How I Organize my Tombow Dual Brush Pens (+ Free Printable Grid)

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Happy 2018!!

I hope you had a great Christmas and got everything you wanted — I certainly bought a few things for myself before Christmas… but I swear I waited until December 25th to unwrap. 😉

One of the things I finally splurged on was the FULL 96-color dual brush pen set from Tombowusa.com. I took advantage of one of Tombow’s sales this holiday season, and made the plunge!

After finally opening, I unpacked the colors and soon wondered how exactly I’m going to put them in the handy desk stand…

• Should I just add them randomly and hope for the best?
• Should keep them in some sort of pattern?
• If I keep them in certain places… how will I know where to put them back?
• How will I know exactly what color I’m choosing?
• Will I mix up the colors?
• How can I keep them as organized as possible? 🤔

I knew Tombow’s website has an awesome color wheel, so I could find the color names & corresponding pen numbers. I decided to go through the wheel & make a grid in the same order as the wheel. The grid matches up exactly to the desk case so you can see immediately which colors go where in the stand. Each pen has its own spot, so I know where to look when I need a certain color.

I left the whole grid blank and added both the pen number & name in each square. I added different color stickers to each corner of the desk holder AND the print-out to make sure the orientation matched up, and started adding the colors one by one into their spots.

One by one, I grabbed the pens and “color-tested” the squares with their corresponding color. Then, I added each to their spot in the desk stand until they were all put up! Now, not only did I have spots for each pen, I could easily see what the color looks like on the grid-sheet. YAY! 😆

I recorded a video (of course) & added it below to show the full process from start to finish. Once they’re all in their spots you shouldn’t have to do it again, and you’ll have a handy little reference guide to show you where to find certain colors!

• I HIGHLY suggest super-gluing the desk stand together so it doesn’t fall apart when transporting. After getting the pens and putting them all in their spots, I added them to the carrying case and traveled to Atlanta. When I got there, the side bars in the case had almost all fallen out, and the pens were all shifted out of their spots! It was HARD to get it all back in place, and when I got back home, I immediately glued the desk stand together so that wouldn’t happen again!
• When adding the pens to their correct spots, “color-test” them by coloring the corresponding box. That way, you’ll know exactly what the pen looks like on paper when you’re wanting to select your colors. The pen caps don’t always look exactly like the colors do on paper. The color wheel  from Tombow’s website helps with this too!
• If you don’t have the FULL set of 96 colors yet, but still want to organize your pens, you can buy the desk stand separately on Amazon or Tombow and add what colors you DO have. That way, you get an idea of which colors you have and don’t have and they still have their own space.

If you want a copy of the gridded template, you can download it free through the link below! Be sure to tag me if you print and use this to help organize your pens ~ I’m @lifebywhitney everywhere! If you’re wanting to print a smaller version for your A5 size journal – print your version at 60% (like what I did in the video).

👇 Let me know how YOU organize your pens in the comment section below! 👇

You can also grab this for free along with ALL of my freebies in my Resource Center! Also, if you subscribe you get everything in my Resource Center AND access to the VIP Vault (where ALL of my new weekly spreads are added)!