Finding my inspiration to Journal - Storms!

Hello journal friends. I hope you have a had a really great week and have truly been able to look around you and draw inspiration from your life to journal about.

This week I am sharing with you how I found my inspiration from a storm. It has been really hot here in the UK but we have also had some storms. One night we were woken up just before 4 am with lots of thunder and really heavy rain. We got up firstly because it was too loud to sleep and secondly because we wanted to check on the piggies and bunnies to make sure that they weren't scared by the storm. They were absolutely fine and looked at us like we were a pair of loonies!

So we were up and we were awake so we decided to watch the storm out of the bedroom window. We live in a small village in the countryside so we don't really have many street lights so when it is night time it is absolutely pitch black outsidebut then every so often the darkness was punctuated by the most spectacular lightning that totally lit up the lake. It really was very beautiful so I grabbed my camera and tried to record some of it for you.

Unfortunately the storm was moving away so I only got the one flash and not a very bright one at that but I think you will agree, still beautiful. So this then became my journal inspiration. Over on the Journal Gypsies blog I have been talking about my Weather Goddesses which is another thing that inspired me with this page.

To me Lightning was like a lady of the night, she comes out of the darkness for small glimpses and disappears again as quickly as she came. You need to be quick to see her!

Well that was the inspiration behind the page and here is the page itself. I am not 100% happy with how it turned out but I do think it represents how I was feeling and what I wanted to convey so I am happy with it from that point of view. I was just so tired, by the time we got back into bed we couldn't sleep as we were so awak and then the alarm came all too soon for our liking!

I just wanted to share that bad situations can also be good. There are two ways of looking at the storm that night. Firstly you could moan because the storm woke you up so you were really tired or you could be glad that the storm woke you up because then you had a chance to marvel at natures creation. How we as human beings deal with the bad and sad times ultimately dictates how much of a happy life we have! I talked about it a bit at the end of the video but I will touch on it again at another time.

I have a few ideas up my sleeve for prompts and things for you as well as showing you more of how my pages come to be so I just need to work out how and what I am going to do with those before I share but please just know that it is coming really soon.

I hope you get your journal out and have fun creating this week, see you soon!

Finding my inspiration to journal - Clouds

Following on from last week I thought I would continue to share with you how I find my inspiration from my world around me to journal.

We have been having some really warm weather here but at times it has also been really cloudy and also really stormy. I love the weather and I find it really inspiring, I don't know why but I just do and I especially love clouds. I love cloud gazing and marvelling at the different types and formations. I just love it! I have drawn a lot of clouds in my journals and they take on all shapes and forms. Sometimes I have people swinging off of them and also gazing up, clouds are just one of the things I really love to journal about, take photos of and also incorporate into my Filofax. It is safe to say that I just can't get enough of clouds!

So with all of that in mind, the beautiful clouds and my love of clouds I though it would be appropriate to journal about clouds and share it with you and it also gives me a chance to share with you how I created some clouds previously in my journal that a few of you said you would like to know how to do too.

One minute it was really sunny and the next minute the sun went behind the clouds and it was really cloudy. To me this seemed like the sun was trying it's hardest to shine but every now and then had to go and have a nap in a bed of clouds and this is what inspired my journal page...

How are you getting on with finding your inspiration around you?

New Filofaxes {unboxing} - Filofax Friday

Hi Filofaxing Friends, I hope you are all keeping cool, well here in Cambridgeshire (UK) we are having temperature up to 30c and that is hot for us!

Anyways I am super busy working away on pimping up the Filofax for the blogger challenge which is proving to be more indepth and time consuming than I originally thought it was going to be...BUT...I hope it will be worth it in the long run and I have also been working on some elements that I can share with you guys so bare with me on that!

So in the meantime I wanted to share with you an unboxing of two Filofaxes that I purchased. Well actually I purchased three but one of them is to put away for a future giveaway, hint, hint! I just thought I would share them with you because if you haven't had chance to see them in the shops you can't always tell what they are like from photographs online.

And of course because of these my set ups and how I am organising things will / have changed so lots more to talk about in future Filofax Fridays!

Anyway my friends, sorry this is so short from me this week, must get back to pimping up that Filofax! Until next week, take care x

Linkys Dream Stationery Subscription Box Unboxing - August 2014

Well it is that wonderful time of the month again folks, the time when a lovely courier lady knocks on my door and hands me a beautifully wrapped package which I know is going to be jam packed full of yummy stationery goodies and goodies for my Filofax too! I sign as quickly as I can and then dash upstairs to start the unboxing. No matter what I am doing it can wait, I have to see what is inside the yummy box.

If you would like to see me 'unbox the box' so you can get a better feel for the items and size etc please do watch the video below.

So let's get cracking, of course again the box came delightfully wrapped / packaged both inside and out.

And then on the inside there was a mixture of individually wrapped items and other little bits and bobs along with sweeties, gotta love the sweeties and my all time favourite, which Linkys knows that I adore...pompoms!! Linkys knows I am collecting a jar of pompoms and there were a lot extra in this box so I think she through some more in for me which I lurrrrrve! I just need to buy myself a really big beautiful jar to put them in now. I really liked the big pink postcard, it made me smile so much, such a lovely thing to read and be faced with.

So what did I get... well I got a plaque for my craft room which you can see on the below left, that is just so me isn't it! One thing I really wanted to point out and what makes the Linkys box stand out from other boxes is that she takes the time to really get to know you and your likes and then tailors the box to suit you. This box could not be any more suited to me! You know I have a love for journalling, art, Filofaxes and Stationery and this box was a mixture of all of that. Just perfect. I also received a journalin hot pink with beautiful cream paper inside and a set of mini colouring pencils in a tube which is just perfect for travelling with.

I also received this super cute foxy rubber which matches my fox dashboards perfectly. There was also a full size washi tape, turqoise pen and pack of note papers. All of which I love too. There is nothing in this box I don't!

Next up, goodies for my Filofax... a set of handmade dividers for my personal size Filofax (oh when you order if you have a planner, and want planner goodies just make sure you tell her what size you would like, if you don't have a planner and just want stationery you can get that too!). I have never tried tabs on the top so I am excited to try those. There was also this stunningly gorgeous charm with flowers and a watering can, super super cute!

Then lastly but by no means leastly, I received two rubber stamps, a cloud paper clip and various project life cards, post its, stickers and just general lovely little bits and bobs. It is the extra little bits and bobs that just help to make this box all that more special I think and all of them will be put to use in some way, shape or form.

So all in all another fantastic box. If you agree why not get one too! They are very popular so I would act quickly. August is already sold out and September is getting limited. If you do miss out for September then you can always order October, November or December. In fact why not tell your loved ones to order you a box as a Christmas present? Perfect for any stationery or planner lover.

Boxes are priced at just £15 with shipping in the UK at £3, she does ship internationally and the price is dependent on your Country, you just need to get in touch with her for a quote! Head on over to LinkysDream.co.uk to order yours!

I know everyone's boxes are different as she tries to cater to your needs. If you would like to see what someone else got why not head on over to Amanda's blog: She's Eclectic as Amanda has posted what she got too, that way you get a better feel if you think this is something that you would like to get. I love the pencil case that Amanda got, very jealous there lol!

I am off now to start using some of the goodies, I know exactly what I am going to do with them but you will  have to wait to find out more...

Where / How to find inspiration to journal

I often get asked from time to time about how and where I find my inspiration from and also people have asked to see how journal pages come together. I haven't really know in what form I wanted to share this in with you all until now but I am finally doing that.



There are different styles of journalling and I tend to do some of them, all of them, a mixture of them depending on what I want to do that day for example:

• Just writing
• Art work on it's own
• Smashbooking (sticking in ephemera like receipts)
• Scrapbooking (using photographs and embellishments)
• Collaging
• Or a mixture like art work with a quote.

Why I am journalling usually infuences the style of journalling that I want to do, again there are many reasons why you may want to journal and for me those are:

• To document my day / debrief
• To record keep (momentous occasions like a wedding or baby etc)
• To process my feelings, good and bad
• For the sake of it, to art and create for fun and because I enjoy it.

No there is no need to other think this before you start, just open a book and go for it, however if you are struggling to get started then thinking about these things can be a great start. For example if we have been on a nice date to a restaurant I would want to record this and that would be the inspiration. I would likely write about what a lovely time we had and then maybe stick a photo in with some cute washi tape and then stick the receipt in. Jobs a good un'. The inspiration in that situation kind of found itself and that is easy.

What about when you want to journal but don't know what about, or if you want to start incorporating art work into your journal etc well then this can be a bit more tricky. Believe me it does up with ease the more practise you have so please don't get disheartened in the early days and give up, keep with it and I promise you that you will get there with inspiration flying at you all the time. There are times of course when you have blocks and that is natural but something will open you up again. If you do have a mental block which I often do, I just sit with my journal and collage. I love to collage I find it very relaxing and soon an idea comes to me and then I just roll with it!

To start to find your inspiration you need to open your eyes to see as well as look and try and be more present in your day and each moment. Think about the situations you have been in that day and enjoy each present moment before trying to rush to the next one. For me I find my happiness in the present moment, enjoying the everyday and the everyday is beautiful. Of course crummy things can happen and do happen but the key to your happiness is how you deal with those situations, cue your journal - process them in there! Documenting your day or having a 'de brief' with yourself is a great way to process everything that you have been through that day and helps you to clear and refresh your mind.

Every life tells a story and every story is interesting. You may not think it at the time but believe me it is! When in a few years you pick your journal up again you can look back and see how you have changed and grown as a person. Both sets of my grandparents passed away when I was young so I only remember them through a childs mind but I would love to read their journals (if they had them) to find out what life was like for them. How interesting would it be to know about their everyday lives, what they ate, what they wore all that kind of stuff. Of course there may be things that you don't want people to see in the future and that is fine, you don't have to leave your journals behind and of course you should set up boundaries with your family members for your privacy where your journal is concerened. Mr B keeps a journal and we are both respectful of each others journal space.

So start to find the inspiration in the everyday. The above picture shows Mr B on a Sunday morning having a cup of tea and reading the paper. He had had a busy week and work and on the Saturday so the Sunday was really nice to chill out with each other and it was some really special quality time together. Of course I really liked seeing him so relaxed and contented to I took this instagram snap of him which I love, it is so arty and in the journal it went along with some writing about that moment.

So moving on to my process of how I journal and how I find my inspiration and turn it into a journal page. I don't or haven't in the past eaten anywhere near as much fruit as I should, I am so bad at it but that is just the way it is. In the past week or so I have really upped my fruit and I am really proud of myself for doing that and I have gotten to the point where I am really enjoying fruit and I am actually craving it now. I love it! I never thought it would come to that being someone who really wasn't that interested in fruit. So it is so momentous for me I felt like I wanted to capture how I felt about it all and what it all meant to me. I had just been and bought some more fruit and it was a hot day and it all made me feel very happy. See more of my thoughts on this and how I put this journal page together in the video below...

 

I hope you found it interesting to see how I gathered my inspiration and then turned it into a journal page. I will do a little series of these to help get you on your way so you can see how I do it and hopefully gain some inspiration yourself.

If you are not sure if journalling is for you or not but you are just tempted by it, or indeed if you want to get into journaller or just have a refresher, I have a playlist over on my YouTube channel of inspiring videos all about journals. I just you go check it out as then you don't just have to take my word for it but the inspiration from many other people that journal too. Click here to go to that playlist.

Design for Filofax - The Filofax Cover Story Competition

 As you know I am taking part in the Pimp My Filofax challenge set by Filofax and I was very kindly sent a cover story floral burst. In planning how I was going to pimp it up I decided to dig around a little and look into the history and further information about the cover story. It was then that I found that Filofax was looking for entries to design the cover story for 2015.

Oh my goodness! I would love to be able to design a Filofax, I think any of us in the planner community would, it would be like a dream come true for us it really would! So I looked into it just that little bit more. I saw that it was open to graduates from UK based art and design courses which although I have been graduated for a little while now, I am still a graduate and there was no age limit or any reference to 'recent' so I decided to give it a go. It took a massive leap of courage but you know, unless you try, you will never know. The very very worst is that I never hear back or I get a no and that is OK at least I will have tried and I will never regret not trying.

The Brief:

• Create a cover design to be applied onto one of Filofax’s best-loved personal organiser constructions.

• The winning design will be applied to a product / range of products to be launched during Spring 2015.

• The design must appeal to women who would prefer a more fashion led Filofax personal organiser and probably have a love of prints and patterns.

• The end product is likely to be used more in a social than business context.

So what did I want to do? My mind was absoutely buzzing with ideas but I only found out about this three days before the deadline. Three days....ahhhhhhhh!! And those three days just happened to be some of the busiest days that I had going on but I decided that I wanted to do this, I really did. So I tried!

From being in the planner community, I have noticed that most people prefer the leather Filofax covers or at least rather plain ones. I am terribly sorry Filofax but I never see any pictures of the cover story. It is nice but I started to wonder why this was not massively favoured in the planner community. I then started to think about this more and think about the sorts of images that I see popping up time and time again. What are the people using and purchasing planners also purchasing?

I started to see a trend emerging with names like Kate Spade, Henri Bendel and Michael Korrs being amongst the top contenders fashion wise. On the stationery line people are opting for more geometric patterns with lots of purchases being made from the Target dollar spot and project life cards being incorporated into planners. More and more people are customising their planners with paper from scrapbook lines who are again opting for more and more geometric patterns.

So ideas started popping into my head to design covers with polkadots, chevrons and stripes. I personally love geometric designs so this was right up my street! I also started to think about colours. I wanted to design something that can be quite versatile. I love the nude patent from Filofax, I think it is so elegant and chic and you can style it with anything. I wanted something that could co-ordinate well with most things yet still being totally stylish and fashion led. Oh and of course fitting the brief of having a bold pattern.

Thinking of the popular brands emerging I started to do a little research around the net and found a few items that matched what I was thinking in my head perfectly and I created this little moodboard:

If you like any of the items and would like to know more about them, this is what they are:

1. Nail Varnish from Butter London
2. Michael Kors Dylan Watch
3. Project Life Heritage Collection
4. Notebook - Sugar Paper Cabana Stripe from Bloomingdales
5. Kate Spade - On the dot idiom bangle
6. Kate Spade Denim Kimblery Dress
7. Henri Bendel phone case
8. Crown Pen from www.linkysdream.co.uk
9. Mally City Chick Smokey Eye - Nolita Navy
10. Chanel
11. Michael Kors Jet Set Navy Tote

As you can see, such chic, well complimented stylish colours which then led me on to coming up with my colour palette:

As you can see I have included many of the colours seen in the mood board to create my palette of creams, navy and gold. The gold doesn't show at all well as a flat colour but the gold I intended for use of the eyelets, outer rim of the closure button and if at all possible for the inside rings.

So on to my design. I really wanted to submit the five designs that you were able to but in all honestly I genuinely did not have the time to do this. My only critique of the entry pack is that it was not at all clear which template they wanted you to use. There were a few templates contained in the pack and I really wasn't sure if I was supposed to use all of them or one of them. I kind of did a few, which may not stand me in good stead, I don't know, it may be that I failed for not completing the entry properly. I have never entered or done anything like this before so I hope not. It would be so sad if I failed not because of my design but for not completing the entry templates properly. Oh well we shall just have to wait and see!

So here is the main design that I submitted:

I would also really like to see Filofax design dividers to match their Filofaxes. It is a big bug bear of mine that just lately whatever FF I buy, they all have the same mint and purple dividers in. I would really like to see pattern dividers to match the FF you buy or at least colour co-ordinating ones. With my design I would love to see matching dividers, I just think it would look fab and very classy! Kate Spade Planners all come with lovely dividers with beautiful art work on them and I would love to see something similar for Filofax planners too!

Image Credit: Kate Spade

If I had more time to work on designs I would have also submitted this one with a cream background and gold hearts:

 

Being a multiple planner user myself I can see these designs both working really well together and also can you just imagine them against these...

I just love the nude patent original so much, so classy! I would love to see both my designs alongside these two originals.

In the entry pack there was this...

Before submitting your design ask yourself;

• Is the design based on consumer insight?
• What does the woman who will use this product do?
• How does this design express her personality?
• Is your print design something she would be able to carry around and use everywhere?
• Does the design fit in with the season of launch?
• Is it truly original?
• Does the design have broad appeal?
• Is it eye-catching within a crowded retail setting?
• Is it something you believe in, rather than something you think we expect? 

In all honesty my answer to all of these is I sincerely hope so but it would be really great to hear what you guys, the Fiofax fans think. I would really love to know what you think of my designs. Do you like them? If I won would you consider buying one? In fact wouldn't it be great if as consumers we could input more into Filofax as to what we want to see. I think that would be great so if you have any thoughts please leave them in the comments (you can do so annonymously if you would like to) and I will forward them on to Filofax in one go so they can know what we all think!

What do you think of the current 2014 cover story? Did you buy it? If you could design your own what would the design be like?

Anyway I shall let you know any developments, I am not expecting anything but unless you enter you don't even stand a chance, right? If I had known about this sooner I would have shared the link around so that if you didn't know about it you could have a chance too, hopefully I will know in plenty of time next year and will also know more of what to expect in completing the entry form templates so that I can pass it on to you too.

Much Love friends,
Anna x

Introducing...Pimp Up Your Filofax! - Filofax Friday

Hello Filofaxing Friday Friends, all the F's lol! This week I wanted to catch up with you and let you know some exciting things that are going on, have gone on and will go on. I know crazy!

Firstly I wanted to say thank you to everyone who gave me the push to get over myself and just release the elephant dashboard! I listened. As I explained in my Q&A it is hard sometimes when you don't feel your art is good enough. Anyways you voted for the pastel elephant so I am pleased to say that Ellie is now available as a dashboard over in my Etsy shop in pocket, personal and A5 size.

Secondly I wanted to say that I have some new inserts in the development stage so further down the line on Filofax Friday I will be sharing those with you. As you know FF takes place in all manner of ways; vlog, show and tell's, tutorials etc so I will continue to mix it up. I do have some ideas in the pipeline that I am looking forward to sharing with you all. If there is anything in particular that you would like to see though please do let me know, I am always open to suggestions.

And very lastly but by no means leastly, in fact this is the most exciting part...this is happening....

You may have already guessed as I have been posting snippets on instagram and Twitter using the hashtags #pimpmyfilofax and #filofaxbloggerchallenge. Well I am excited to formally announce that I am taking part in the lastest Filofax Blogger Challenge. Whoooo hooooo!

From time to time Filofax run blogger challenges so you can imagine my delight, surprise and excitement when I had an email from Filofax asking if I would like to take part! Oh my goodness yes! I didn't care what it was or what I had to do I just wanted to take part. So excited!!

So I was very kindly sent a Filofax from errr Filofax and my challenge is to Pimp it Up! What did I get? Well I got the very lovely Filofax Cover Story Personal Organiser (Floral Burst)...

I will probably do a review further down the line on this little beauty but I really wanted to introduce you to the Filofax and to the challenge. How am I going to pimp it up? At this stage I go from having no idea to some pretty radical ones! I don't know, I really don't lol! I will keep it hush hush though until Filofax release all the entries. I have until 4th August to pimp it up and then I have to submit the photographs to Filofax who will then choose their favourite images to put on the Filofax Facebook page and then it goes out to public vote. Yep that is right, you guys get to choose your favourite!

Here is the really exciting part, if I win I get given 6 Filofaxes to give away to you guys, that is super cool so I so want to win so that I can give them away. If I come second or third then I get 3 Filofaxes to giveaway and if I don't place at all, no Filofaxes :(

Anyway I am really up for the challenge. I am scared and daunted but I am up for it indeedy. I only know one other blogger taking part and that is Loretta from the University project. I would love to know who else is taking part, not to steal ideas but because I am really interested to know so let me know if it is you so I can say hi!

Everything is explained in more detail in todays video...

Anyways I will keep you updated with my Pimping with photos and more once it has all gone live and public. Until next week, happy planning :D