these exams.  They all feature quality erasers tips, unique designs, and their own personal quirks which  make them great for test taking and studying.

Tombow 2558 HB- this pencil, designated for “General Writing,” happens to be one of my favorites for every day general use.  This HB is a bit softer than your average American #2, due to the Japanese tendency to put a bit of polymer in the graphite, lending it a smooth, silky quality perfect for much continuous writing and bubble filling during a condensed period of time.  Thus, no hand cramps with this lovely model.

For similar reasoning, I’m including a Kita-boshi model aptly named the Academic Writing pencil. As with many Japanese pencils, this one is assigned a designated activity, and it is in fact great for academic purposes.  It, like the 2558, will feel like a slightly softer HB while still producing minimal smudging and also features a quality eraser.  Plus, it’s burgundy coloring pairs stunningly with its shiny silver ferrule and white eraser tip.

Craft Design Technology- these store favorites are undeniably cool looking, with their sleek mint coloring and unique circular white eraser.  However, quality is not sacrificed for aesthetics with the CDT.  Actually, the point of these pencils is firm yet still dark and their erasing efficiency is above par, traits which make them ideal for test taking (as well as crossword puzzles, general writing, anything really).

In the theme of Japanese design, I would also suggest the Palomino HB’s.  Although distributed by the California-based Palomino company, these pencils are manufactured in Japan, where many of today’s top quality models hail from.  Similarly, this pencil features a firm yet dark graphite.  Together with its good point retention and fun blue or orange color scheme, it is a great pencil to get you through those multiple choice questions and/or essay prompts.

Looking for a classic yellow pencil for exam time?  Consider the Caran d’Ache Yellow School Pencil.  Think of it as the updated, slightly sexier traditional writing utensil from your school days.  Unlike the green of most yellow #2’s, the graphics on this model are a shiny gold, and the eraser white instead of the original pink.

To conclude, with any of these pencils you’ll have a great quality, efficient accompaniment to your exams.  Plus, with any of these cool, handsome designs, you’re sure to be the envy of your other test takers.  Godspeed, fellow academics.  All of us pencil ladies are sending you good luck and positivity! 

We launched Pencil Of The Month back in June as a way to introduce you to exciting and interesting writing utensils that may be new to your pencil cups. It's been great fun selecting each month's special pencil and packaging, and we love to see your excellent photos of subscriptions month after month. 

Despite the joy we know this brings to you and us, we've made a difficult decision about POTM: beginning December 21, 2015, we will no longer accept new subscriptions for Pencil Of The Month. It's simply become too much for us to handle, and we want to allocate our time and pencil resources to offering new and exciting things to our store. We are so sorry for any disappointment this may cause! 

Here are some additional details:

1) If you are a current subscriber (those who have a subscription that currently continues into 2016) and would like to add months on to your existing subscription before POTM ends, we are allowing you to add an additional 6 months to the end of your current subscription. If you'd like to do so, simply purchase the 6 month subscription option and please note when you check out that you are purchasing a subscription add-on. If you do not note that you are purchasing an add-on, we will treat it as a new subscription (which means you'd receive two subscription packages for any overlapping months). Additionally, all one-year subscription purchases will be treated as new subscribers. If you have any questions about this, please email us. 

2) New subscriptions purchased on or before December 21, 2015 will receive their first box in January (please note that due to the New Year's holiday, shipping may be a couple days later than normal). 

We're sad to be ending this but thrilled that we'll have more time to focus on other fun pencil things. Don't worry--we'll be designating a Pencil of the Month still, just in a different format! 

If you have any questions about subscriptions, email us at cwpencils@gmail.com

Love,
Your Pencil Ladies

We may be too old to trick-or-treat but that's not going to stop us from dressing up for work on Halloween. Caitlin and I decided a while ago that we really had no choice but to be pencils. There's not much on such a costume online so we but our crafty hats on and made it up ourselves. And it's SO easy! You just to pick a pencil, raid your wardrobe and hit the art supply store for a few things that'll cost you less than $10. 

1. Pick a pencil! I decided to be a vintage Eagle Black Warrior and Caitlin chose an Eberhard Faber Mongol. As my pencil is black, I'm wearing all black clothes with the pencil text painted on my leggings (I just used a heavy acrylic paint). Caitlin managed to find a yellow dress in her closet and bought yellow tights to which she'll glue felt text. 

2. You'll need shoes the color of the eraser on your pencil (probably pink) and socks the color of the ferrule. Caitlin found gold and silver socks at Forever 21 for a mere $3.99. Both of our pencils have colored bands, so we're just going to attach appropriately colored foil around our ankles. 

3. Now for the most crucial part, the pencil tip! For this you'll need heavy paper close to the color of pencil wood, a pencil, double sided tape and scissors. 

- Cut your paper in a half-circle (I chose Canson Mi-teintes in Honeysuckle, it's the closest color I could find at my local craft store). You can kind of wing this step and trim it depending on how long you want your point to be. 

- Once you've trimmed your point down to the desired size/shape don't tape it yet! I used removeable washi tape to temporarily tape it (not entirely necessary) so I could draw where my point will go. 

- Lay the cut paper flat and color in the tip of it with a pencil. I used a Caran d'Ache Black Wood because it's dark and jumbo so I could cover more surface area more easily. You may need to layer it a few times to make it super dark.

- At this point be very careful when touching the tip--you'll get graphite everywhere! If you have some hairspray handy you can give it a light spritz to help set it. 

- Now you'll re-construct your point and tape it with double sided tape from the inside and the outside. Scotch double-sided tape is surprisingly strong and permanent. 

You can just wear it has a hat if it fits well or punch holes in the sizes and tie it to your head. Tip: if you're punching holes, use re-enforcers so it won't rip! 

Start to finish, it took me about 1 1/2 hours to complete my entire costume. We'll be sure to post photos of the completed looks tomorrow but until then, enjoy Halloween and don't eat too much candy!

Summer's long gone, but the pages of volume 3 of our test station books are helping us keep sunny day vibes in mind. Check out these neat doodles from this test book! 

Accurate  representation of our Classroom Friendly sharpeners:

How cute are these little kitties? (I spy a CatBug in there too!)

So fetch:

Summery figures:

How gorgeous is this handwriting? 

Really digging these doodles:

A summer poem:

Here's what it looks like when you test every pencil in the test drawers:

Now don't you want to come and add some scribbles of your own? Happy doodling!

Love,
Caitlin

Q: Tell us about yourself 

A: I am 9 years old, but you know that and I live next door and I like living next to a pencil store. 

Q: What do you like about living next to a pencil store? 

A: I like coming every day and just that it's a pencil store because most other stores that sell pencils sell other stuff too. 

Q: What are your favorite pencils?

A: I like the Faber-Castell Grip 2001 because it has the bumps for the grip and it writes smoothly. I also like the General's Cedar Pointe #2. I like that it also writes smoothly but it's also not that hard. I also like the feel and the smell. The eraser is really good too. 

Q: What's your favorite pencil for school/homework? 

A: I like the CWPE store business card pencil because it's just soft enough. 

Q: Advice for people who hate pencils? 

A: I would tell them that pencils are sometimes easier because if you put it in your bag it might break but you can sharpen it. If you put a pen in your bag and it breaks, it might leak on everything. They also erase! 

Q: What's your favorite thing to do with a pencil?

A: Writing stories for my homework and drawing with pencils. Some pencils make lighter marks and it's nice because you can erase it. 

Q: What have you learned from being a neighbor of the pencil shop? 

A: I have learned that when it says #2 on a pencil it's not just about how light or dark it is but how soft the lead is. I also know a lot of pencil companies now. I organize the test station (editors note: she's a pro at it!). 

Q: Tell me why you love this neighborhood: 

A: I like that there's a park across the street and there are many nice stores around. I like my building and there's a playground across the street that's cool. I ride my bike across the street too. 

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: A pencil lady. Or an artist. Or both. Can I be both? (of course you can!)

Lightning round: 

Plastic eraser or rubber eraser: Rubber

Spring or autumn: Spring

Movies or music: Movies

Pizza or hot dogs: Hot Dogs

Roses or Sunflowers: Roses

Beach or mountain: Mountain

We heart you, Emilia!

We've done a lot of thinking about situations where only a pencil will do. One of them is scoring a baseball game--a tedious American pastime where a good pencil is essential. Caitlin investigated this back in August and challenged me to find a better pencil. In the spirit of the playoffs, here it goes: 

Let me first preface this by stating that I am a life-long Pirates fan. I was there, at Three Rivers Stadium when they were terrible for so long. I was sitting in the outfield at the opening day of PNC Park when it was announced that Willie Stargell had died. I have an original panoramic photo of Forbes Field and the whole team from the 1925 World Series hanging over my fireplace. I am not a fair-weather fan and what I love about being a baseball fan is that baseball fans don't just love their team but more than that, they love the game. And as for that game on Wednesday--I am 100% willing to admit that the Cubs deserved the win. 

So, we had established previously that for scoring baseball the pencil should ideally be dark, really erasable and have maximum point retention (because who has time to sharpen between plays?). And of course, the pencil gets bonus points if it coordinates with your team's colors. 

Based on this criteria, I chose the Tombow     2558 HB, the General's Supreme #1 and the   Calepino Yellow #2 Pencil (simply because it is EXACTLY Pirates colors). 

I started with the Calepino because really, it just matched so well. By the end of the first inning I realized that this was not going to be the winner because the eraser on the end isn't great and the point retention wasn't what I needed. There was already a pile of shavings mixed in with peanut shells on the floor. 

Part of the reason I chose the 2558 was because of the eraser. Really, it is one of the very best erasers I've found on the end of a pencil. This one was fine, but again, the point retention left a bit to be desired and my tiny marks were smudging a little bit. I generally love this pencil because it runs soft for an HB and has just about every quality I look for in a general-use pencil. For this purpose though, I consider it simply acceptable. 

At this point, I made the decision that it was indeed a good idea to choose some darker, softer pencils but I regretted not choosing more American pencils. This particular task requires a pencil that has an eraser on the end, which immediately eliminates most of my would-be top choices. Should I have brought the Cedar Pointe, the Try-Rex, or the General's Test Scoring? Maybe it's only right to use a local pencil to score America's game. 

The last pencil I tried was the General's Supreme #1. This one is a great, standard yellow pencil with a soft eraser and slightly softer graphite. It was immediately apparent that this was the best of my three options. Sure, the point retention could be better but I tend to think that about most pencils anyway as I write with a heavy hand. 

Conclusion: If you're going to be scoring baseball this October, you should definitely be using an American-made pencil! Knowing what I know now I'd recommend the newly re-issued General's Cedar Pointe #1. It also doubles as aromatherapy if your team is losing and you need to calm down.

Given the circumstances, I've decided that if I can't have my team I'll choose the Mets, my new hometown team. It doesn't hurt that when you buy a scorecard at a game they give you this cutie:

May the best team win and the best pencil save the day!

This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but I spent a large portion of my childhood doing things like wandering around cemeteries. 

It was only natural then that Caroline would enlist my help in doing a rubbing of German-American pencil magnate Eberhard Faber’s grave following her talk at Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn earlier this month.

Caroline’s pencil of choice for the rubbing was an original 1950’s Blackwing 602, perhaps Eberhard Faber’s most famous pencil that has acquired a cult following after it was discontinued in the 90’s. This presented a couple of potential problems. Believe me when I say I’ve done many grave rubbings over the course of my life, but I’ve actually never used a standard pencil. In my experience they’re usually done with a stick of charcoal, which works because it’s really soft and dark and has a greater surface area than a standard pencil tip.

This is important because you don’t necessarily want precision when you’re doing a grave rubbing - you want to kind of skim the surface of the headstone, picking up the raised designs and passing over the indentations. A pencil is made for precision, so using it in a traditional way isn’t going to produce a good result. I knew I had to get a little creative with my sharpening if I wanted a quality rubbing.

Using a regular X-Acto knife, I shaved one side of the pencil almost completely off, exposing as much of the graphite as I could without the risk of the pencil breaking (about 2 and a half inches). That way, when I was using it for the rubbing I could hold it sideways and it would actually have a similar surface area exposure to a small stick of charcoal. I wasn’t too worried about the consistency of the graphite, as Blackwings are known and loved for their smooth, dark graphite.

Upon reaching Faber’s grave, a large but tasteful obelisk not far from the chapel, I tested out my creation. The customized Blackwing worked perfectly, and I handed it over to Caroline to finish the job. She left with a very nice grave rubbing, and I left with an inflated sense of my own pencil-related talents. 

Eternally yours,

Izzy 

Back to School season feels a bit like a blur - where did the month of August go??

We had lots of fun happenings in the store to close out summer and to kick off the new school year, including designing special CW Pencils patches that are just perfect for a backpack. 

This past weekend we had our in-store Back to School party, complete with fancy decorations and delicious chocolate chip cookies from Sugar Sweet Sunshine (so delicious, in fact, that we ate most of them - Caroline was definitely the cookie eating "winner"). We had a delightful time helping kids fill special pencil pouches with a fresh set of No. 2's to start off their year. 

In that same mindset, we wanted to make sure we spread the pencil joy as far as possible and set up a donation bin of General's Semi Hex pencils during the month of August - for $4.00, customers could donate a dozen and we'd match it and send them to Operation Backpack. In total, we sent 72 dozen pencils! Thanks to everyone who donated (and contributed a pencil to our "wall of fame" pictured above). 

Earlier last week, Racked NY paid a visit to our store and interviewed Caroline, and their wonderful article just went up today! Check it out. Also, completely a surprise to us, The Guardian published this amazing article about the fashion industry and their love affair with stationery, claiming that our humble shop is the place for NY Fashion Week visitors to pilgrimage to (which just makes us feel incredibly cool!). 

And now that Back to School promos are officially done for our store, we are turning our attention to our first outside event: Pencil Passion at the Green-Wood Cemetery. On Sunday, September 13, from 1:00-3:00 p.m., we'll be at the cemetery discussing about the influential east coast pencil industry - specifically, Caroline will give a talk about pencil magnate Eberhard Faber and his legendary Blackwing, and industrialist Joseph Dixon, inventor of the famed Dixon Ticonderoga, both of whom are buried at the Green-Wood Cemetery. We're also going to do an extremely special grave rubbing of Eberhard Faber's grave with an original Blackwing 602! 

Because we'll be hosting this special event, the store will be CLOSED all day Sunday, September 13. If you're hankering for a pencil fix that day, join us at the cemetery! We'll be set up there with some special offerings for the event. 

And after the event, it's crazy, but we're already talking holiday plans and the next things to come for CW Pencil enterprise! So long summer! 

Love,
Caitlin

The start of a new school year is deeply nostalgic, calling to mind days of shiny school shoes, stiff new backpacks, and of course, fresh, unsharpened pencils. We remember the promise of a new grade, our names written on boards in the teacher's elegant cursive, and making first impressions. We asked some of our fans what their favorite back to school memories are (and almost immediately launched into a discussion of 90s nostalgic like Yikes! pencils and Trapper Keeprs), and here are some of our favorites. 

Johnny (of Erasable and Pencil Revolution): "Learning, on the first day of first grade in Catholic school, that A) my name is not Johnny, but John; and B) I have a last name."

Andy (of Erasable and Woodclinched): "Yikes!" 

Michael: "Back to school in Ireland means new Columbus pencils and too-big school uniforms ("You'll grow into it")."

Toffer: "Can I just plagiarize episode two of season five of The Wonder Years? Specifically this scene?"

Caitlin (Deputy Pencil Lady): "My favorite back to school memory was the first day of first grade, hilariously piling in my mom's Geo Metro with my older brother, baby sister, and the two neighbor kids my mom watched daily. Five kids, three car seats, two blocks. I can't remember why we didn't walk! That, and new school outfits - jean skorts and my amazing bowl cut."

Walter: "About back to school, I tend to think of it more of it when I was at Bic, than when I was at school. 7 day weeks, 18 hour days, huge phone bills, but it was fun (some of the time)." 

Caroline (Chief Pencil Lady): "I grew up in rural Ohio so we'd drive 2 hours to the nearest Target just to get the good school supplies. We also got to buy a new outfit for the first day of school. In 5th grade I wore a particularly memorable pantsuit we found on sale at Talbots made out of periwinkle raw silk with little flowers embroidered along the hem. I was an adorable loser."

Emil: "Receiving a handpicked assortment of pencils and goodies from Japan."

Chloe (Pencil Lady):"At my school growing up they gave us a set of pencils with our names embossed on them at the beginning of the academic year in an attempt to encourage our pencil use. When I started working at the shop and I saw the pencil stamping machine and it immediately made me thing of the pencils we received at school. I took it as a sign."

Andre (Neighbor): "Not going to school."

We previously mentioned how much we love browsing through the pages of our test station books and seeing what pops into our customers' heads while they're trying out their new favorite pencil. Here's a peek into the store's second volume of test station pages:

Harry Potter vibes (and a sweet pick me up at the top of the page!):

Cute little characters:

Darling landscapes and tiny people:

Loving these sharks and dragons! 

I feel like this page is eyeballing my pencil choices suspiciously... 

Just lovely! 

Stay tuned for future volumes! (Or, you know, pop in and add some doodles of your own!)

Love,
Caitlin