Making my A5 Finsbury Work

Tags

filofax, finsbury, philofaxy

Hello everyone. Two weeks have gone by again with no post from me. My work is taking up so much more of my time than before the big move. And last week was an emotional rollercoaster; we found a home we loved, put an offer on it, negotiated back and forth and ultimately walked away from it. We are bruised but determined to continue the search. We were out again today looking at property and I was hopeful I could find a quiet hour or two to write this. And here I am.

Anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows I like to change planners. I don’t think I’ve been able to complete a full calendar year in one planner ever. And I’ve had to change mine out again as my life gets increasingly more complicated and I have more things to keep track of.

In December of last year I moved into my Hobonichi. I loved it and I still love it. The paper is amazing and it’s a great size and weight for my bag. But I found myself putting in loads of post-its and running out of room for my lists. My life has been one never-ending list since April. I think as soon as I landed in Halifax I found myself thinking about my A5 Finsbury to help organize my hectic life.

Then came the hunt for inserts. It’s the middle of the year so I thought undated would be my only option. I went to ebay and found some great undated inserts. But ebay is not instant and I am an impatient girl. I remembered the vast sea of free inserts available on Philofaxy and headed over there. And found exactly what I was looking for.

Philofaxy is a website devoted to all things Filofax. It is a terrific resource if you are trying to determine what kind of Filofax is right for you, or to buy/sell your Filofaxes, or to find a meetup in your area, or to find inserts. Steve and Ray have made inserts available to the community which is great, and you can customize them to your own needs. Over the years and many different planners I know that I need a month on two pages as well as a weekly view. I can function without a daily page as long as I have a lot of space to write lists. So under the A5 2016 inserts I downloaded the Month on Two Pages with Notes, as well as the Week on Two Pages Enhanced TM (5 line version). It took a few tries to print them out correctly but that is down to me and not to the excellent instructions that accompany the inserts.

Actually I should back up a bit. Before I printed them I added dates I wanted to remember on the monthly pages (like birthdays and anniversaries) and a detailed to-do list on the first week I printed. That’s the great thing about printing your own inserts; you can add the stuff you want to see before you hit print. And you can’t beat the price!

Here’s a picture of the week on two pages. I kept the pictures for this post deliberately fuzzy because it is my life and it is personal. View them on Philofaxy for better detail. The paper I used to print them is standard copier paper but takes fountain pen ink well, as well as gel ink. So I can use a variety of pens.

Here is the month on two pages.

I have said before that this layout works really well for me. I like being able to see my week at a glance.

This is a definite improvement on just a lined page. Although some weeks I just start my task list on Monday and keep going.

I’ve been using this system for June and July and I feel much more on top of things. We’ll see how long it lasts. I’m hoping it will last until the end of the year at least. To be honest the size and weight are not ideal. It’s always a struggle between lots of space to write and an ungainly size and weight. Wish me luck. 🙂

Moleskine Planner

Tags

broleatherworks, filofax, finsbury, leuchtturm, moleskine, pentel slicci

In January of this year I purchased a Filofax Finsbury in raspberry. I was using it until mid-August. I really love this planner but it is too big for the purse I am currently using. And I thought it was high time for a change. So I purchased an 18 month pocket Moleskine in the weekly format. These have been around for ages and I’ve always liked them. I love the small format and the setup is the same as in my Finsbury: week on the left with a ruled page on the right for notes and lists.

I thought about a cover for it and thought it might fit into my BroLeatherWorks notebook cover, and it did. I have been wanting to use this cover since I got it in September 2013 for my birthday. It’s a perfect fit.

I swapped out the heavy Vade Mecum charm for a little bird which I think suits it better.

I used a file folder I had made and stuck on some inspirational stickers. I also added a Leuchtturm pen loop, in red to match the red beads on the outside of the leather holder. It holds a black 0.4 mm Pentel Slicci.

The other side of the folder holds my sticky notes, a paper clip and a small book of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which I carry with me always. I also put a bird sticker on the front of the Moleskine planner, in keeping with the theme that seemed to be developing.

One page is devoted to each month. This makes for a very small space to write in appointments; I would prefer a month on two pages. But there is always the weeks section if these squares get full. I use a magnetic bookmark to mark the current month. I also used masking stickers to differentiate between months along the top.

The all too familiar week on one page layout. Over the years I have found this layout works best for me. I like to make lists and the ruled right page is perfect for that. Again, I use a magnetic bookmark to mark the current week.

The back folder holds page flags and another paper clip.

These are some of the fun stickers that come with the Moleskine, in the back pocket. I couldn’t figure out why you would need to remind yourself to blow dry your hair (the red hair dryer sticker) until my friend pointed out that would indicate hair appointment. D’oh! Of course it does.

So this will suit me fine, until Jan 2016. I don’t have a very busy life. The most complicated thing I have to keep track of are chiropractic and massage appointments for me and my husband. I usually book those well in advance so we can get the times we want, and the monthly spread is where I can see them all at once. The tiny squares are getting to me a little bit so I have ordered another planner that has the monthly pages over two pages instead of one. I ordered it this weekend and will write about it when it arrives. Excited! But for the next four months it will be me and my Moleskine. 🙂

Stationery from Mrs. Brimbles

Tags

chameleon, erin condren, filofax, finsbury, mrs brimbles

I placed an order with Mrs. Brimbles on etsy and I wanted to share. As expected Anna was a delight to work with, especially when I had a bit of trouble.

One of my co-workers recently ordered an Erin Condren lifeplanner and boy was I tempted to order one myself. But I really do love my Personal Finsbury that I’ve been using for awhile now so instead of buying a lifeplanner I bought some new Filofax inserts. I did purchase other things from Erin Condren….more on that when they arrive!

I’ve been following Anna on YouTube for quite some time and I love her etsy shop. So I ordered the Cute Kitty Cat Personal Diary Inserts and the Cute Kitty Cat Diet, Health and Fitness Inserts. I purchased the Personal size but they are also available in the A5 size. These were sent to me immediately in the form of a zipped file. Only when I tried to open them I got a virus message and the files were deleted! Please know this is NOTHING to do with the files themselves but EVERYTHING to do with the security settings on my laptop. Being somewhat technically challenged I couldn’t see a way around this. So Anna very kindly set the files up in Dropbox and sent me an invitation. That worked and I am thrilled with them!

I printed them myself and then cut them out. Above you can see a few of the pages. There are 13 different templates in the Kitty Diet, Health and Fitness set  (like Daily Calorie Intake Tracker and Pet Health Tracker ) and 17 different templates in the Kitty Diary Inserts set (like Notes and To Do). She sends 3 different files for each. I paid about $12 Cdn for each set. Lovely. I had no problems printing them out; Anna includes instructions for printing with each set. As they are proprietary designs I’m not going to show any more pictures of the inserts themselves but check them out on Anna’s etsy page. Absolutely adorable with the kitty faces!

I also ordered a Blue Bird dashboard and a set of Kitty Cat sticky notes and page flags.

As you can see I ordered the POCKET dashboard instead of the PERSONAL dashboard! But I love the design so much I stuck it in my pocket Chameleon and ordered the correct size.

Here is the package of sticky notes and page flags. Love the polka dot bag! The Believe postcard was included in the package, along with Mrs. Brimbles’ business card and advertisement for her monthly subscription box (a lovely monthly gift my budget does not allow for. Sigh.)

And here are the notes/flags. So cute. And very sticky, unlike some of the Japanese notes which fall off as soon as they are stuck down.

And that’s it for this order. There will be another piece coming, as I mentioned I ordered the personal size Blue Bird dashboard. I highly recommend Mrs. Brimbles for diary inserts and cute planner supplies. Anna is a wonderful communicator and willing to be creative when technology gets in the way! Thanks again Anna!!

Monteverde Poquito

Tags

canadian waterman junior, filofax, finsbury, goldspot, goulet pens, monteverde, poquito, reid's stationers, visconti rembrandt

I realized today I have not reviewed my Monteverde Poquito fountain pen, which I bought for my personal Finsbury Filofax from Reid’s Stationers in December 2014.

Here you can see the Poquito in the Finsbury pen loop, and it is an incredibly tight fit. So hard to find pens that fit that pen loop. But I wanted to have a fountain pen for my planner so I purchased the smallest fountain pen I have yet to see in person. It did not come with a box although the reviews on YouTube show a very nice green Monteverde box.

Poquito in Spanish means “a little bit” and this pen is super small. It measures 11 cm (4.4″) capped, and a respectable 12.6 cm (5″) posted. It is too small for a Monteverde converter, although a couple of the videos I watched mentioned smaller converters that could fit it. It comes with a standard international cartridge; mine came with black. If you want to use bottled ink you can use a syringe to fill the empty cartridge.

I found the ink was VERY slow to dry and made a mess of my fingers and my journal. And yes I realize now I spelled it “Paquito” at the beginning of the journal entry, and also in my Waterman Junior post.

I originally bought this pen to use in my Finsbury but the paper is not meant for fountain pen ink; there was tremendous showthrough and the long drying time meant messy pages. But I do use the pen; it is a good smooth writer and very comfortable in the hand despite its small size.

Here is the pen in action on a Filofax page.

Definite showthrough.

Here’s a closeup of the pen. I chose the silver, but it comes in turquoise, pink and steel grey. The turquoise and pink are metallic. I chose the silver to match the rings in my Finsbury.

The section has a bit of a step down and the nib is standard iridium, made in Germany. I think the Goulet Pens video said it was a #5. Currently this model is sold out on the Goulet Pens website.

I was given these Monteverde cartridges when I purchased my Visconti Rembrandt from Goldspot, so they will come in handy when the black cartridge that came with the Poquito runs out. But it will accept any short international cartridge.

And here is that picture I used in my Waterman Junior post, comparing pens. From left: Monteverde Poquito, Waterman Junior, Monteverde Crystal Artista, Pilot Metropolitan, Cadence, Lamy Al-Star.

Overall I would recommend the Poquito for a small everyday carry pen. It is very comfortable in the hand and writes well. I’m not a big fan of the long drying time of the ink but that could be the paper I was using for my tests as well. Let me know in the comments if anyone has had any experience with this pen, good or bad.

2015 Planner – Personal Filofax Finsbury

Tags

filofax, filofax flex, finsbury, pilot, pilot coleto multipen, pilot g-tec c4, reid's stationers, toffeenut

I have a new planner for 2015, which kind of surprises me. I was very happy in my Filofax Flex, and used it for a number of months (wow, from May to December 2014, which is something of a record for me). I had no plans to change but I found myself in December with no calendar drawn for January. December was super busy, more so than normal, and I really needed a January calendar to record things but couldn’t find the time to draw one. I grabbed an undated planner and used that for a couple of weeks (similar to the Toffeenut Planner) but then I found myself with a gift card in Reid’s Stationers. And they had a personal Finsbury Filofax in Raspberry, and well, I was sold.

Obviously I like this style, as I already have a Filofax Finsbury in Raspberry in the A5 size, which I reviewed here. And I did consider using the A5 as my everyday planner, but it is heavy and I’ve been trying to cut down on the weight in my purse of late, so I was thrilled to find the same binder in the Personal size. The Personal is much easier to carry around. And it was a bargain at $66.

There are a couple of drawbacks to moving to the smaller size however. I didn’t think to research “lay flatability” before buying but while the A5 size lays flat out of the box, the Personal size does not and probably never will without breaking the mechanism. Not a deal breaker for me but disappointing. And the smaller size only has one pen loop. Who can limit themselves to one pen?? Not I. 🙂

In this picture it’s laying flat because of the silver paperweight in the upper left corner. Otherwise it would lie about half open. Anyway the inside of each is laid out in a similar fashion. The pen loops are tight but I had no problem with my Pilot G-TEC C4. And I keep my Pilot Coleto 5 barrel tucked into the rings. I created a plastic dashboard out of the packaging and keep it at the front to protect the pages. Sorry for the glare!

I don’t like to stuff my planners so I just keep a couple post-it notes, flags, paper clips and a single sheet of calendar stickers.

 

The planner didn’t come with monthly pages and I find it hard to get by without them, so I was back to drawing boxes! But at least I could draw them on graph paper, which did come with the planner.

The week on 2 pages format comes standard but I wanted this one, with the week on the left and a generous space for notes on the right. The lovely folks at Reid’s swapped them out for me at no extra cost.

And of course I had to add a little bit of bling!

I’ve been using this planner since the last week of December. So far I have no problems with it. It goes in my purse with me every day. I’m quite happy with it. I’ve never been one for decorating the pages, and I don’t colour code, although I do enjoy using different colours of ink for contrast. I do like that it matches my A5, which I leave at home. The paper is not good for fountain pens and ink but that’s ok – on such small spaces I prefer the gel pens.

We’ll see how long the love lasts!

 

Journal Writing Wednesday: 11 pages

Tags

filofax, finsbury, ink journal, leuchtturm

Journals I’m currently using: the Paperblanks Blue Filigree, the Happiness Journal (which is now all filled up) and the Winnable Leather Journal

Total pages written since last JWW post (Sept 3): 11

Total pages to date since project inception (Dec 11/13): 591

Total pages written in 2014: 536

Total number of notebooks/pens/ink bought since self-imposed spending freeze observation experiment (it’s not much of a freeze these days!) (Jan 1/14): 28

• 1 pen + 1 bottle of ink = 2 items in a gift set on Jan 14
  
• 1 bottle of KoninginneNach-Blauw from Akkerman on Feb 5
• 1 Visconti Rembrandt Calligraphy set in Red = 2 items (pen and ink bottle) from Goldspot on May 15
• 1 bottle of J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche from Goldspot on May 15
• 1 bottle of De Atramentis Heather Violet from Goldspot on May 15
• 5 pens, 4 notebooks, 3 tins of ink cartridges from Reid’s on June 14
• 1 Jinhao X450 from ebay; received on June 19
• 1 bottle of De Atramentis William Shakespeare ink from Goulet Pens; received on June 25
• 1 Winnable Leather Notebook on July 10
• 1 Wreck This Journal on Aug 2
• 2 ink samples from Private Reserve: Avacado (sic) and DC Supershow Blue from Wonderpens on Aug 31
• 2 Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks, grid and lined from Wonderpens on Aug 31
• 1 Kaweco Sport Ink Roller Demonstrator from Wonderpens on Aug 31

Some topics covered this week:

• I mentioned a very special package last week, and that was my A5 Finsbury Filofax in Raspberry. I wrote a blog post about it here. I’m not including it on my list above because it’s not a notebook. Splitting hairs? Maybe. 🙂
• I made a To-Do list about things I have to do for my blog (like a Leuchtturm ink test, suggested in a comment), things I have to do in my journals (like add my new pens and ink to my Ink Journal) and some things I want to do for Christmas presents (no more description than that!)
• I booked our flights and car for a little holiday my husband and I are talking in a couple of weeks. Now just to choose the hotel…..! Exciting.
• I have decided to quit my little dragon breeding game. It was beginning to take up a lot of time and I found I had less time for reading and writing, which of course only made me sad. So the game is gone. But that’s ok – more time for the important stuff!

Until next time, happy writing!

A Pink Finsbury

Tags

filofax, filofax flex, finsbury, mrs brimbles, pens and leather

When I started this blog I wanted a Filofax planner very badly. But I was put off by the price. I watched hundreds of videos (it seemed like hundreds) of set-ups and decorations of all the myriad kinds of planners Filofax offers. I resolved to get one, but not through purchasing; through winning. There were a lot of contests and I entered every one. With no results. And then I saw an ad on ebay for this Filofax and I bought it. I love the colour but the size is an issue for me. I am an 8.5 x 5.5 girl so only an A5 would do. But still my budget could not stretch that far. So I waited. And entered contests. I won a Filofax Flex from Mrs. Brimbles and I have been using it as my planner for quite some time now. It’s great. But it wasn’t quite what I wanted.

So I entered more contests. And watched sales. And a month ago my vigilance paid off.

Pens and Leather had a sale (and it continues now but with less drastic discounts) on some of their Filofax planners. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the A5 Finsbury in Raspberry on sale or less than half the normally advertised price. I thought about it for less than five seconds and placed my order. I had to pay quite a lot for shipping but it was still cheaper than the exact same model at my local stationery shop. It arrived fairly quickly and I love it. I now understand what all the fuss is about.

The picture really captures the colour – a beautiful deep pink. It didn’t come in a box; I understand Filofax is no longer sending them boxed. But it did come wrapped in protective plastic, which I turned into dividers. The planner charm is my own.

Here’s a close up of that planner charm. I bought the tree charm at Michael’s and the bird charm at Suzi Q Beadworks. I think they look great together.

 

Inside the front cover. I’ve had some fun with decorations but nothing too crazy. The card in the mesh pocket reads Your attitude determines your altitude. I love the bird paperclips and thought they looked good in the pockets. I’ve seen lots of post-its notes and page flags stored here but I think it makes for a bulky cover so I’ve left it bare for now.

There are two pen loops but they are made of leather as opposed to elastic, which makes for a very narrow loop. Neither my Slicci pens nor my Coletos fit in the slots. And forget about getting a fountain pen in there. But that’s ok, because I should mention I will not be using this binder as my daily planner. The leather is soft and impressionable. I don’t want it knocking around in my bag with my other stuff. And it’s big and awkward for daily carry. No it will stay at home while I continue to use my Filofax Flex planner for every day.

The first page. Sorry for the glare and some blurry bits.

A couple of the dividers I made from the plastic packaging. Waste nothing! And the floral bookmark is the lining from a package of stickers. I thought it was pretty and fit with the general pink theme.

One great thing was I discovered my old Day Timer inserts as well as my ARC notebook page protectors would fit, I just had to punch new holes in them. Filofax accessories are hard to find and expensive so I was delighted to find I could use some inserts I already had.

Some more dividers I made myself. I bought some inexpensive duotang covers and traced dividers onto them, cut them out and punched them. I will not be investing in a Filofax custom six hole punch (budget only stretches so far) but a simple single hole punch works just as well, if you take your time.

So far I’m keeping household and personal information in here, like addresses, medications for the family, passwords, lists of improvements that need to be done to the house. I haven’t figured out everything I want to keep in here but I’m in no rush. I do have a tendency to “come late to the party” as it were; I do a lot of research before I buy a big-ticket item (and this one cost more than I generally pay for a planner, so I consider it big-ticket).

I’m having a lot of fun organizing the information and seeing how I can track a multitude of different things in it. As I said I still love my Flex Planner and will continue to use it, as well as my ARC notebooks and various other journals I own. But this marked a real milestone for me, because I had been yearning for one in this size for so long. And when a very, very, very good deal presented itself I took advantage. As I said previously Pens and Leather are still running their sale, and the discounts are still worth investigating. Have fun if you do go looking. 🙂