Just received the STMT X Colombia Kit by Rad and Hungry giveaway prize

Thanks Brad, Sam and Hen. The giveaway prize box arrived Friday morning. While it was nice to be able to open the package without having to cut it open, perhaps a bit of tape on the flap lid might hold the contents more securely. Looks like the yellow HB pencil must have fallen out during transit. No biggie for a prize recipient that has tons of pencils on hand, but others might be disappointed if their kits arrived incomplete.
The goods arrived nicely wrapped in kraft paper and packed in a sturdy cardboard box.
The kit unpacked: those oversize postcards with the neon pink design are printed on nice sturdy card stock that has been left blank on the back and would make a nice support for a quick drawing or collage art project.
These Wingo Mariposa Gigante clips (Giant butterfly paper clips) were new to me, though you are bound to find many hits for them on a Google search. Looks like they will come in handy for holding large bulky bundles of class handouts and reference sheets. Funny how different countries tend to have their own preferences for fastening loose papers. The Supaclip for example is popular in the UK, but rather rare in the USA and Canada.
"Made in Colombia". It is always refreshing and reassuring to find countries that still continue to manufacture some of their stationery goods.
The red pencil sharpened smoothly and had a distinct look with its silver metal ferrule with green and blue decorative bands. The white eraser looked nice, but was ineffective in removing the red strokes. Had to resort to my electric eraser to make minor corrections.
Compared to the bold Dixon Custom Color Red pencil, the Control Colombia Pencil produced rather pale marks suggesting that they have a lower pigment load and larger proportion of waxy binder.
The included paper goods: a half letter-size pad of 50 sheets of newsprint from Productos Boston.
While one can usually find large newsprint pads for drawing in the USA, I do not recall ever seeing them in this scale for general note-taking. Guess we rely more on Post-It pads.
Both pencils (Control Colombia red pencil and the HB pencil) wrote rather faintly on the newsprint, but the Uniball Signo bit 0.7 mm gel ink pen laid down bold dark strokes.
The Mohawk Superfine, 80 lb text, Ultrawhite smooth paper was a fine choice for the "TSA Screening" sheets included in the kit. The Mitsubishi Uni HB wrote crisp clean lines that remained fairly smudge-resistant on this support. It was certainly fun to try and test the contents of the STMT X Colombia Kit. Sam and Hen came up with quite an original concept by assembling these kits with basic local stationery items from the countries they visit. Might have to keep it in mind for my next trip and assemble some sketching kits with inexpensive locally sourced materials. Actually I already have the habit of shopping the stationary aisles of the convenience/grocery and museum stores wherever I travel to blog about them later (still might have to put together a dedicated post featuring the paper pads and pencils obtained during my last trips to Peru and China). It just never occurred to me to get extras before. Thus if you enjoy trying out office supplies from around the world and can not fit some travel plans in the near future, you might want to subscribe to the services of Rad and Hungry.