I am so excited! Why? Because I have a super exciting new giveaway to introduce to you all today!
I’ve been dying to try Gelly Rolls for ages, so when Sakura of America agreed to send me some to test out and wanted to do a giveaway for you all, naturally I said HECK YES!
Keep scrolling to learn more about Gelly Roll gel pens and enter for a chance to win one of two awesome Gelly Rolls prize packages!
Scroll to the bottom of this article to enter! This giveaway will be accepting new entries until 11:59pm EST on Saturday, December 9th. Two lucky winners will be drawn at random on Sunday, December 10th to receive one of the prizes below. Enter today!
Only valid in the United States due to sweepstakes laws. No purchase necessary. The two prizes total $79.39 in value. Winner must respond to an email within three days to claim their prize, or a new winner will be selected.
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A huge thank you to Sakura of America for providing the review supplies and prizes for this giveaway! Also, this page contains some affiliate links. That means that if you buy anything after clicking my links, at no additional cost to you, you’ll be helping support Cleverpedia. Thank you so much for your support!
Check Out These Great Prizes!
This giveaway will have two winners and there is a total of $79.39 in prizes to give away! Please note that the products shown in photos in this post are not the actual prizes. Check out the grand prize and the runner up prize below:
Grand Prize
One grand prize winner will be selected at random from all valid entries to receive the grand prize, a $49.53 value.
Runner Up Prize
One runner up will be selected at random from all valid entries to receive the runner up prize, a $29.86 value.
Gelly Rolls: A Brief History
Gelly Roll gel pens were the original gel pens, using science to create inks that remained consistent throughout the entire life of the pen. The gel ink technology was patented by Sakura in Japan in 1982.
In 1988, Sakura came up with the name Gelly Roll for their special gel ink pens. They describe the feeling of writing and drawing with them as “as smooth as ice cream” — and I’d have to agree!
The original pens were available in black, blue, and red. Since the 90s, Sakura has been developing gel pens with many special effects, from metallic ink, to glittery ink, even to special effects like a clear ink that adds dimension to the design.
You can read more about the history of Gelly Roll pens on this page of Gelly Roll’s website.
Review: Gelly Roll Pens
Sakura of America sent me four packs of Gelly Rolls to test out: Metallic .4mm, Moonlight .3mm, Stardust Meteor .5mm, and a set of three white gel pens in three diameters.
Sakura has this great chart showing the qualities of the different lines of pens:
It was so fun finally having a chance to try out Gelly Rolls! I’ve been eying a pack of them ever since I did my review of Make Your Mark, where we gave away a large collection of gel pens.
To test the gel pens Sakura sent me, I decided to color a page from the book Life of the Wild by Karen Sue Chen. A beautiful book! I definitely recommend it if you like hand-drawn, nature-inspired artwork.
The page I chose features a collection of cacti of different shapes and sizes. First, I colored the tops with some green markers from my set of 96 Tombow dual-ended brush pens. For the tops of the plants I had to fill larger spaces, so I knew gel pens wouldn’t be ideal. But for the decorative, patterned pots each cactus is in… well, it was the Gelly Rolls’ time to shine!
Check out my speed coloring video below:
To see finer details, consider making the video full-screen and setting the quality to 1080p.
Wow, were they spot-on about the “smooth as ice cream” thing. These gel pens are such a joy to use! The gel comes out super easily, and evenly applies to the page. The roller ball in the tip doesn’t cut into the paper surface like some really sharp gel pens do. You can have a really light touch with these pens and not experience any interruption in the ink flow.
Something immediately apparent to me were the different thicknesses of the pens. The Moonlight pens, at .3mm, felt distinctly thinner than the Metallic pens at .4mm and the Stardust at .5mm. What a difference a tenth of a millimeter can make! For coloring, I would say the .3mm is too small except for very fine detail work. But, with patience, those pens still filled in the spaces as well as the thicker pens!
As you can see in the image above, the special effects of the gel pens really add character to the pots I used them on! I love the metallic and the stardust pens especially. Next time I buy gel pens, I’ll continue growing my collection of those ones especially.
Because gel pens involve laying a lot of color down on the paper, thinner paper like what I was using is bound to get slightly wrinkled. I haven’t yet tested them on thicker paper, but considering how little they wrinkled this thin paper, I doubt they will have much of an impact on anything thicker.
Something else that impresses me about Gelly Rolls is just the vast number of colors. Some gel pen companies only seem to sell gel pens in neon colors; Gelly Rolls come in a wide array of colors, including more muted tones. I actually had a reader write to me recently asking for a recommendation of a gel pen that came in muted colors. I wholeheartedly suggested Gelly Rolls! I liked the copper color in the Metallic set, and the rich, sparkly blue-grey from the Stardust set was my favorite color of all the ones I tried!
Okay, I’m sold… how do I get my own?
Gelly Rolls are a bit of an investment, but there’s a reason for the hype… these are just some really incredible gel pens. I can’t wait to keep using them for details and special effects on my colored pages! If these look appealing to you, well, I absolutely recommend them — either the 74 pen set if you want all the colors, or the individual packs you are most interested in.
These pens aren’t just great for adult coloring by the way — they are incredibly popular with bullet journalers! You can always think of them as an investment in multiple artistic pursuits if one doesn’t cut it.
Want to share your colored artwork on Instagram? Sakura is active on Instagram and even features Instagrams tagged with their hashtag, #gellyroll, on their website. So don’t be shy!
IT’S GIVEAWAY TIME! Enter here for a chance to win some Gelly Rolls!
In this giveaway, we will be drawing one grand prize winner and one runner up at random from the full pool of entries. No purchase required to win. Total prize value of $79.39. Earn an unlimited number of additional entries when you refer your friends, for example in your favorite coloring groups!
This giveaway will run for one week only, beginning today and ending at 11:59pm EST Saturday, December 9th. The winners will be drawn at random on Sunday, December 10th from the full pool of entrants, and they will have three days to respond to the winning announcement email before a new winner is drawn in their place.
Sorry, United States entrants only!
Now is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Step right up and click the options below to enter the giveaway — the more ways you enter, the greater your chance to win! Share with your friends via email, social media, and Facebook groups to earn the most possible entries, because each friend you refer using your special link will earn you an additional entry!
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Cleverpedia + Sakura of America Gelly Roll Giveaway
Thanks again to Sakura of America for providing the sample product and sponsoring this incredible giveaway!
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I love Clevepedia, they have some of the best coloring books around, and where to buy them
Thank you, Patricia!! I appreciate you taking the time to say that, that’s so sweet of you! :)
After watching your video on coloring with the Gelly Roll pens I enjoyed seeing how diverse they are compared to other gel pens.
They really are, I was super impressed! Can’t wait to use them in future projects!
These Sakura pens are great. The pack of whites are so great. No skips, dry outs just a great white pen that works. I have the stardust collection and I’m in love . The clors and sparkle is great. Nice bright colors with no skips or goopiness. Only thing with to much hanfling they lose their patina, but you can put it back on or do it last. Little by little I’m getting rid of my other brand pens and buying the Sakura’s. They are a must.
So true, they are excellent gel pens! Thanks for sharing your own experiences with them, Cathy!