What kind of wallet is that??

Hi All!!

I know I promised to write about all the goodies I use in my Filofax, I promise I will, but I just couldn’t resist talking about an experience I had the other day.

Getting ready for an appointment, I stopped in at Huck’s for gas. I go inside to pay and when I open up my Malden to get out my $20 bill, the cashier’s eyes lit up!

“Oh I always wanted a wallet like that. What kind of wallet is that?”

A big, sneaky smile crosses my lips…

“It’s a Filofax. This model is called Malden and this is the personal size.”

“OH! Where did you get it? I want one so bad!”

Even bigger smile….”FilofaxUSA.com! And they’re having a 50% off sale right now too!”

“Oh I just love your wallet! I’ve always wanted one just like that….it’s so neat and stuffed! I bet you have your whole life in there huh?”

I was ready to open her up and show her how I have her all set up and well she works for me but the line behind me was getting kinda long so I said to her “just go check out the website and you’ll see they are so much more than a wallet!” and I ran out to put the gas in my car. The whole time I’m just smiling and looking at my Malden thinking “I love her so much!”

Am I a little nuts??? ;) 

My summer setup

Hi All!

Today I thought I would keep my promise and talk about the summer setup in my Filofax. I’m constantly updating her with tabs or dividers, but the core of my setup remains pretty much the same. As of now my Malden is my only Filofax, my “All In One Place” Filofax and I really like it that way. I do plan on expanding my filo family at least by one for my birthday in October. I want that personal Aqua Malden soooooo bad!!! J

Anyway, I digress….

On to my setup….oh and fair warning….this post is Filo-porn heavy! 

I use my Malden as my wallet as well, so when you first open her up, you will see my debit cards and ID, a couple of bucks in the pocket in front of the cards, and in the zipper pouch I keep a nail file, a cute paperclip with a ribbon on the end and a teeny tiny reward card (one that belongs on a key ring). In the full length pocket behind the cards I keep some pretty masking tape strips, a hello kitty jot pad, some really cute translucent stickers and heart shaped hole re-enforcers. I also have a few half-pint day planner pages that I printed off phILOFAXY for those days when I have really “involved” tasks to do. Then on the right side of my Malden, the first page is my dedication flyleaf. On it is a cutout from a magazine that my daughter gave me. I put that at a diagonal and surrounded it with stickers of my Mom’s favorite flower. Below that is a picture of my Mother and me when I was 7 weeks pregnant with my son (my first child). It was a happy time in my family, being pregnant with the first grandchild and all. My mom has been gone for a little more than 2 years now and every time I open my Malden the first thing I see is her beautiful face and I remember that day we took the picture. That flyleaf will be in whatever Filofax I use. The next page is another flyleaf that is my actual dashboard. I have a couple of narrow sticky strips for highlighting a note and a regular pink post-it notepad below it for quick grocery lists. Following that is a pre-punched page of flower stickers I use to mark the past months on the Filofax year-at-a-glance calendar. I found this cool “Keep Calm and Read phILOFAXY” page on the phILOFAXY blog that has a space for the registration number. I thought that was cuter to look at than the standard one so I printed it off and wrote in my registration number on it. Then I realized that really won’t do my any good if I lost it and someone found it so I wrote a quick note on the back with the information Filofax provided and said they would be rewarded for returning it. Let’s hope I never lose it and have to test out that theory!

mommy & me!

zipper pouch contents

my dashboard

hello kitty washi on the left, flowers on the right :)

full length pocket contents

My Sections. All my dividers are cutout pics of my favorite Hyundai cars & tabs were created with Martha Stewart tabs that I was filoRAKd with.

First up is Lists. The name pretty much speaks for itself. This section is a compilation of most the lists I like to keep. It starts off with a mini-vision board (idea from Life Is My Teacher). On it is a mini sticky pad for reward/gift ideas, cutouts of a gorgeous diamond Tiffany ring, 5 Prada bags, and 5 pairs of Jimi Choo shoes, and on the other side is a small list of things I lust after want, and a little pic of my dream car….a Hyundai Genesis 3.8 Coupe (sexy car!!!) After the vision board are my lists: Master Goals, Master Tasks, Bucket List, Wish List, Movies I wanna see, Filofax wish list (3 pages!), New Music I Want, Movies to Download and Sites to check out.

Second is my blog. This is where I keep all my blog notes, blog plans & ideas, post schedule and checklists. This section is still a work in progress, but I’m hoping it will all work out. There are also lists of blogs I like to follow and YouTube channels I like to watch.

blog section

My third section is my diary which consists of a default daily schedule (for summer), a daily insert I created with my FLYlady routines on them, Filofax WO2P CC (cotton cream), and the monthly planner from LimeTree Fruits. Can you tell I like her work? She’s so artistic and her inserts are so colorful. They make me smile when I look at them! Following my calendars are the Filofax calendar stickers and 2013 and 2014 fold out yearly planners I printed from My Life All In One Place. I’m still evaluating whether or not I like the inserts I made. Well, I like them…they’re cute and all, but I need to know if they’ll work for me. Raine over at LimeTree Fruits designed a really cute daily inserts recently with times on the left, to-dos on the right and space for notes on the bottom. I decided to print out a week or so worth of those and give them a try. Since there’s really no room to write down my daily routines, I wrote them down on Martha Stewart stickies (RAKd) and stuck them to one of my today rulers on both sides so I’d have them there every day. This is just a trial run so we’ll see how it goes. 

My fourth section is info.This is where I keep all the personal information regarding my hubby, kids, our home & car, finances and myself. This is also where my priority color coding comes into play: Blue = hubby, Orange = kids, Yellow = Home & Auto, Green = Finances, Pink = Me, Purple = Projects (Projects are not included in this section, it is its own section), Aqua = Information

I used my A-Z tabs for this section’s subsections and some cute translucent dots I was RAKd to indicate what priority the subsection pertains to. My hubby’s section houses his schedules for his doctor appointments, medications and such and any phone numbers and addresses dealing with him. My kids’ section has their upcoming school schedule, their summer activities and any other phone numbers or information regarding them. The Home/Auto section is where I keep all my FLYlady stuff (routines, baby steps, commandments & notes), all home, auto, medical & dental phone numbers and information, recipes, and a finance sheet to track spending dealing with our car. The Finance section is where I keep track of our bills, financial goals & tasks, credit score tracker, and a running list of “stuff” to buy. All my specific account tracking I use the internet for. After that is my ‘Me’ section which has mostly random, but personal info about me such as the top 10 things I love (K & Co), a self-care list (from LimeTree fruits), and a dream chasing game plan sheet (also LimeTree Fruits) and my favorite sites.

Anywho…

My fifth section is for notes. I write whatever comes to mind there, just random stuff on cute random stationary. It also holds quotes that I like and my private journal….I can only tell it to my Filofax! J (a free printout from LimeTree Fruits)

My last section is for projects. These projects are things that I want to do around my house like re-work the laundry room and turn it into my laundry room/office. I also want to revamp my closets with an organizational system because now they’re all hit or miss. I am also calling myself “writing a book” so I have some notes regarding that endeavor and a list of future projects I may try.

After my sections I keep a card holder with mine and my kids’ health insurance cards, another rewards card, a debit card I don’t use very often and a player’s club card from our favorite casino in Las Vegas. The last thing is a zip-lock pouch I’ve had since I was in my 20s. It came with my first FranklinCovey planner and I like it over the Filofax envelope because there’s no zipper on it. It’s a true zip-lock envelope that doesn’t add any bulk. Inside that envelope I keep my lucky silver quarter and other random bits and bobs. The back full length pocket hold several sheets of stickers for on the go decorating, and I have some paper from another notebook that I’ve cut down and hole-punched to fit in my Malden inside the notepad pocket. I decided to use a fat sharpie pen, a little lotion and stretch the pen loop so I could fit one my Frixion pens inside. It took me a day to do it but now I can put any of my Frixion pens in the pen loop…yay me! J Right now I keep a regular ball point pen in it for when I need to fill out a form or sign something. Don’t want to use erasable ink for that. I use 2 binders clips (one attached to the zip-lock and one on the card holder) to carry the 2 Frixion pens I fancy that day.

So that’s my setup. I changed it around when the kids got out of school for the summer in May and it’s been working like a charm. They start school again next month and I’m sure I’ll change it around then too. My next post will be about all the goodies I use….my stickers, pens, dividers, etc. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun, especially since I’ll talk about all the wonderful stuff I’ve been FiloRAKd with!

Yay!

Oh and I apologize for the blurriness of some of the pics....I don't have the steadiest hand and I can't seem to find my tripod! :) I will find it and have clearer pics next time...promise! 

Well that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by and remember…..

Stay Fabulous! <3 nbsp="">

Welcome to Filo Fabulosity!

Thanks for stopping by!

Now that you’re here, grab your Filofax (or whatever planner you use), your favorite cup of java (or glass of wine), put your feet up and let’s jump in! J

One day at the tender age of 6, I was out shopping with my mother at a local department store. I remember her saying that she needed envelopes and that found us in the stationary isle. While she was browsing for her envelopes, I saw a display of pretty little books. There were so many of them too! It seemed like rows and rows (remember I was only 6). Some were pink, some were yellow, some were orange, but a baby blue book caught my eye. It had a border done in gold leaf on the cover and a lock with the key taped to the inside back cover. I picked it up and the cover wasn’t hard like a regular book. It was kinda squishy with the word “Diary” written also in gold leaf script on the cover. I turned the book around and all the pages were lined in thick gold leaf. I opened it up and it made an awesome crackling noise that made it sound like it was really old. All of the pages were dated for 5 years! I stared at that book for what seemed like hours, flipping and smelling the pages (back then printed paper gave off an ‘odor’ that appealed to most kids…circa 1970s). When my mom said it was time to go, I begged and begged and begged for the diary. She didn’t have to worry about me not using it. Ever since I could write my name you didn’t find me without a pen or pencil or marker or crayon in my hand. I was always writing or drawing or coloring. I remember her looking down at me with that look on her face….”you don’t need another book to write in baby” but I kept begging and she eventually gave in. Oh I wish I still had it, but I wrote in that diary, faithfully, for almost the full 5 years! It was a trip, even at 13, to see the progression of my vocabulary, my penmanship, and the things I was into change as I got older. To read it now would probably make me blush, but I would love to see it!

That was the beginning of my stationary obsession. From the diary I moved to calendars and agendas with stickers to eventually planners like DayRunner, Franklin Covey and now Filofax. I’m pretty sure I got it from my mom because she kept calendars in EVERY room of our house! I miss her so much….she passed away in April 2011 and in many ways, this blog is dedicated to her memory.

My need for a “life organization planner” came in 2012 when I decided to try returning to school to earn a Bachelor’s degree. Once I got started I quickly realized I needed a way to keep up with all my assignments as well as taking care of home (I’m a stay-at-home mom of 2). My husband is disabled and has numerous doctor appointments to keep so I needed a way to stay on top of those too. I did a Google search for “agendas”, because I figured ‘calendar’ was too generic and stumbled across Erin Condren Life Planners and fell in LOVE!! I loved the idea of customizing a planner the way she does with personal photos and stickers (there are even more ways now!) but the $50 price tag scared me off. I decided to see just how much it would be once I had one customized the way I wanted and it came to nearly $90! I thought no way am I spending that kind of money on a planner, but I kept doing my research. I saw so many videos of people loving their life planners and read so many blogs that I was practically forced to troll around for a discount code. It was then that Erin decided to have a sale at 30% off so I jumped on board and rode the Erin Condren wave for an entire year. It was great too! I loved writing in it and even just looking at it. I had my favorite picture of my husband and kids on the cover and it made me smile just to see it. I was able to stay on top of my school and home tasks and all of the doctor appointments, but I as far the internals went, I couldn’t do much to change them. Once my year with Erin Condren came to a close and it was time to get another planner, I questioned whether or not I was going to jump back on that train or go a different route.

Enter Filofax….

I had heard about Filofax way back in 1990. I recall a girlfriend of mine saying “I never go anywhere without my Filofax” and I asked her what it was. She showed me this awesome black binder that was as stuffed as it could be with notes and calendars and money and whatever else she could get in there. I thought it was the coolest thing ever so on my payday, I ran to the mall only to run to Franklin Covey when I saw how much a Filofax cost! Eeek!! Now it’s 2013 and I’m in need of a different kind of planner, one that can change with my needs and one that I won’t get tired of using in a month or two. I remembered how much I spent on my life planner and wondered what I could get for the same money or less. I trolled around on the internet and stumbled on Franklin Covey, DayRunner, Day Timer, and Filofax. All three; FC, DR and DT had nice planners, but all were more than I wanted to spend. Then I checked the Filofaxusa site and they were having a 60% off sale. I checked out the inventory and inserts and was highly intrigued. I decided to check and see if there were any videos of people using a Filofax and came across an entire Filofax community! I found Philofaxy and My Life All In One Place and it was over, I was sold! I went back to Filofaxusa and bought a personal sized Dakota, extra to-do sheets and finance sheets and spent less than $40! My sand-colored Dakota arrived in about 4 days and I was on cloud 9…..for about 3 days. The closure began to separate and it looked so ugly! I emailed Filofax with a couple of pictures. They let me keep it and sent me another one!

Fabulosity right?

Well….I would say yes except the same thing happened to the new one! Once again I emailed with photos and they sent me a black one this time. Fabulosity yet? Nope! Within a week it happened to the black one! Yes, once again I emailed Filofax with photos. I guess they’d had enough too because they decided to refund my money and give me a 10% off code for a future purchase.

Fabulosity? Almost!!

I decided to use my black Dakota until I could save up enough money to get a high-quality leather Filofax. I had already fallen in love with what I had done so far with it so I knew purchasing another would be an investment and not a waste. I used that Dakota for about a month and then….my income tax refund came and all of a sudden I had enough money to get the one I really wanted….a personal sized Malden! Every video I saw that featured a Malden was loved and held and oh I had to have one!!! And with all the extras I got, my 10% discount made it a steal! So I quickly put in my order than proceeded to stalk the order. It arrived about 4 days later and I once again was on cloud 9.

Filo Fabulosity achieved!!!

That was in March of this year and I still use my Malden. I carry her around like she’s my 3^rd child….yes I said ‘she’. I haven’t really officially named her, but I know she’s a she because I tell her all my secrets and she hasn’t betrayed girl-code. Sometimes I call her Ebony, though. She makes me happy to look at her, to hold her, to aimlessly flip through the pages. I love decorating my planner pages and filling out the information inside. I love how she’s my brain dump and she frees up my mind to be able to think clearly and focus on whatever task is at hand.

What did I do with the other 3 Dakotas?

I gave a sand one to my daughter, the black one to my husband and kept the other sand one for storage. I didn’t think my son wanted one until one day I got FiloRAKd and when I shared some of it when my daughter, his lip was poked out! I asked him what was wrong and he said “I want a Filofax.” I was shocked! Really? I didn’t think he was serious so I told him to let me think about it. I took about 5 days to ponder (thinking he would forget about it) and within that time I got FiloRAKd again! That inspired me to FiloRAK my son so I took my storage binder and with some of the stuff I was RAKd and a few extra inserts I had and I put together a “young Author’s Filofax”. Complete with sections for his story line ideas, characters, and any notes. I also added a list for him to record information about the books he’s reading over the summer. My son fancies himself an Author so I’ll do anything to help foster that talent. He’s quite good too! When I gave him the Filofax he got this HUGE grin across his face. He jumped up and gave me the biggest hug! He’s as tall as I am so he almost picked me up! He was on the computer at the time and he put it to the side and opened up his Filofax. I showed him his sections and told him how they work. I also told him that he could change whatever he wanted and completely make it his own. He was so happy and it did my heart good to see my baby (he’s 13) so happy. So now we’re a Filo-Family!!

So finally after all my jibber-jabber, and if you’re still with me…here are a couple of photos of my stuffed Ebony to reward your patience. My next post I will talk about my setup and how it's working for me…thanks again for stopping by!!

Here she is....my partner in crime! :) 

See how stuffed she is? I love it!

Awaiting my next to-do, appointment, list, or inspiration!

So if you’ve hung out thus far I again want to thank you for stopping by, checking out my story, and sharing my love of all things planner & organization related!!

Stay fabulous! <3 o:p="">