Until 4 months ago I had a hand full of ball point pens, in a box that I kept one journal I used once in a while with a set of markers and colored pencils. I would have spurts of using the different creative items in my box, but for the most part I didn't think twice about what I wrote with.

That all changed 4 months ago when the planner community entered my life and now I have 8 or 9 set of marking pens. I have collection of pens of pencils from Target and some pens I had to have just because the where so darn cute (I'm looking at you Crown Pens).

I am by no means an expert at pens. There are some that I will want to collect at some point. Those would be Steadtler pens and maybe Coleto pens. The Coletos are an investment so we will see about those. What I would love is to feel like my creative skills are worth the investment.

Below are the pens, markers, pencils etc. that I have found work really well for me. They are easy to find and they are not too costly.

These Pilot Frixtion pens with .7 tips are my favorite pens. There are lots of beautiful colors, I love the way they write and best of all, they erase! They write very well in my Plumpapper planner and don't have any bleed through. I got this set from Amazon.

The black Friction pens were the first ones I got because I found them at Staple? I could try them out before making a big investment. I use them all the time.

I also wanted to try these .03 frixtion pens. They are not my favorite. I write pretty big so the small lines looks a little funny. I also use A5 and larger planners so I have room for the larger .7 tips and they show so much more color, and everything is about color. I do like that these click and don't have a cap. If you have less real-estate on your planner page these could be just the thing for you.

Here you can see how these frixtion pens write and erase. They really do erase. You can sometimes see the indentation from the letters but other then that they are amazing. You have to use the eraser that is on the pen. They do make separate eraser.

All the samples are written on regular notebook paper.

Next up are the Frixtion highlighters. These are just as wonderful and the colors are very pretty. I use them to color around words or to fill in squares on my planner and then write on top of them.

My next favorite pens are the Sharpie Ultra Fine point. These come in such pretty colors. They will bleed through my planner page, so I mainly use these to write on top of stickers and washi tape. For that they are perfect. Since they are permanent they don't smear on the stickers or the washi.

As you can see the really do bleed. It is the same on my planner pages.

I just found these Sharpie Pens a few weeks ago. These do not bleed!! They come in more colors then I have. I will need to get those soon.

Look.....No bleeding at all!!!

Paper Mate Flair pens where my first love. They are easy to find, they come in pretty colors, and they don't bleed as long as I just write. You can see some shadowing on this paper. But my planner is thicker so I don't get that. But, if you are printing your own inserts on regular type paper you might have some issues. They are not good for doodling. You will get bleed through if you go over your lines more then once.

The Flair Ultra Fine are ok. They only have a couple other colors then these. I have found and they also shadow some.

Then there are regular pencils and pens. I love these pens because they are so much fun to use. But, since they don't write in color I don't use them all that much. I know I could replace the ink in them, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I use pencils to sketch fancier fonts before I commit them in ink (this is also a very new skill set I am working on). The good eraser is used to get rid of the pencil once I am through.

The PenGems pen in the middle is a dream to use. It is so pretty and writes really well. I am having to work hard not to get a lot of these pens. She has so many wonderful colors and gems.