Filofax Notebook Review

Filofax have very kindly sent me a notebook to share with you guys. Do you have one? What do you think?

Minimalistic Christmas / Holiday Planner

Hello everyone it's Zinia from Abstract Inspiration here and today I want to share with you how I made a kinda minimalistic holiday planner. 

Don't get me wrong, I love fluffy and overdecorated planners, especially for special occasions like this but I knew I will be really busy the next month and I wanted my planner to look simple so I won't get overwhelmed but also a bit festive.

 

To achieve that first I had to add this freaking adorable paper clip on the front of my planner. I really hope Anna will include more of these in her future boxes cause they are the cutest thing ever! I also used some of the red striped washi tape to bring some holiday spirit into my pen as well.

For my December weekly inserts I designed some myself (they are available to download here) so I have them pre-decorated but I couldn't help myself and added some little bits for my first week of December.  Those stickers are too cute to hoard.

 

I used one of the elf notepad pages and cut it down a bit thinner so it would fit into my personal size Filofax. I keep track of the gifts I want to get for my friends and family. On the opposite side of that, I added a page for extra notes which I decorated with an adorable sticker from the October Afternoon sticker sheet.

Last but not least I added a Santa sticky note (they are my top favorite sticky notes ever!!) on the back of my divider to keep track of the Christmas cards I want to send.

With just a few touches of Christmas decorations and the right colors you can make your planner look festive, you don't need to over decorate if you don't feel like it.

My Autumnal Planner Set Up

It has been ages since the last time I shared a planner set up with you. The main reason for this is that for me my system does not change. I found planner peace a long time ago with the way in which I planned and also what I needed in my planner. Planner peace for me is about my system rather than the actual planner I am in.

So a couple of weeks ago I talked about my planning mojo was having a bit of a slump. Well I decided to move away from the Ban.do Florabunda and back into my Malden. I do still love the Floradunda but I just felt like I wanted to go back into rings again. I was using my Florabunda for planning as well as journalling which was working well for me but, I don't know, for planning, I just found it too large. I am still using it but solely for journalling and we still have a strong love affair!

Now I am back into my Malden, my mojo is also back into full swing too! Autumn is my favourite season and I come alive in Autumn and find that I really get my 'craft on' too. The Malden lends itself perfectly to snuggly photos so expect to see a lot of those in the coming weeks and months over on instagram!

Obviously I filmed a video of my set up so you can hear and see me talk about it:



I don't know about you but Autumn to me means even more warm drinks so it wouldn't be Autumn without a little Starbucks charm now would it!

When I am in my Malden I do tend to use the card slots for my cards, the layout just lends itself perfectly for a purse / wallet. I took the cards out for the photos though. I also have a couple of paperclips too. I can never have enough paperclips! Also peeking out you will see some cute little notecards from My Pretty Week.

I have affectionately labelled myself the dashboard queen as you know I am always making dashboards and my planner has at least two in it at all times! Pure eye candy mostly!

The page marker I made last year by laminating a sticker sheet has of course made it's return!

As for the sections in my planner; I have my diary, to do, notes and addresses. This is my daily planner for my personal life and our home / family life. I don't need anything to fancy or high tech. I use another planenr for work and blog scheduling. For this, I like to keep it simple and for me having my planners split like that really works and helps keep everything in some kind of logical order.

The inserts and dividers are all cut from a Paperchase notebook which I think was from their 2014 Dreamscape collection.

My Planner / Journal Set up for Travel

I spent more time deliberating over planner and journal supplies that I should take away with me than clothes. Seriously! I thought you might like to see the set up that I went with!



The fauxdori I show is an A5 size from: https://www.etsy.com/shop/loveneen I love it and totally reccommend. The quality is amazing and she is such a lovely lady to work with too!

This weeks pages - Rainbow Brite

I am going a bit on the nostalgic side this week and getting in touch with my inner child. In fact I get in touch with my inner child most weeks as you know how much joy I get from just sticking stickers down!

The wonderful Deb from Craftin Chaos made me this amazing Rainbow Brite paper clip with matching rainbow and so I just knew that I would have to have a Rainbow Brite week and this is that week. Yay!

Products Used
Planner: Websters Pages Color Crush Planner in Sky Blue with matching folio
Planner Inserts: Websters Pages week on two pages
Washi Tape: Sorry I can't remember where it was from!
Journal Cards: Websters Pages - These are the days collection
Paperclips: Both from Craftin Chaos on Etsy
Pen: Bic Crystal which writes in a beautiful turqouise colour!
Rainbow Brite & Sprite toys: My own from when I was a child in the 80s!

How I am using the monthly pages...

If you have been following me for a while you will know that I don't actually use monthly spreads. I just don't feel in my life that I need to see a monthly spread. I know many of you find it a must have and would be lost without it but for me I just don't need to see everything at a glance. OK so fast forward to receiving the Color Crush planner...the kit comes with lovely monthly pages. Now I was intrigued and you know me, I love trying out new planning ways and methods so I thought I would give them a little road test.


I am using my monthly spread for scheduling and tacking blog posts and YouTube videos. As you can see I am not using it for my personal life and if I am perfectly honest I can't actually see a need for that purpose any time soon. Never say never though as life is constantly evolving and you never know, I may do lol!

At the moment they are working really well for me. I am using the quick list down the side for jotting ideas down in pencil and then I move them over to the day space when I schedule the video in. I tend to write in pencil mainly as then things can be moved around but I will also write in pen when I know that something is a definite.

Decoration wise I have not decorated in advance, I have just decorated as I have gone. Whenever there was a gap and I had some stickers or washi tape around I just whacked it on the page. The result is something that I love!

Products used for March:
Stickers - From my online shop
Washi Tape - Plain pink is scotch tape. Striped from Websters Pages, Sprinkle tape from Hey Charlie Shop on Etsy, White with black dots from my online shop, black with flowers from my online shop.
PL card: These are the days collection (March) from Websters Pages

Products used for April:
Stickers - were from the April Brimbles Box but have now all sold out
Washi Tape - was received in a swap

Products used for May:
Stickers - From my online shop
Washi Tape - From my online shop

I can't show you the actual spread for May because I haven't done anything with it so no eye candy to look at!

I would love to know if you use a monthly spread and what you use it for because I am intrigued. I don't have any bills that I need to track because everything just comes out of the bank on a direct debit or standing order. Please do let me know because I am nosey and if you fancy sharing a picture or two with me I would love to see those as well. I would just like to know what I am missing out on and why people use them. For me I just can't get my head around a use for them so now I am using them for blog planning I am glad that they are not going to waste!

Planner Page Decoration Flip Through

I have consistnently decorated my planner pages every week this year and as we are a third of the way through the year I thought it would be fun to do a flip through of the pages. As you know I always share my pages here on the blog on a Sunday usually so you may have already seen most of them but this is what they look like with all of my scribbles on them!

The FluffyFax - Set up tour of my pet health care tracking planner

Welcome to the FluffyFax show and tell he he! OK so I call it a Fluffyfax because it houses all of the information regading my fluffies health and wellbeing. When I say fluffies I actually mean my three bunny rabbits and my two guinea pigs. And it is actually the A5 Filofax Domino in patent turqoise which I have shown you before.

I have always documented and tracked various things for my fluffies. It started out as just a section in my daily planner (A5 and then Personal size), then it moved into a personal size all of it's own and now we are on A5. I decided to make the move from personal to A5 because the two vets that I take my girls too either give / send their invoices and information in A5 or A4 size. I wanted to start keeping some of these so it made sense to upgrade them to an A5 size. Prior to the Dominos I had two A5's, one being used as a home management binder and the other as a journal so it was a nice excuse to ask for a Domino for my birthday!

Let me take you through the planner so that I can show you what I have in here and why.


Of course as we are going to be using something so beautiful as the turqoise we may as well put some other beautifulness in and of course I think my girls are beautiful so expect to see some photos of them in the following pages. My little bragging book he he!In the secreterial pocket I have some of the spare inserts that I am using in the planner. The dashboard actually serves no purpose other than for prettiness. I just love Belle and Boo products as you well know particularly as Boo looks so much like my little Florence Tinkerbell. Aesthetically my planner is quite bunny heavy and that is because I have yet to find anything really with guinea pigs on so if you do, please point me in that direction and I will love you forever!

In the first divider I have general informaion pertaining to all of them so I have details on the vets that we use and who goes where. The two new additions go to a different vet than the others because they had a bundle deal on microchipping, vaccines and health checks. A tad confusing but then that is what a planner is for, to keep me in check.

When we go on hoiday, Jon's parents usually come and stay at the house to look after the girls, they like staying and call it a mini break, they live in the town and although we are not a million miles away from each other they like to come out to the Country! The folks are quite well versed in the fluffy care but I do like to leave them with notes just so that they can refresh their memory if they forget something. I detail when to food and bedding etc and I always like to leave them with vets details. The beauty with the fluffyfax is that it is altogether all of the time so I don't have to write it down each time, I can just leave the fax out on the side when we go.

Nutrition is very important to them as it is us but for bunnies and piggies there are lots of foods that they can't eat and some that should only be fed in moderation. My girls do have their favourites so I pretty much know what to give them but every now and then we may have something new in and I wonder if they can eat it, well I have it here printed out for quick reference and saves me going online all the time. I use the PDSA to obtain my information as it is supported by my vets. Please note that this is a guide to help you out and I cannot be held responsible for any of the accuracy of the information that it contains. Please ensure that you do your own research or you check with your veterinary surgeon that food you are giving to your animal is safe. OK that was my little disclaimer!

I also keep the information of where I have purchased snuggle items so I can refer back to them.

Moving on then to the other dividers. Each divider has a photo of the fluffy that it refers to so that I know who is whos section, that and it is an excuse to have another photo of my girls! This Mumma does love her girlies. In my old fluffyfax I had names on the dividers and laminated over them but I am doing it this way so that I can change sequences if I need to / want to (not because I am expecting a fluffy to depart us anytime soon - "touch wood")

Each of the sections contains a sheet with further information about each fluffy. As our girls were adopted there are some gaps as we don't know everything.

I keep a log of their nail trims so I can work out when their last one was and when to book the next, they usually go around the three month mark. I also like to keep check of their vaccinations.

I find keeping a health log really useful. It is useful for us so that we can see changes and improvements and monitor conditions and we can also see when it was things occurred. There are always times when we can say "when was that". Again if we are going away, this is useful information for people to have in case there are flare ups or if care giving is still needed.

And that is pretty much that. It keeps us well organised so we know what is what and it is working really well for us. Do you track your pets health and welfare? I would love to know and I would love to know if you have any suggestions on things I should be doing. I have had bunnies and piggies all my life but there are still things that can be learnt.

This is not a selling post, I am literally just doing a show and tell of my set up and hopefully inspire you to track your pets health if you don't already but if you were interested in any of the inserts / dashboards I do sell these in my Etsy shop.

I hope this has been a useful and interesting read and I will catch up with you all soon x

I'm so ready for it - This weeks pages

Even though it is dark and gloomy with rain battering against my windows today, I feel in a really Spring like mood. I am so ready for April but more importantly I am so ready for Easter next week!

Products Used
Planner: Websters Pages Color Crush Planner in White with matching folio
Planner Inserts: Websters Pages week on two pages
Washi Tape: MT Brand but I can't remember where I purchased these from.
Stickers: Hobbycraft - I bought mine in store in the Easter aisle, they don't seem to have them online.
Journal Cards: Websters Pages - These are the days 'April'
'Art' Postcard: Unknown, sorry!
Paperclips: Ribbon Bow - Hey Charlie, Rabbit shape - Paperchase, Gold Bow - Kate Spade
Creme Egg Planner Charm - My Etsy Shop
Belle & Boo Stationery Set - My Etsy Shop
Dashboard - My Etsy Shop

There was a whole great big yummy mess on my desk which I just scooped up and arranged a little bit nicer for a photo he he! Such a nice way to spend a wet Sunday me thinks!

Easter chocolate here we come...

Planner problems huh...I love all these cards and can't decide what to use when and how lol! I like to pop a card in between my pages for prettiness and extra notes and the like but oh I can't decide, I like them all!!