Making pages for my Filofax

I thought it would be a great idea to make some pages and dividers for my duck egg blue Original using the contents of this Recipe note book.

The pages are just ruled ...

and the dividers are a plain, pale blue.

Alas, the blues do not match.

In fact they are no where near. The Filofax duck egg looks more of a greeny blue than a pale blue.

Ah well, I shall have to put my thinking cap on and try again.

Happy planning

Filofaxers who lunch

Having a local pub within staggering distance is very tempting each week especially as this local features craft beers. Last time we ventured in we had a look at the beer festival guide which listed all the different beers available over a certain period.

List - aha! What do we do with lists, I wonder? This one ended up in my out and about Fauxdidodi Filofax. In order for it to fit I trimmed it top and bottom and hole punched the sides. 

I thought that slitting the holes would allow instant pullout-ability and then another idea sprang to mind.

I cut the pullout slots a lot wider in the middle of the leaflet so that the whole thing could stay in the rings and the pullout section could easily unfold.

On a roll I decided to plonk the lunch menu in too, same punching as before.

We can peruse the menu before we even leave the house now.

Three beers on the Festival list have been 'ticked off' already. Oh dear - it's such a long list but I think we'll enjoy the 'ticking off' on this one!

Happy planning

PS The diet planner will soon be back in action.

Planner Pages from Bargain Shops

1Koolemom commented in one of my posts and asked me the origin of my inserts in my mini ochre Malden which I was using as a Diet planner. The weight chart here I downloaded off the net and resized when printing in order to fit.

These inserts were shopping pad lists from TKMax, again just cut to size and hole punched.

The weekly notes page is a weekly notes pad from B and M Bargains cut down to size.

The grid paper is cut from a notebook which contained gridded paper.

As you can see I just used cheap printed papers from bargain shops and cut them to size. Hope this helps Koolemom.

Happy Planning

Be prepared

Advanced Planning

I have chosen my Personal Pear Original for my 2017 everyday planner. It's bright, fresh and colourful to welcome a new year.

Already it has in my Monthly dividers ...

with the WO2P that came with it. Hating waste I am going to use these pages even though I'd prefer something different.

To satisfy this desire I'm still trying to come up with 'different' simple designs for a weekly page and storing these in my Personal Black Original. So now I have ...

Very Advanced Planning ...

which may or may not be used for 2018!

Continuing my 'hate waste' habit I've recycled another ear-ring as my dingle-dangle for the Pear.

I'll get back to 2016 now as the best part of the year is yet to come.

Black and white Filofax planning

It's plain to see in black and white. Here's the black - a new to me patent black Original Filofax,

which I didn't need, of course, but which called out to me to join my other Originals. What could I do but offer it a new home. It took a while to settle in but has now found its niche as holder of experimental pages. I was really impressed with the Oddslikeme site and decided to try some 'alternative' layouts for weekly spreads and designs. Not being much of an artist I tried my hand at Zentangles which are supposedly easy to do! Not that easy with a rather thick Sharpie though. My paper was cut from a large art paper book left here when DD moved out. It's rather thick and lovely and perfect for writing and drawing. My first attempt was 'not bad' so I had another go.

Not bad again. The opposite page is a very simple layout of a monthly page. I want to keep each page simple and clean and just black and white to complement the black Filofax.

Getting rather wobbly here. The lined pages are card from my Recipe file.

Fourth attempt was 'poor' but acceptable. My Sharpie is too thick and I'm too slapdash. 

All is not lost, though, as I found a colouring book at Poundland which saves me an enormous amount to effort and offsets my 'alternative' weekly spreads.

My colouring book pages can be put into play as 'To Do' lists.

Happy Planning

Hole punches for my DIY Filofax pages

Making DIY pages for my Filofax meant punching my own holes in the paper. My first hole punching tool was this single hole punch which I found in our office. It worked but I always had to mark where the holes were to go by laying over another sheet that had the holes already punched. It was very time consuming to do this but I did until ...

I saw on a Y Tube video a way to punch single holes with an ordinary hole punch. Brilliant but still time consuming until ...

I read about this punch and saw one for sale on Ebay. I paid £25 for this new punch and it's worth every penny. It punches holes for mini, pocket and personal sized pages.

The adjustments are made at the back of the punch by simply moving the springy posts. It's so quick and easy to punch correctly spaced holes now. 

Unfortunately it did not punch holes for A4 Filofaxes which have just 4 holes. Each pair of holes can be punched separately with a normal hole punch but it meant lining up with another sheet of paper and was very fiddly until ...

I found this giant at a Car Boot Sale which punched 4 holes. 

It looks like a pair of 'conjoined' normal hole punches and works a treat for punching the correctly spaced holes for the A4 pages. A bargain at £2.

Happy Planning.

Filofax personal Active as a Travel Planner

This robust organiser was from car boot at a very reasonable price. It needed a wipe with a cloth to take off some dirty marks and now it is a beautiful royal blue. The cover, I believe is made of Neoprene, which is a synthetic rubber.

I'm going to use this organiser as a Travel Planner.

My set up is still in its infancy but so far I have the world map under the Filofax plastic page.

Before this homemade dashboard I have punched a plastic postcard wallet to hold my passport. (Haven't tried it yet so I hope it fits!). I think I'll put another one in to hold boarding passes.

I am not a great traveller but I thought I'd keep in the world map as a handy reference. Behind this map are 2 further pull out maps of our destination area.

Some of the printed pages I downloaded from Printed Portal, a site I found while trawling through travel planner videos, blogs and sites.

I thought I'd better have a Brain Dump section for ideas that spring to mind.

Now for the sections.

Section 1 will contain information needed for the trip, emergency contacts, addresses, phone numbers and information about the country we are going to.

Section 2 ...

… houses the Itinerary pages, one per day, which will log the day's activities, meals and any notes or observations. Any extra journalling can be done on the reverse of the page.

Section 3 is the expenses section and I downloaded an expenses envelope from My Life all in One Place.

Section 4 is home to a timetable to hold any advanced scheduling,

while section 5 contains checklists - a packing checklist and ...

… a checklist of things to do before we leave.

Section 6 will be for notes and at the very end of the planner is a place for cards.

I'm not sure whether this planner will be useful to me or not but it will help me organise and plan for our holiday in a methodical way.

Now I have to find a bag to hold it to make sure I keep it on my person. I'd hate to put it down and lose it in a foreign country!

Happy Planning.