Ahh, the trusty ballpoint pen, but that’s not what we call it! We don’t go around saying “have you a spare ballpoint please?” or “where’s my ballpoint pen?” no, no, no! Over the years the ballpoint has merged itself into the Biro, the popular brand of ballpoint pens and another brand name which has become a household name! Other brands include, Coca Cola in place of cola, Tipp-Ex in place of correction fluid, Post-it in place of repositionable notes and of course the most famous of them all, Hoover in place of vacuum cleaners, among many others!

What makes the Bic Biros so popular is its smooth writing abilities; it has an internal chamber which is filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at the tip during use with the rolling action of a small metal sphere (0.7 mm to 1.2 mm in diameter) of brass, steel or tungsten carbide. When the tip is applied to paper, ink is released and dries almost immediately after contact. Another fantastic quality of the biro is their inexpensiveness! You can pick them up so cheap that a pack of 50 will cost you less that £8! That way - when your pens go ‘walkies’ - you’ll know you have plenty of spares to hand!

A great example of a pen which is guaranteed to give smooth results from the start and continue giving perfect writing performance throughout its lifetime, is our Bic Ball Point Pens featured. Featuring:

• Lightweight hexagonal barrel that provides comfortable and controlled writing
• Durable tungsten carbide ball writes consistently, will not skip or blob
• Medium point, clear barrel
• 1.0mm Tip
• Line width: 0.4mm
• Black
• Packed 50
• Now just £8.92 for 50! That’s including VAT and makes them less that 18p each!

The Green Bit

The BIC® product philosophy has always been focused on simplicity, functionality, quality and the best price/quality tradeoff. Since the launch of the BIC® Cristal® pen, the style and design of BIC® products, and the materials that go into them, have had but one purpose: perfect harmony between their form and the use they are designed for. There has never been any place for the superfluous. Faithful to its “just what’s necessary” philosophy, BIC tries to find the perfect harmony between product quality and the quantity of materials used in manufacturing. For this reason, BIC has an ecodesign approach for all products. This approach means integrating environmental considerations, starting at the product design phase. They progressively integrate ecodesign into their Research & Development processes.

The BIC Group has directed all BIC factories to establish an Environmental Management System compliant with an internal Group standard. Individual factories are free to exceed this Group standard, where appropriate, as long as they maintain a focus on continuous improvement of environmental performance. ISO 14001 certification is not implemented in the whole Group but only for selected factories that have chosen this way of making progress. However, they do not promote nor forbid the usage of this certification.

Every single one of us has sat and stared, hopelessly, trying to read a dry wipe board (or whiteboard) which is smeared in the previous 5 years worth of text and illustrations. They tend to come featuring ‘a handy whiteboard cleaner’ however some of the time these simply move the dried ink to another area of the board! In time this can clog to an unbearable level where anything written on the board from that moment is frankly illegible. We need to be considering drywipe board cleaners.

With a little squirt and a rub down, your board can be restored to its former glory meaning that any text written upon it will stand out and will be clearly legible. A messy board only leads to a distracted eye and inevitably wasted time. When the solution is as simple as investing in whiteboard cleaners, why go on attempting to struggle through the mess?

An excellent example of a cleaning solution is the 5 Star Drywipe Wipes featured below.

• Drywipe Wipes
• Pre-moistened biodegradable wipes
• Designed to remove drywipe marker ink and ghosting from all boards
• Non-hazardous
• Non-flammable
• 100 wipes
• Just £3.97 inc VAT

These wipes are not only priced so that anyone with any budget can buy them, but they offer all the features you’d expect from a more highly priced brand. Made by the renowned 5 Star, you can feel assured of their quality too as each of their products come with a 12 months no quibble guarantee! There’s no doubting that you’ll be more than satisfied with the results you see on your whiteboard; if you’d like to purchase a bulk order of these wipes, remember to call us for a quote – 0870 766 1722.  

Are you like me and appreciate the power of the age old flipchart during a meeting or presentation? It so simple yet so effective; use you giant flipchart pad as demonstration tool during your presentation and let the bold ink stand out from the contrasting pure white paper. A flipchart pad allows you to brainstorm ideas and concepts with others, and as each page fills, unlike a white board, you can simple turn the page – no need to clean and start afresh! Another benefit to this method is the used pages can then be referred back to later on and for notes, but also to go over at the end in order to summarise the meeting.

But of course no flipchart pad is complete without flipchart marker pens and as far as we’re concerned, the bolder the better! One of the best flipchart markers out at the moment are the Staedtler Lumocolor Flipchart Markers featured.

• Dry-safe ink - can be left with cap off for 2 days without drying out
• Odourless water-based ink
• Waterproof on most surfaces
• 22% recycled
• Black
• Bullet point
• Line width: 2.0mm
• Packed 10
• Just £8.91 inc VAT for 10 markers!

If and when your pens do run out however, all is not lost. You can buy yourself a little time while you order in your next batch by giving them a little boost. Depending on whether or not they’re water based, you simply dip the tip in nail varnish remover and pop the cap back on for a few minutes. You will almost instantly see the results of a fully restored marker, but bear in mind, it is a temporary fix! Alternatively, if you are restoring water based markers, dip the tip in water instead. We’ve even found that a short spell in the fridge can give them a second lease of life too! Why not give these ideas a try and tell us what you think?

I’ve been pondering today’s blog for some time now and have been trying to understand one thing. Why is it so many more people have taken to home crafts? Is it that with our current economical crisis many of us can no longer afford the expense of birthday cards or could it be that there are more craft magazines these days teaching us the art of home crafts and giving away freebies? Alternatively, maybe the older generation have better eyesight due to laser eye correction or improved eyewear thanks to ‘Specsavers’ and so are able to take up bobbies such as home crafts after retirement? Hmmm, well whatever the reason, home crafts is definitely on the rise and I have to admit, I quite like it. It is so much more personal to give someone you care about a homemade card than it is to just go out any buy one. Although she doesn’t know it yet, I have bought my eldest various stamps and stamp pad inks for her birthday with little bits to play with like butterfly stamps, alphabet stamps, bird stamps and loads of different colour stamp pads; I just know she’ll love it. Other than this, I have bought her some Calligraphy pens so that she can learn the art of this beautiful writing form leaving lovely artistic messages in each of her cards.

Here at La Office we have some beautiful Edding Calligraphy Pens (featured to your right) which are water based and so perfectly suitable for beginners like my daughter. They feature;

·         Set of 3 calligraphy pens

·         2mm, 3.5mm and 5mm tips

·         Black

·         Water-based ink

·         Complete with plastic wallet

·         Just £3.20 Inc VAT

The art of calligraphy is based upon the visual expression of words. Calligraphy pens enable you to develop your skills and express your ideas through beautiful calligraphic designs. This form of writing is ideal for adding your very own personal touch to shop bought and homemade occasion cards, invitations, announcements, place cards, fancy labels, flyers posters, signs, certificates and awards. Calligraphy is basically a form of italic writing which has more of an artistic flare. You can truly express yourself with an Edding calligraphy pen; writing is not just a way of presenting thoughts and ideas, your own handwriting can also become an important design tool.