Hi friends! Soraya here from Yoseka Stationery. I've been at home writing and embroidering but I've been missing the store so much! Read on to learn about how I've been using letter writing to stay connected with my loved ones.  Working as a graphic designer and embroidery artist had turned my hands into keyboards and sewing needles. “I have to write more,” I would say to myself as I picked up my phone and fired off multiple emails. The feeling of pen to paper started feeling foreign to me, almost like a child holding a crayon for the first time....

One of our the newest store additions is Uni-Ball One. The Uni-Ball One is a gel pen with more vivid pigmented gel ink that doesn’t bleed though paper easily. And yesterday we did a test to compare the black color between different pens. Not all of the pens here are gel. Some of the pens are actually oil-based, which you can see a slight metallic reflection in closeup (bottom photo). The Uni-Ball One does have a really dark color, and more vivid color for sure. Most pens have really comparable darkness, with Hi-Tec-C, Sarasa slightly stand out. Many people asked about...

An inspiring quote quote from the bottom of my Hobonichi planner a couple of days ago. “Did anything good happen today?” Yesterday I wrote a letter to my friend Ginger. The feeling of finishing a letter and then getting to the part when you are decorating the envelope and paper for the receiver is so rewarding, and the feeling of anticipation for the moment when your friend receives the letter is great as well.Here is the whole quote for those interested. It is from April 8, 2020. It’s a quote from Masako Ito and tells the story of an interaction...

SARASA Grand in Vintage Colors. In 2016, Zebra released SARASA Clip in vintage colors, and they were extended to total of 10 colors in 2019. At the time, there were already 40 other SARASA Clip colors, but the vintage colors became a lot more popular. For those who haven’t tried them yet, the ink color matches the body, and they comes in unique colors such as camera yellow, bordeaux purple, sepia black etc. The regular SARASA Clips come in regular plastic body, but these new SARASA Grand come in a heavier metallic body with matte finish. With the new bodies,...

Friday, March 13th was the last day that Yoseka was open and the last time our shop was operating normally. This was only three Fridays ago, but it feels like much longer. Each day since that day has brought many changes--news announcements and official statements led us to make the decision to close the store to browsing the following week and then ultimately to close our brick and mortar shop until news of the pandemic gets better. Reading back on our journal entries over the past few weeks truly reflects how much things have evolved in the world around us. Over...

Every month, we look back on new store additions, and reflect on things that happened in the past month. This past month has been the craziest and what feels like the longest month. Constant changes have affected everything and everyone. Adjusting to new routines takes time and it’s challenging, but it feels great to be able to break things down and solve problems one by one. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but we know we will continue to do what we love and keep moving forward during this time. We have added a lot of new stationery this...

At the end of February, we announced our Yoseka ink sample collection card project. It started out as in store only, and well, we all know in store is not happening any time soon 😅 We are excited to make it available online too. They come in these tiny glass bottles, and can hold up to 5ml, but you can pick either 3ml or 5ml of each color. These bottles are meant to be reusable, and here’s how it will work online: - Each time, you can pick a few samples along with your order - Use the card to...

Over the past few days, we have been taking short trips to the store and bringing back different supplies and stationery we’ve been missing. We also brought our store plants home, where we’ll take care of them, water them and make sure they’ll receive appropriate sunlight. Each of these plants was actually a gift from a different friend or customer we have come to know from the store. We found a good spot for them at the center of our coffee table at home, where they will live for however long we will all be living in our frozen little...

Over the weekend, we tried some new recipes, tried doing yoga for the first time through YouTube, watched another season of American Horror Story, worked on new ink guide, and took many photos of Ester. We are keeping ourselves occupied with chores, and spend more attention to enjoy every activity we can do with extra time. The new ink guide we worked on yesterday is from Lennon Tool Bar/藍濃道具屋. Lennon Tool Bar @lennon_tool_bar was founded in 2014 at Tamsui, Taiwan. Initially, they started by promoting arts and crafts of Indigo Dyeing, a business that flourished a century ago in Taiwan,...

Our week of in store pickups has come to an end as NY just announced to move forward with lockdown. Our online store and order shipping will not be affected. Just last week, this main display table was lined with pens. We started this week by clearing off this table to use as a working space, and today, it looks slightly messy and littered with remnants of all the chores we’ve been doing throughout the week. Since we’ve opened, we’ve never left this table like this before but it’s a very bizarre time. In the past few days, we have...