...yes, it's a strange addiction.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

First Link Roundup for 2013

Wow, it's the middle of January already! That holiday season just zipped right by, didn't it?  And I've been spending so much time trying to get my book blog going again, I really haven't been able to feed my office supply addiction as much as I'd like.  And since it's the first of the year and I've been trying to get organized for 2013, most of this week's links are planner-related (again, quite a few blog planners -- still looking for that perfect setup). So, enough with the excuses. Here are some of the interesting places I've visited recently:

Blog Planners

Other Planners, Calendars, etc.

Ink, Pens, Pencils

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Link Roundup

I probably won't get around to much more blogging before the end of the year, so this might be my last link roundup for 2012.  Have to see how things go, and how much time I have for surfing the 'net next week.

This week's list is heavy on websites that offer advice/templates/discussions about blog planners. I'm trying to come up with one of my own, so I've been looking for ideas.  Lots of good ones out there, but so far none of them suit my needs exactly, so I'll just have to keep thinking about it.

GENERAL STUFF & FROU-FROU

PENCILS, PENS, INK

PLANNERS, CALENDARS, JOURNALS

BLOG PLANNERS

WORKSPACES

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Plannerisms Planner Giveaway

Just a heads-up: Over at the Plannerisms blog, the amazing Laurie is hosting a worldwide giveaway of one of her new Going Places planners. You can see photos and read all about the planners and the giveaway here. Great opportunity to try one of these lovely-looking new items.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Weekly Link Roundup

I've been keeping my own private "links of interest" list for a while now -- a little roundup of the interesting blog posts, videos, articles, and websites I find each week. This week, I thought I'd go ahead and share it.  I'm hoping to make this a regular blog feature in the new year.
  1. Fossil wallet plus DayTimer 2PPD (@Sense of Gravity)
  2. Using the Plannerisms planner as a Goals workbook (@Plannerisms)
  3. Old Art Journals Rediscovered: Collage Journal (@A Penchant for Paper)
  4. A Virgin Planner (@Bits of Me)
  5. I Will Catch Up (@My Supply Room)
  6. New Premium Line of TUL Pens from OfficeMax (@No Pen Intended)
  7. Notebook Addict of the Week (again) -- Kara (@Notebook Stories)
  8. Review: Bound Custom Journals (@Notebook Stories)
  9. Avery NoteTabs Heart and Apple Shape (@OfficeSupplyGeek)
  10. Web Finds -- 8 December 2012 (@Philofaxy)
  11. Beyond Transportation and Stationery (@Scription)
  12. Going to give my personal size a go...Again (@Planning Is Nirvana)
  13. Permanent Apparently Doesn’t Mean Forever – Sharpies Fade (@Tiger Pens Blog)
  14. Finally! Tabbed Inserts for the Compact (@Well Planned Life)
  15. The Tell-All Planner (@Well Planned Life)
  16. DIY Planner Cover-First Look! (@School Supply Dance)
  17. Diary testing: 2PPD (@Living with Liisa)
  18. Free 2013 Calendar Inserts Available for Download (@Journaling Arts)
  19. ARC Customizable Notebook System From Staples (@Inkophile)
  20. Raider of the (not really Lost) Arc (@the zeitgeist of zoe) 
  21. Cahier Bookmark (@My Moleskine)
  22. Living With A Traveler’s Notebook (@Recording Thoughts)
  23. DIY Planner (@Stellaire)
  24. Blog planner (@Little Lovelies)
  25. DIY Planner (@The Tiny Nest in China)

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

New Filofax Set-Up (What, Again?)

Just spent a very pleasant morning organizing the new set-up in my Personal size Finsbury.


I've gone back to Finny after a torrid but brief love affair with the Erin Condren Life Planner. The Condren planner is gorgeous...


and really fun to use (love all those colors and pithy quotes):


But it weighs a ton and is just a little too big to conveniently throw into my handbag and take along.  And at $50 plus shipping charges, it really does require complete commitment. Ultimately, though, I just got frustrated with not being able to move things around in it. Same problem I always have with bound planners -- I'm attracted to them, but in the end they always let me down. Planner love hurts.

Which reminds me -- I need to do a blog post about all the planners I've tried this year.  More on that later.

Right now, I just want to do a little Filo show and tell.  For my 2013 system, I'm going with both monthly (month on two pages)


and weekly (week on two pages, horizontal spread) diary pages.

That seemed to work pretty well this year, so thought I'd try it again.  And next year, for the first time, I'm going to give these Filofax day-planner pages a try:


That means monthly, weekly, AND daily scheduling and notes, which definitely could be overkill. Especially if I'm going to go on keeping my separate daily diary, too. So -- not sure how long that will last.

And I finally decided to go ahead and do a little tab editing.


Up to now I've just used the tabs that came with the Filo (Diary, Notes, Projects, Information, Financial, Addresses), but I've never been really satisfied with those designations (I never really used the Financial tab at all, since I don't keep financial info in my planner). So I got out my trusty P-Touch and printed up some labels with my own categories, and pasted them on. 


"Monthly" and "Weekly" are obvious. The "Daily" tab will house those day-planner pages (at least until I figure out if they're usable or not).  "Lists/Info" is also self-explanatory; I've cleared out all the old lists, so right now all I've got is a list of movies I want to watch, and a few shopping notes.


The "Projects" section is a bit of a catch-all area. At the moment it's mostly taken up with lists of household projects and plans. But I'm hoping to use it for various craft projects too, when I get around to doing crafty things again.


And the "Addresses" section remains the same.  Won't show any photos of that, since I'm using it to store a few passwords and personal info, too.  All in code, of course, but even so....

One of these days, I really want to make my own tabbed dividers using decorative papers or cards -- something a little more colorful and interesting than these generic manila dividers. But that's a project (and a blog post!) for another day.


Saturday, November 3, 2012

Paper Mate Flair Ultra Fine Point Pens

These Paper Mate Flair felt tip pens in Ultra Fine Point are becoming my favorite go-to pens for everyday use. I bought a pack of eight from Amazon -- all the local shops seem to carry only the medium point variety.  They're probably not perfect for every sort of paper, but on the fairly heavy-weight paper in these ECOeverywhere notebooks, they work very nicely.


I don't notice much feathering -- well, maybe just a bit.  And hardly any show-through on the back of the page -- actually, none that I can see.  As I say, thinner paper might prove more of a problem (haven't tried them in my Filofax yet).


I'm not an artist, so I don't know how they'd be for drawing with -- but I know they're pretty good for doodling:


Note: I have no affiliation with Paper Mate, ECOeverywhere, or Amazon; these opinions are my own and were not solicited or encouraged by any commercial entity.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Enough With the Diaries Already!

Following up on my last post, about my search for diaries for next year and the last two months of this year....

(Yes, I know you've all been on the edge of your seats out there, just waiting breathlessly for the next installment. The excitement in the air is positively tangible!)

Seriously folks, I have devoted an annoyingly huge amount of my time to this problem these last few weeks.  Finally found the elusive daily diary for 2013 (see the post about it here), but that still left me with two months of 2012 to cover (my current diary only made it to the end of October).  So I was in something of a quandary.  (Which is right next to a kankedort, and a painful position in which to find oneself, believe me.)

But (drum roll, please) after much searching and comparing and hemming and hawing -- I think I've found my book. When I was surfing Amazon, I discovered ECOeverywhere, a line of journals, sketchbooks, and photo albums created by Sun Graphix.  All recycled material (which is good), and made in the USA (which is even better).  Dozens of gorgeous cover designs available, and the journals were the perfect size (about 7.5 by 8.5 inches).  And they were really inexpensive, too!  Couldn't resist that, so I ordered a few just to test.

That one on top is adorable, isn't it?  Haven't decided on a use for it yet.  And the one pictured below, I bought just because I collect Alice in Wonderland books and ephemera, so I had to have this one:

And here's the one I'll be using as my diary for November and December (called "Autumn Leaves"):

The back cover is just as cute as the front (the back says 2011, Helen Dardik, so I'm assuming that's the designer's name):

They have a Smyth sewn binding so they lay pretty flat for writing, and the spine is a nice coordinating color:
Here's a shot of the inside pages:


Each page has the little green leaf graphic down in the corner at the bottom -- cute, but I think I'd rather have that space for writing.  Also, the paper seems OK -- not quite as smooth as I'd like, but the Quo Vadis diary I've been using has probably made me over-finicky about paper quality.  This should be fine.  The specs on Amazon say it's acid free, but I can't find anything in the actual product that makes that claim -- just that it's 100% recycled.  Each one has 80 sheets, making them 160 pages, front and back.  And the lines are made of light green dots -- not sure how I'm going to like that.  I think I'm OK with the green -- the dots...maybe not so much.

Anyway, at $4 apiece, I thought they were a great buy.  I checked Amazon just now and found that they've gone up to more than double that price, which is way more than I'd pay for one.  So I guess I just got lucky with these.  Now I just need to do something interesting enough to write about!