As we’re already a good way into the new school year I thought I should start getting pretty serious with notes, essays and studying. I’ve been having a love affair with 0.3mm pens since last year, and nothing I’ve found in the UK has come close to being exactly what I want. So, when I had the amazing opportunity to travel to South Korea in October I thought I’d pick up some new stationery in Artbox. I also wanted to try out some cheaper dupes for popular stationery brands to see if they were as good as the real thing.
Artbox (아트박스) is very popular shop in Korea that sells stationery and lifestyle goods for a very reasonable price. They have their own line of characters and also occasionally have items with LINE friends and KAKAO friends on them. As well as the usual pens, bags and mugs, they also seem to have a more adult section which may be very surprising to foreigners. You can find cigarette cases with cute characters printed on them, and condoms sold in a packet that looks like banana milk. I love their products so much as they are very good quality, and are super cute. The one I usually go to is in Sinchon, which has two floors and a huge range of supplies.
When I went in October they were having their Halloween sale, so everything was decorated with pumpkins and spiderwebs. It was so difficult not to buy everything, but I managed to stick through and only buy the things I really needed. It was so hard not to buy everything with Boss, my favourite little shark, on it.
Let’s get into what I bought….
BOSS Vocabulary pad;
1,500won ($1.30; £1.00) , 54 sheets – ★★★★
I love this little vocabulary pad, not just because it has Boss on it, but because it’s perfect for memorizing facts and vocab in classes. It has 54 un-ruled sheets that are surprisingly very thick, so ink does not bleed through.
Shiba Vocabulary pad
1,600won ($1.40, £1.10), 70 sheets – ★★
These flashcards were a little disappointing compared to the Boss ones I bought. They’re a little more expensive and there are 70 ruled sheets, but they are very thin so ink bleeds through sometimes. There is also no band to go around them, and the cover and back are just thin sheets of plastic, so they can bend and rip in your bag. I do like the design on the front, but they’re just not practical enough to carry to class every day.
GALAPAGOS FRIENDS sticky memo pad
1,500won ($1.30; £1.00) , 4 designs; 30 sheets of each ★★★★
I love the Galapagos friends so so much, especially Boss the shark, so I NEEDED these when I saw them. I don’t really use sticky notes that much, and the Boss sticker is a little impractical for writing anything on as it is so small, but I have found them quite useful for readings when I can’t write on the pages. They stick very well, but like most sticky notes they roll up a bit when you pull a sheet off and never lie flat on a page.
Shiba Index sticky Memo pad
1,200 won ($1.10; £0.80), 50 sheets, ★★★
First off, the price of these sticky notes are incredible. The quality isn’t perfect, but the cheapest sticky notes in the UK would still probably be around £3, so I was very impressed. Unfortunately as are quite a lot of sheets (50), and the quality isn’t amazing as they are so cheap, they separated in half as soon as I bought them, so I have about 25 still stuck on the packaging, and 25 just in a pile on their own. But overall I am still impressed.
you can find them at: http://www.artboxmall.com/home/shop/itemdetail.asp?itemidx=1901310505
DONG-A Checkpoint highlighters and twinliners
highlighters: 500won each ($0.40; £0.30), 6 colours
twinliners:700won each ($0.60; £0.47)
★★★★★★★★★★★★★
These are incredible!!! I will do a full review compared to the Zebra Mildliners later on, but I just have to say that I love these so much. The colour range is a little limited as I bought all that artbox (and the Dong-A website) stocked, which was only 6. But they are just highlighters, not colouring pens, so it’s not surprising. The shades are beautiful, and vary. They apply very smoothly, and there isn’t much bleeding. Overall I love love love these. The price is incredible.
BOSS 0.5mm slim ballpoint pen 
1,000won ($0.86; £0.67) ★★★★
There’s not much to say about this, it’s a pen with an adorable design of boss. It’s very fine and applies smoothly onto the page.
You can find it here: http://www.artboxmall.com/home/shop/itemdetail.asp?itemidx=1806120361
Cherry index notebook
4,900won ($4.20; £3.30) 5 sections, 120 sheets ★★★
I needed a new index notebook to divide all my notes from this semester, so for the price, this was perfect. However, the actual pages are quite narrow, so there isn’t much space to write. The pages are also pretty thin, so ink does bleed through quite a lot
You can find it here: http://www.artboxmall.com/home/shop/itemdetail.asp?itemidx=1908070181
Boss pencil case
5,000won ($4.32; £3.36) ★★★★★
Obviously I love this because of the Boss design, but the quality is actually very very good. It has a black lining so you can’t see any dirt or ink inside. The plastic covering is very thick is doesn’t scuff easily. Love it
I’m so happy with what I bought. Overall it only cost me 21,100won ($18.24; £14.16), which is incredibly cheap. The quality for that price is AMAZING. I’ve only been back for 10 days and I’m already missing Artbox so much. I hope they can open a shop in the UK or add international shipping to their website soon ~
Kkerenja 