I got sent some Uniball pens a few weeks ago and have been absolutely dying to have a chance to sit down and use them. With all the weddings and moving out of the way (just about), I’ve managed it! It does also help that with half term, all of my after work activities were cancelled!

I was sent these pens for free, but I would never give a fake review. All views are my own!

Uniball Craft Pens

If you head on over to the Uniball website, the pens I was sent sit rather fittingly in the Craft range. I didn’t choose them – the options were a little overwhelming when I was given the choice, so this was what I said:

Perhaps you could send me a small selection of pens that write on ceramic, paper and fabric?

He made a (great) judgement, and sent me a set of eight Posca pens and three from the PIN range. You can check out ALL the Uniball products here. (Don’t blame me for any purchases that occur as a result of this link…)

Posca

The Posca markers come in loads of different colours. I was sent red, blue, yellow, green, white, black, gold and silver. They write on basically everything! Officially, this is: ceramic, glass, metal, mineral (i.e. gemstones), paper, plastic, textile and wood. When you first open them, the nib is completely white and you have to get the ink running. I was so excited about this, I filmed it.

The pens are really cool to write with when the ink is flowing really well. The first thing I did was label some kitchen stuff. It worked really well, although the drying time is quite long and YOU MUST WAIT FOR IT TO DRY. John and I were walking around with white smudges on us for a little while! It’s stood the test of time – a month later the writing is as good as new, and I now never get served builders tea. Win!

Plastic

Having received the pens, I decided to refresh the decoration on my sewing machine. I had drawn on it in Sharpie years ago, and although that lasted well, I had been debating a change for a while. Nail polish remover got rid of the old decorations, and I went to town with new ones. (There are videos of this on my YouTube channel if you’re interested.)

The drying problem came up here again – me, the table and half my belongings got covered in ink when I was careless. However, I loved the result, and any bad result here was my poor drawing skills and not the pens. I’ve not yet used the sewing machine, but I left the actual working parts clear. You know, just in case.

To get the ink to stay to the plastic, I had to clean it all with rubbing alcohol first. Before then, it just seemed a bit like it didn’t want to stick. (If I say the word hydrophobic/like oil and water, does that make sense?) After the rubbing alcohol it was much easier.

Other mediums

I drew on fabric just to get an idea of how they go, but it’s not a good sample. I hate the writing, and I’m not sure how permanent the pens would be on anything exposed to water. The website shows an example of use with fabric using Converse – I MUST TRY THIS. (If you don’t know how much I love decorating Converse, I refer you to this post.) Watch this space.

On paper, the pen works well, but it tends to strip it. I don’t really know how to describe it – you know when you get paper a little wet and it sort of shreds? You can see a bit of the top layer in the below photo. I’m not sure how much I would draw on paper with them, to be honest. They do blend nicely though, and when you draw on top with the PIN fineliners the result is lovely. I withhold judgement for now.

The paper, for the sake of completeness, is from a Winsor & Newton sketchbook, and super thick.

All in all, I loved the Posca pens for slightly strange uses like in the kitchen and will be cracking them out a lot more in the future! I may not be keeping the sewing machine decorations on the top though – they’re a bit much, even for me.

PIN

The Uniball PIN pens (try saying that ten times fast) are old friends of mine. I’ve used them for years in whatever doodling I’ve done, although I’ve never had my own new set as I’ve always nicked my mum’s. (Sorry Mum!) They are just generally awesome pens for fine art work. I did a lot of doodling using the 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5mm nibs, which is what Uniball sent me, and the only complaint I have is that if you move the pen too fast on thick paper, the ink can be a bit patchy.

For normal A4 paper and general fine liner/art use, these pens are fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about them. My interest in art has also been rekindled by the package, and I’m sure you’ll be seeing more posts about art soon.

So there we go! My thoughts on the Uniball Posca and PIN pens. As I say there are a few action vids on YouTube – all that’s left for me to do now is go back to my craft room and start doodling…

Much love,

Corrie xx