The best pens to use with bullet journal stencils
If you’ve used bullet journal stencils before, you’ll know that some pens can ruin a layout with ink that bleeds, feathers, or smudges when you lift the stencil off the page. I’ve narrowed it down to one of each type of pen (gel, fine tip, erasable etc.) so we can see which pens are the best to use with bullet journal stencils.
What bullet journal stencils should you use?
If you want to keep your bullet journal neat, avoid metal stencils. Many of them have a harsh edge that can damage the tip of a pen (especially fine liner pens). Many also have very tiny cut outs for the stencil which make me question what pens the stencil creators actually use with them.
I prefer to use plastic stencils so I can wipe off any excess ink with a tissue. They’re more prone to slipping than a metal stencil, but you can hold stencils in place with washi tape.
For my favorite planner stencil brands see this post: Best stencils for bullet journal daily, weekly and monthly spreads
Stencil testing
For this test, I’m using:
- Love Bujo uppercase stencils and Love Bujo lowercase stencils from oops a daisy (that brand has plenty more stencils to choose from too)
- Notebook therapy bullet points stencil
- Zicoto stencils for the ‘habit’ word
Here are the results from experimentation with different pens:
- 0.05mm Paper Studio fineliner
- 0.38 Uniball Signo gel pen
- Stabilo Point 88 0.4 fineliner
- 0.5mm Muji gel pen
- 0.7mm frixion erasable
- Pilot G-2 07 gel pen
I did this experimenting in a Hema dot grid notebook.
You’ll notice I didn’t use a ballpoint pen. I find the ink in ballpoint pens can be a bit ‘dull’ – similar to erasable pens. So these days I rarely use ballpoint pens and just use erasable pens instead.
You don’t have to use these exact pen brands only with stencils, I just wanted to do this test with a variety of well known brands that most people use, and various pen tip sizes.
The results were quite similar with no smudging for any of the pens. The stabilo point 88 fineliner, Muji Gel and Mitsubishi Uniball Signo gel were the boldest of the pens tested.
While the Stabilo Point 88 is only 0.4mm, it’s a fineliner so doesn’t have as sharp of an edge as the other pens. It ended up being hard to manage the pen around all the bends of the letters. I’m not sure what the paper thickness of the Hema notebook is, but as it was only 5 euro, I assume it’s about 100 GSM. There was a lot of ghosting for the Stabilo pen and ink pooling when I changed the direction of the pen.
I’d avoid fineliners and stick to gel or erasable pens which have a sharper tip.
You’ll notice that the pen slipped with the triangle and some of the letters on the word habit. For better accuracy, the smaller tip sizes are easier to manage.
If you’re using stencils that are big enough to fit any size pen tip, then it doesn’t really matter what pen you use if you’re going to color in the letters with the same pen you use with the stencil as you can cover in any mistakes.
If you’re going to use color to infill the letters like the below spread, I’d use an erasable pen.
I find stars are the worst shape to use with a stencil, too many angles to get the pen into!
This is the Archer and Olive Dot Grid Stencil
Does the pen tip size really make a difference?
Yes! Here’s some more testing / examples using different pens.
Some different styles you could create with stencils:
- Outline with the letters not filled in
- Filled in with highlighter (in the example below I used a Frixion erasable pen first, then the highlighter. I think it looks better if you come back and do the outline with a bolder pen to make the letter and color stand out more)
- Filled in (good for hiding mistakes)
I prefer the filled in look as I think it makes the letters stand out more (especially once you add in your plans for the week). Some of the pens I like to use to fill in the letters are:
- Pure Color F C-Land (Dual tip)
- Staedtler Noris markers
- Staedtler Broadliner pens
- One of the thicker Paper Studio pens (e.g. 0.7mm or 1.0mm)
But here is a comparison to help you decide which look you prefer.
If you use the Frixion (or other erasable pen) you can cover up mistakes like this where I didn’t plan the ‘wed’ letters very well and they were wonky.
If you zoom in on this photo, you’ll see some indenting from the pens. This was a surprising to me as I used the Archer and Olive notebook for this spread and it has some of the thickest paper you’ll find in a bullet journal – 160GSM) At least there was no ghosting or bleed through, even after I filled in the letters with a marker pen.
Related post: Comparison of Dot Grid Notebooks for Bullet Journaling with 160 GSM paper (Thick, bleedproof paper)
For more bullet journal tips, including tips for using stencils for bullet journaling, see this post: A perfectionist’s guide to creating bullet journal spreads
What are the best pens to use with planner stencils?
Depends what stencil you’re using. If it’s cursive letters, a metal stencil, stars or very small shapes, I’d use a 0.3mm pen tip.
If it’s boxes or larger letters, then any size up to 0.7mm works fine.
If you want to infill the letters, then I recommend a 1.0 marker pen for this.
Avoid fine liner pens.
I think my go to will always be erasable pens (as stencils tend to be flimsy, they can slip and then it could ruin your spread… unless you use an erasable pen). They’re also more feint that the other pens I tested, so it’s easier to come back and color in letters with a highlighter or marker pen.
More stencils for bullet journaling
- Review of the Speedy Stencils by Sunny Streak (plenty of weekly and monthly layout ideas)
- Best stencils for bullet journal daily, weekly and monthly spreads
- The best time saving row and column stencils for bullet journaling
- DIY Bullet journal alphabet stencil that costs practically nothing
- Archer and Olive Dot Grid Planner Stencil Review (including example spreads)
How to use stencils for bullet journaling
- The best time saving row and column stencils for bullet journaling
- Quickly create monthly spreads in your bullet journal: These are all the stencils you need
- 10 Tips for using stencils in your bullet journal
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