Planner Love

I have recently fallen in love with the whole planner/filofax craze! I have actually owned this planner for almost 3 years now. It was bought to me for Christmas by my aunt but I have never been able to keep a diary and at 14/15 I didn't exactly have a busy schedule to keep track of, haha. Basically I didn't know how to use it really, I wrote a few bits and pieces in the diary section but that was about it. So it ended up somewhat abandoned beside my bed until this summer. 

Recently I have gotten into watching YouTube more and reading blogs a lot more, and I had seen a few videos/posts about filofaxes. Planner/filofax decoration and organisation also seemed to be popping up on Pinterest a lot recently (I am a total Pinterest addict, FYI!!) so when I was doing a bit of a clean in my bedroom and came across this somewhat forgotten planner I was really quite excited as I had wanted to get more organised seeing as I go off to university next year (hopefully!) and will need to be so much more independent and will have to keep track of what needs to be done without having anyone there to remind me.

I've been using my planner for about 2 weeks now and with starting this blog I thought I'd jump on the planner bandwagon and share what seems to be working well for me in this planner as my first post!

This planner is from Paperchase, it is the pocket size (81mm x 120mm) and came with the 2012 diary inserts. I'm pretty sure you can't get this design anymore but there are loads of other lovely designs and colours.
I'm not usually a great fan of pink but there's something about this shade that I absolutely love! It's a sort of soft leathery material and is very smooth on the outside with a little bit of a leather texture on the inside. The pattern on the front of the cover is a sort of cut out or embossed (I'm not sure of the proper name). It has a magnetic closure and a 'leather' (same material as rest of planner) pen loop which I keep a mechanical pencil in. I like to colour code everything in my planner so a pencil means if I'm out without my pen set I can just pencil in anything I need to and later erase it and rewrite it in the appropriate colour (and I don't have a pen that fits in the loop.....)

Staedtler pens - Tesco

I use these Staedtler pens for my planner (and school work) and I am in love! I bought them in Tesco as I happened to be in doing a shop and saw they were half price but I'm sure most, if not all, other major supermarkets and stationery shops sell them too. I'd wanted to get these for quite a while but had never bought them before as they are quite expensive. I think they're normally about £8. But now that I've tried them I'll definitely be buying them again when this set runs out! They give a really nice colour with plenty of pigment but they don't smudge or show through on the other side of the page.

Year calendar

2 months to a page

Daily pages

Week to a view 

(the first not filled in one, that's why it's a month ahead!)

Gift lists and wish lists

(the gift list is filled in on the other side, promise!)

Finances and an envelope

I made the inserts for this myself as the inserts I had were from 2012 and I didn't like the layout of the address inserts. I do have some other inserts such as birthdays/contacts/addresses but as they are filled in I didn't want to post them online. I also have a return information sheet in the front but as it is also filled out with my name and phone number I won't post that either.

I made the envelope in the last photo and I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. So far it's empty but I plan to keep receipts in it to keep them in one safe place so I can find them easily if I need to. I'll probably empty them out every couple of months (for now) as I don't buy an awful lot so don't get a lot of receipts (the perks of living with your parents!)

I keep my planner pretty simple and don't decorate it. I prefer having a cleaner, more minimal layout and just using my coloured pens as I find it less distracting and I can see what's going on more clearly. Also, as this is the pocket size, there isn't a lot of room for decorating so it would get far too crowded and messy!

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