Getting Organised For Christmas with my Mini Baroque Filofax

Theres only a few weeks to go, so its time for getting organised and writing lists. Lots of lists ... I love list writing ...

I am using my mini Baroque as a wallet/shopping list gift planner. Bring on the photos!

My three most used store cards live in the front, along with my bank card (not shown!) that normally lives in the bottom slot. Then there are a couple of those side-opening envelopes containing a few cards and bits I don't tend to use but do want to keep with me.

Gift lists! So easy to keep track of what I'm getting for who, whether its ordered, and tick off when got. I can only show you the dog's gift list ... I don't want to spoil any surprises now!

And theres a few permanent shopping lists. This is what I tend to need every time I go to Aldi ...

... my filofax wish list ...

McDonalds coffee card ...

More cards in the back pocket ...

Money in the zippy pocket, stamps and vouchers in the other pockets ...

I did consider adding a few financial pages to keep track of costs, but decided I don't really need them.

The perfect system to keep me organised this Christmas! :)

Mini Cross Setup ...

First I want to say how much I love my mini Baroque. The leather is so very soft and tactile, the colour is gorgeous, theres so very many pockets its like a mini pink Tardis ... I will probably never let it go ...

But, I fancied a change for a while ...

So I was very lucky and found a Mini Cross on ebay. No idea what the colour is officially called, sand/tan/camel ...? Anyhow, as it is the same size as my Baroque I was able to simply transfer from one to the other.

The business cards fit into the card slots, christmas card list and stamps into the vertical pocket behind. On the rings is a plastic side-opening envelope containing stickers and washi, a flyleaf with mini sticky notes, followed by a full 2013 WO2P diary ... Not much change there then!

Still got room for notes and a magnetic clip ...

Addresses, lists, etc (I won't bother to show those as its exactly the same as before). The main difference is the back of the binder. The Baroque has a slot for a notepad, the Cross has a zippy pocket. I found I never really used the notepad as I have notepaper on the rings, so instead I wrote down all the important telephone numbers off my mobile onto a sheet of A5, folded the paper and tucked it into the pocket. So simple, yet now if my phone dies/gets lost/broken/stolen/whatever I have all my numbers to hand. I do back up my phone on my pc but chances are I won't have my pc with me when out and about and in need of numbers ...

Finally, I like the way the pen loop actually holds then pen away from the paper. Also theres a wallet pocket - fab! I really like this feature, alas the Baroque doesn't have one ...

The pen is a Lamy Agenda ...Its a nice pen, but its not gel and I really like gel pens. The next 'want' on my list is a black gel pen thats short enough to fit! Oh, and maybe a couple more mini Crosses in various colours, Cherry Red, Chocolate, Pale Blue, Black, French Navy, Pink ....  !!

An Interesting Charity Shop Find ...

Its just struck me that most of my recent posts have been about filofaxes, stationery, and the like. In fact I've been quite obsessive! Nerdy even! In order to rectify the problem this post is about a charity shop find. A treasure. A 'makes me smile' thing ...

I was on an evening power walk/run (we have a lot of hills. I run down them and power walk up ... Its easier lol!) with a friend. It was on a Monday ... I know this 'cos Monday night is torture night (very steep hills!) and as a treat me and my friend stop and look in the local charity shop window that we pass on out way back. Yes I know it sounds bizarre but that's what we like to do ...

Thats when I first saw it ...

The print.

Just hanging in the window, and only £4.99 ...

And it was vintage ... Bonus! I immediately got the 'I wants', of course the shop was shut. Boo!

So I went back the next day and bought it! Here it is ...

Its 'The Sporting Jug' by H Clayton.

I love it!

My Filofax collection has changed somewhat ...

Firstly can I just apologise for the rambling in this post! I'm just trying to get my thoughts in order ... At the beginning of the year I realised I'd aquired rather a lot of brightly patterned canvas filofaxes, a lot of which weren't being used. They did look pretty together on a shelf ... Here's a few of them ... Top left to right: Swift, Indie, Laurel. Bottom left to right: Petal, Spots, Metropol.

I also had a Fresco, green pocket Songbird and a purple pocket Songbird ... They were all nice in their own way but I ended up selling or giving them (I gave at least four away to family and friends) away as none of them were quite right for me. I've realised I really prefer horizontal card pockets, don't like mesh pockets, really like bright colour leather ... And so on ... Okay I'm actually quite fussy! At one point my collection looked like this ...

And today it looks like this ...

Still its not quite right as I only use five! The red personal Chameleon is my finance file, green personal Piazza is my journal, purple Finchley is my food diary, pocket pink Baroque is my health and fitness file and the mini pink Baroque is my daily carry-everywhere planner. So these are the filos I actually use, alhough the purple Finchley may be replaced by the pocket Aston in Orchid as the Finchley has both vertical card pockets AND a mesh pocket ...! Yuk!!

Which leaves these ...

I don't really know what to do at the moment. Mini Amazona (too dull), vintage pink pocket Malden (love the zip pocket, hate the vertical pockets), bright pink Opal (no pockets at all), and a BCC Lizard ... and probably the Finchley when the Aston arrives. Actually I may have a use for the Opal ... and I really do like the BCC Lizard even if it does only contain notepaper ... so that leaves the Amazona, Malden and Finchley to either find a use for or sell on eBay or Adspot. A serious think is in order! Its not good to see beautiful filos just sat on a shelf gathering dust! But can I bear to part with any...?

Maybe I'll just wait for Miss Pocket Aston to arrive first ... 

Mini Baroque as my main filo ...

So here she is, miss mini Baroque all set up as my main carry-everywhere filo ... Be warned: lots of yummy photos! Cor!! The outside ...

Inside the front cover are useful business cards (pet sitter, taxi, man who can, pub, etc ...)

Stamps in the first pocket ...

Martha Stewart mini tabs in the zip pocket ...

Christmas card list tucked in the back pocket, and cute sticky notes from Artbox on the fly sheet, for those quick notes/reminders ...

Important dates are highlighted on the calendar ...

Week to view diary ... Yes theres room for washi and stickers! And yes the whole of 2013 is in there! This is next week so there isn't much written in yet!

Note paper ...

Lists ... Shopping lists, book lists, doll lists ...

Addresses ... Blood donor card ...

More important stuff ...

A pretty card and some washi stickers, in one of those stoopid side opening envelopes ...

Stickers!!! And a trimmed down Flex jot pad. Behind the jot pad is a reminder of which foundation I use. The pen is a Filofax one (mini barley?) ...

Side view ... Not too stuffed ...

Finally, a top view ...

Am I pleased with this setup? You betcha!! I did try to 'upgrade' to pocket size, really I did ... It was just far too big ...!

Filofax Mystery - Solved!!

I practically mugged the postman this morning ... Especially when I saw he was carrying a little filofax size packet with my name on it! The mystery pink pocket size filo has arrived!!! I was too excited to stop and take photos of the actual opening, though I can take a photo of the shredded paper thats still on the floor if anyone really wants .... No? Thought not! Anyhow, this is what was in the packet ...

Yes!! A pink Baroque Mini!!! Isn't she cute! I must have wished really really hard cos the wish fairy has been very generous ...

And here she is next to the Pocket Baroque I purchased from  Alice recently.

Sisters together ...

I currently use the pocket as my food diary (thats a full 2013 page-per-day diary inside). As I eat at least three times a day it means I get to stroke the beautiful soft leather every time I write in it. Okay ... It makes me smile!!! Now the mini ... Could this be my everyday diary?? I'm currently in a mini so it would be easy to transfer the contents over. First though the mini will be getting a clean with some dubbin. The mini doesn't have any bad odour or feel dirty, I just want to play filos ... I know you'll understand ...!

A Filofax Mystery ...

Theres two more filos on their way to me ... One is a Personal Chameleon in red as at that price it would have been rude not to (Filofax UK site, half price plus a 20% discount code!), and a mystery pink pocket filo ... I truly don't know what it is, here's the sellers photo ... Any guesses?

The mystery will be solved when it arrives ... Fingers crossed its soon!

World Book Night 2013

Today is the third World Book Night where volunteers across the country help give away a million books ... I have been one of the volunteers since this started, and just love giving people a book and making them smile! This year I've got 20 copies of 'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyes to give away to unsuspecting mums at school ...

I love this book but be warned - its a weepie ...!

For more information on World Book Night 2013 click here!

Filofax Storage

This afternoon I decided what I really needed was somewhere to store my filos and filo-related stuff, so here's a quick tour of what I ended up with :)

The white box contains stickers, clips, post-its, stamps and mini notepads. Behind the box are my two Dymos (one manual, one electric) and a box of Dymo tapes ...

Inside the blue mini tote are my favourite pens, scissors, a corrector tape, sticky tape, washi, pretty sellotape, journalling tags and a single hole punch ...

A row of filos. Left to right: Songbird, Malden, Baroque (need to do a proper post about this gorgeous lovely!), BCC, Ranger, a pink one without a name, mini Amazona and a selection of flexes. The multi-layer tub contains a few craft supplies including mini ink pads. There's my punch and my Piazza ...

Lovely New Filofax Piazza as my Journal!

*Warning* this post has loads of photos!

I have been thinking of keeping a journal. I already have a diary (Finsbury Mini Zip) that has everything I need to do, appointments, etc, a weight-o-fax (Songbird) and a general notebook (BCC), but nowhere to record what I actually do .... Aha! Yes! An excuse to buy another binder! .... I knew it would have to be a pretty colour and have pretty things in it, so I trawled the net and found the perfect filofax for the purpose ... And she's here!

Personal size Piazza in citrus green! A bit bigger than my other filofaxes, but not too much bigger.

Lovely pretty colour ...

Perfect!

The pocket layout is perfect, pockets for tickets and mini notepads, bigger pocket behind for stickers ... I set her up straight away! The tabs (journal and notes) are made from a trifold easter card. The journal tab has the front of the card. I used my manual Dymo for the label ...

A week on two pages diary ... Plenty of room to write without being intimidated by too much space ...

The notes tab is also a pocket ... The card I used is slightly narrower than the diary, so I stuck some washi tape down the side ...

I decorated the back of the tabs with stickers and quotes. Pretty paper from Wilkinsons ...

A place for tickets, photos, things that make me smile :)

Plenty of room for more ... But wait!! I forgot to include my pens ... Duh! I have two pens for my journal - my Coleto (pink, violet, pale blue and orange ink) and a pen from Wilkinsons (black ink) that matches the notepaper ... They just both get hooked onto the pen loop ...

Now my beautiful journal just needs to be written in! The Piazza is a fairly stiff binder so is perfect for when I'm in bed and writing about my day. I have ordered some tape, stickers and other bits from Artbox to help keep the pages pretty and can't wait for it all to arrive! So exciting!!