Inkventpocalypse 2025 Day 1

Okay, here we go. Here's day 1 of five different ink, paint, & tea advent calendars.

The first three advents are the 3 usual Inkvent suspects. This year it's Enigma Stationery Inkvent 2025. The first ink is AZONX Monet Green, a neutral shading green that would be perfect for holiday cards or alternatives to blue. I've never heard of AZONX ink before, but there are AZONX glass pens available here & there in the US.

The next Inkvent is the OG Diamine Inkvent 2025 Teal Edition. The colour is Celestial Skies which is a shimmer, but also features sheen. The base colour is a cyan with a bit of warmth. The shimmer is gold & on coated papers there will be a red sheen. I am not seeing as much sheening on this paper as I've seen elsewhere. I've also seen comparisons to Herbin Emerald de Chivor, but that is more green based. Diamine has started out... okay. I'm not a huge blue ink fan, but I do like all the extra bits. At least it's not teal.

The last colour is the second Colorverse Colorvent 2025 we've had and the necks of the bottles are still tiny. Day one is Martian Dust, a flat dark terracotta red with a tiny bit of shading, if anything. It certainly evokes Mars.

Next up are the two non-ink advents I got this year, a watercolour advent from Greenleaf & Blueberry that has small shells of watercolour and prompts on the inside of the watercolour paper doors to use when swatching the colours.

This was a hard to photograph one, it lightens up with application of water and then darkens a bit when painted out again. The pigment £ is PG17 and the colour is Chromium Oxide Green, a slightly yellow leaning true green.

I am trying (and failing) to paint the suggestions on the door swatches. This is the dried paint in a pine tree into a swatch on the door. I'm not sure how to talk about or explain watercolour properties or even how to properly swatch them, so we're learning together.

Same new-to-me with the next calendar, the Friday Afternoon Tea Decaf advent.

This one is harder to talk about. Day 1's decaf tea is Maple Houjicha. Another thing I have no idea how to talk about. It’s a roasty, slightly tannic/astringent on the tongue roasted green tea, with the tiniest touch of maple sweetness. Very nice to drink while trying to figure out how to do this. I had this with no honey or creamer, as I'll be having all the teas for this calendar.

I'm still figuring how/when I'll be doing this, the first week of my month was a struggle, but we got this blog up and lots of swatches done, just nothing posted or written about. I'll probably be stretching this through the new year as I can get to things so it's not overwhelming for myself or anyone else.

I'll try to get the links of my tools and more info up where I can. I paid for everything myself, and did all this to myself as a challenge to do a thing. The only inkvent this year that is still available as of the publishing of this post is the Diamine Inkvent Teal Edition 2025, but I'm sure you can find things you're interested in, and the single-brand inkvents usually make larger bottles after the new year.

Happy holidays, everyone, we're just getting started here!

-subgirl, your resident inkygeek