Finally the New Filofaxes...

Well... I have actually had these Filofaxes for about a month now and they are already hard at work so it feels like I've had them for months let alone weeks. So what do I have now? Well... I have managed to add a personal Imperial Purple Finchely, a Black A5 Identity and an A5 Imperial Purple Finchely to my hoard.

I'll save the Identity for another day and just look at the gorgeousness of the Finchley for now :)

OOOOOH!!

Ahhhhh!

Ok, that's enough of that. One thing has to be said about this Filofax though, the colour is just delicious. I have always loved the colour purple, but, being a pernickety designer, I'm quite particular about my colours. There are certain shades of purple I don't like; I don't like bluey purples, or pale purples, or neon purples etc. etc. I could go on (no, really, I could fill just one post up with all the tones & tints I do and don't like)...But the important thing is that I really really do like this shade of purple, it is very deep and rich without being too dark and is definitely on the red side of the spectrum. Which is good.

The leather itself is quite soft and a little bit cushioned to the touch. For some reason I was expecting it to be quite hard and unforgiving like my little pocket Classic so I was pleasently surprised to find it so strokable. I like the subtle leather grain used on this binder compared to the heavily grained and patterned leathers I often see on the Filofax website. A fellow Filofax enthsiast (I will post a link here if i can find it) had mentioned that the leather on this Filofax scratches easily. Luckily this hasn't happened to me yet but one thing I have noticed is that this Filofax shows up dirt like nobody's business! Especially makeup! I have a habit of rubbing my face when I'm stressed. Rubbing face = makeup ends up on fingers = makeup all over Filofax. I never have this problem with the Baroque or Classic Filos!! I seem to wipe down this Filofax every few days only for it to gather more of my makeup bag again

So what does this Filofax do in my life? What stresses does it carry for me? Well, this is my work Filofax...I'll leave that there I think. Let's just have a look at what's inside it.

A diary within a diary?! Yes! Why not! I actually keep my timesheeting notes inside this little diary. I do this to keep client project details completely seperate from the work diary as it lets me focus on exactly what I have done for each client on a day-by-day basis without anything else getting in the way. I then come back and look over it once the project is done and detail everything in a proper timesheet. This diary is just a little cheapy from WH Smith (well, as cheap as you get from WH Smith...) but it looks quite nice in the Finchley.

Even though this is a hard-working Filofax I didn't want it to be boring so I hunted around for a classy image to use as a front page. I came across my Calander from last year (I never throw calanders away, I always cut them up and use the artwork for something) which featured prints by the designer Erté. I cut out a personal-sized insert from the front cover to use in my Filofax.

This particular print was cut from the calendar's cover so it is decorated with some glitter, very bling! I love Erté's work but I wish I knew what this print is actually called, I just know it as 'The Alphabet Lady'.

Also in the front is a few business cards and some designs I like.

I'm afraid I can't show you much inside as work is top secret!
The diary is a standard week on two pages in cotton cream. I much prefer the cotton cream layout to the standard white. The design is more modern and the 'this week' section is very handy! The cream also looks very posh next to the rich purple.

I labelled the months myself, much easier to flip between dates during meetings.

I'm still working on the tab structure so have just stuck page tabs over some at the mo. It's a pretty straight-forward setup; 'Notes' are just for general note-taking, 'Projects' is where I store notes knowledge on upcoming projects before a full brief is released and 'SMT' is company and design info. The 'Actions' section is particulary useful; during meetings I will write down the actions I need to take once the meeting is over. The pages in this section are all 'To-Do' pages and each type of meeting has it's own page so it's easy to look over and tick things off as I do them. Finally, the address section is used for new contact info as I don't have a work phone.


At the back are the business cards I transferered from my personal planner, the Baroque, along with the post-its and page markers. I don't keep anything in the zipped mesh section at the mo.

I had a bit of a size crisis a few weeks into using this Filo. I ran out of room in the diary section very quickly. You see, I use my diary section as a massive To-Do section, with bullet points in each day. It works very well for me; it lets me see what I need to do that day and I can then go back and use it as reference if I need to know when I did something. The only problem with this is that the method is a huge drain on space. SO I thought about it. And thought some more... I have always wanted an A5 organizer but never had the need to get one. But now I did have a need!! I didn't even have to decide what to get. I loved the Purple Finchely so much that when I spotted an A5 one on Amazon for a baragin £70 I bagged it quick. (Yes - for once Amazon was cheaper than eBay - and this Filofax was brand new!)
It arrived a few days later with all new inserts and a nice columned week on two pages diary. Great! Loads of room! Or so I thought. I started using it and within 2 days I gave up. The column layout was useless to me; I don't make appointments, I make to do lists. I tried to use the system by sticking meetings in at the correct times, squeezing them between my 'to-do' bullet points. The resulting mess was counter-productive so I switched back to the personal. Ok fine, I thought, I'll just order the weeks on 2 pages cotton cream diary in A5 next year and make the switch then. But as I now know, the cotton cream diaries don't exist in A5 size!! Why not Filofax?! Grr!
So what will I do with the A5? I like it too much to sell but it's other potential use of a Projects & Goals Planner has been fulfilled by the less delicate Identity (I will post on this soon!) I did think I could use it alongside the personal at work but I'm a little put off as the two Finchelys are different colours! See!

The A5 is darker and is different enough in tone for me to me to prefer the  colour of the personal Finchley to the colour of the A5 Finchley. Has any body else had non-matching Filos? I suppose it might be because the personal came straight from Filofax i.e. brand new stock whereas the A5 might have been in stock on Amazon for a while meaning it was a different dye lot. I don't know, either way I don't like them sitting next to each other. Never mind, I'm sure I will come up with something for it to do! I'm good at finding things to do :)

Filofaxing: My 2012 Setup

3rd Filofax post in a week! Not that I'm obsessive. Well, maybe a little.

Anyway I thought I would share some pics of my Filos and the setup I'm using for 2012. It's taken me a long time to get it right and I'm still shuffling things around which is why you will see post-its notes on my new dividers. They help me to remember what I plan to put there without permanently marking the divider.

As I said in my last post I have decided to make the move from Pocket size back to Personal size. My regular Filo will be my Personal Baroque in Teal for 2012 but first up is my Classic, which only has 2 weeks of abuse left to endure.

 (Note: I tried to stay true to the colours of the Filos but unfortunately my ancient camera decided it was going to do as it pleased, the flash was intermittent and so some pics are quite dark as a result. I have tried to correct where I can in Photoshop)

My pocket Classic

Protective film bubbling

I love the colour of this Filo but sadly the protective film has started to bubble and peel away. It's only a year old so I'm a little disappointed. Apparently this is a common problem with Classics. The ink mark on the cover however is my fault, another one for the hairspray trick I think.

Doesn't lie flat! Grr!

At the front is the first page of the cutom diary.

You can see why I need to upsize - it's getting so busy in there that I've had to start overwriting the pages by sticking post-it notes in there and writing on those. As you can see the photo layout in the custom diary takes up a lot of the much-needed space! I also have a lot of crap in there which doesn't help (and this pic was taken after a clear-out!)


I won't bother discussing the setup for this Filo as it will be redundant. The new setup in the Baroque is similar but with slight improvements. Here we go (deep breath)

My beautiful Baroque

I'm packing a lot in there!

Close up of me lucky charms!

My new dividers!

First things first - I love this Filofax! There is something soft and squishy about it. The little decorative loop allows me to attach charms to the Filo for extra customisation and I make my own jewellery so it means I can swap them out depending on how I feel. I wish more Filos had this loop, it's so nice to be able to customise the planner on the outside as well as inside.
The Baroques also lie flat straight out of the box, and the soft leather means you can cram loads into it and it still closes! Hurrah! She ages well too, doesn't look to bad considering she's nearly 4 years old & is kept in my handbag.

Inside are a few card overspills from my purse and a wad of post-its. Inside the zipped area are some hair clips, some paper clips, a saftey pin (in the event of wardrobe malfunction) and a spare key. Note the pretty Baroque pattern on the inside of the Filo - it's like a little secret on the inside!

Custom front page

Custom Contact Details page

First up amongst the chaos are my own custom pages. I designed these myself in Illustrator a while back. This is actually my second set - I made some Wowl pages & dividers a while ago but they looked better in the black Baroque and so have been transferred there for the time being.

Badly coloured year planner

Month planner

After the custom pages is a plastic envelope containing some photos and my old business cards - just for memories :)
Following this are my year and month planners from WHSmith. I like to use these so I can tell at a glance what I'm doing for the year, and the month planner is super handy for family and friends birthdays. These don't exist in my Classic - not enough room.

The first of the Dividers; eventually this will have a Diary label made for it.

Here are the divisions I use in my Filo:

Section 1: Diary. I've opted for the plain white diary this year. The customised diary was nice to have but in my opinion it's a little too expensive and the photos took up space I wanted to use. This is the first of my new dividers. I made them from scrap booking paper (more like thin card) which I ordered from eBay. I love how the patterns are in proportion and the colours all complement each other and the binder.

Section 2 : Personal Notes - for all my essential details I need to remember (don't worry, there are no passwords written in full!) I use the peach coloured paper for this.

Section 3: Professional Notes - for all my career work including some handy websites for freelancers and general reference sites. I chose pink paper for this section when I was using my black Filo and it now looks a little garish against the teal of the Baroque.

Section 4: Gift Ideas. Here is where I record gift ideas for friends and family. I like to note down if somebody mentions something they want or need - I then come back to this list when their birthday comes around. I love the lilac paper, but again it looked better against black.

Section 5: Shopping Lists. Does what it says on the tin! On blue paper this time so I recognise my shopping lists in amongst all the other receipts and crap in my purse.

Section 6: Landing Pad. Nothing exciting here. I use this section as a scrawling area for all kinds of nonsense. I can them look at them later and file them elsewhere. It means I can get my thoughts down without deciding which section they need to be in first.

Some blank paper for my doodles.

(Left) To Do Section: I might cut this - I don't really use it very much.

(Right) Addresses: I love this card, the little castle is so appropriate for this section!
I've really slimmed down here. I got rid of all the tabs and kept 3 or 4 sheets of the Address section and just jotted down some important numbers in the event I'm out and about and my phone dies on me. I don't need to carry a physical copy of all my contacts with me; my phone does that for me. I also have a pretty address book at home that I like to make use of.

Some maps of the UK and our planet Earth. Because I just want to have them there.

Some business cards I have picked up (and some I have designed - left hand side, bottom two)
 

Do i really need these in here? Probably not. I just don't want to take them out - one day they will be needed!!
Behind you can see my notepad - another feature I love about the Baroque! I use this a lot. And hiding under there in the pocket is lots of crap. But it's hidden so that's fine.

And that's it for the Teal Baroque!

The black Baroque is currently in use as a stay-at-home planner. It's not aged as well as the Teal Baroque which I find quite surprising considering the Teal has been used more.

The black leather has scuffed and discoloured so it's not too attractive anymore. I use it to keep my reading list, notes for people (basically a more detailed & permanent extension of Gift Ideas; presents I've bought, their fave colour etc). I also keep my teacup readings in there. It's in a mess after swapping out the dividers and messing around with the setup but here is the Wowl customised front page.

When the Purple Finchely gets here I may put her to use as a work/project diary.
In the meantime I will continue looking for a bargain A4 work Filo and drool over the possibility of owning a Personal Rose Finchley or Personal Vintage Pink Malden one day. Such beautiful colours! I just wish Filofax would make some Today makers/rulers in a range of colours to go with their pretty binders.

So there we go - that's my lot! Well...for now...

If I don't blog in the next 5 days... I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!!!

My Filofax Love Story

For those of who you don't know, I'm obsessed with stationary and organization. And who is the king of these two things? Filofax of course! In short, my Filofax is my memory. A former boyfriend endearingly called my Filofax my "Bible". He wasn't wrong.
I have 4 Filofaxes at the mo (I have just ordered a Filofax Finchley in Imperial Purple - it was 50% off so I don't feel too bad about it) consisting of a Personal Baroque, a Personal Black Baroque and a Pocket Classic in Cherry Red. I'm currently missing a Pocket Domino in Red which is floating around at home somewhere.

Here's my brood:

My lovlies, top to bottom: Pocket Cherry Red Classic, Personal Black Baroque, Personal Teal Baroque

The missing Domino was my first Filofax, I bought it after watching 27 Dresses. It was during my last year of university and chaos was ensuing all around me. I was about to undertake some more freelance work alongside my Uni course and was generally feeling a bit lost amongst all the work I had to do. My flatmate and I had gone to the cinema to relax and de-stress by watching a crappy chick flick. The movie itself was terrible (in a good way) and it stirred something in me - it was that pretty Filofax - that's what I needed! My life was missing a blooming Filofax!!! The next day the Domino was bought from the local WHSmith and I instantly felt better for moving everything out of my brain and onto the paper.
I also invested in a smartphone which helps me remember more time-specific events - unfortunately my Filofax doesn't beep at me to remind of appointments! I know a lot of people prefer either a Filo or a phone to organize thier lives but the two can exist together...a combination of both smartphone and Filo works perfectly for me!

Soon after buying my Domino, I met up with a Freelance Art Director who would be working with me on an up-coming project. I spotted it straight away. She had a Filofax. It was an over-stuffed Indie in personal size. It was beautiful. I immediately got Filo-envy! Needless to say it didn't take me long after that to hit the Filofax website like an addict and order my two Baroques. I loved the slouchy soft look and being the indecisive person that I am, I bought two - one in black and one in teal - as I just couldn't decide which colour I wanted! They served me well during some very stressful times but two years later I got a sweet little bargain on eBay - my pocket Classic in cherry red. I had become a bit sick of carrying around the larger Flo and so I moved back into a pocket size. And that's when the problems started.

Every year the same thing happens; during the wintry months I decide I want to start using my Personal filofax as I can cram more stuff in it. I find I'm busier in Autumn/Winter but once Spring is well and truly underway I get bored of lugging around my larger Filofax (and oh my god it gets heavy!) and I start yearning for those lighter, more compact days when my Pocket Filofax was my go-to Filo :-/ What I need is a magical Filofax - one that has inserts the size of the personal, but folds down into pocket size!
Nevertheless, I have decided to move out of my pocket Filo for 2012 and a few months ago I dug out my Baroques and ordered a new diary refill in personal size. Sadly my teal Baroque had picked up a horrible black ink stain right on the front of it! I used the age-old trick of dabbing hairspray onto the stain. It worked, but it also took out some of the dye so be careful if you try this too. And don't worry, the dye bleed didn't affect the Filo at all - there is no visible sign of colour-loss on the Filo itself. Now I only have a darkened edge on the clasp, which is nothing compared to the huge stain that was there!

Next week I'll be doing a little run through of my Baroque and my setup for 2012 - hope to see you there!

Filofax 50% Off!

I'm a big stationery and organization freak and I love Filofaxes! I love bargain Filofaxes even more! Filofax are having 50% off on selected items as part of thier 12 days of Christmas campaign - this includes some A4 binders! Exactly what I've been looking for to use at work! But now I'm confused - do I hang onto the bid I was about to make on eBay for an A4 Strata, or do I get a half price Graphic?!!? Ahh!
Talking of eBay, there are a few 1 day ONLY auctions on Filofaxes today... that's all I'm saying...

Next week I'm going to do a little piece (which will probably turn out to be a very long post!) on my Filofaxes and the setup I'm using for 2012.