Taking stock - by Anita

I thought that I would write a bit of a follow-up to my previous post about Filofax New Year's resolutions, and also borrow a little from Steve's one back in 2010. However, I will be focusing on accessories as I've started some decluttering, so am looking at what to use or give away.

Whilst I love stationery, I don't own very much and keep all my Filofax bits and pieces in this small box. Most of my blank paper is kept in my Franklin Covey compact storage binder and of course, there's my trusty KW-Trio punch. I will be able to free up more space in the box as there are more inserts that can go in the storage binder. I had a quick hunt in my desk drawers and around the place to make sure that it's all in here for the photo.

I admit that it's easy to just pop items in the box and forgot about them. Therefore, I thought that it was time to go through and see what treasures I can find!

Some recent purchases - new dividers (post to follow), a shopping list pad to hole punch, sticky notes and a Hobonichi stencil. I don't decorate as I find it gets too busy for me to look at, so things like this will add a bit of interest and colour.

Some older items that I'll definitely be using - Daiso tabs, Davinci inserts, Muji checklist pad, Muji checklist stamp and Muji pen loop. Haha, I've just checked back and I purchased the checklist pad at the 2012 London meet up! I was lucky to pick the checklist stamp up on eBay for a bargain price.

Other older items to be used - some remaining pages from a menu planner (also from the 2012 meet up), a Coleto multi pen and a couple of jot pads. I also have some small note pads from Artbox and Rhodia that I'm going to use as sticky notes with my one roll of washi tape.

I treated myself to a nice desk with better storage, so I will be moving these items out of the box and into a drawer for easier access and to make sure I use them up.

Using Washi Tape In Your Filofax

Do you marvel at the creativeness of some people when they show us their 'My Week' posts over at Paper Lovestory? I'm not sure how long people have been using Washi Tape and stickers in their Filofax organisers on a regular basis, but it is certainly a trend that appears to have been on the rise in the last 12 months or so.

So I called on one of the 'experts' in to sharing their techniques and layouts with us. Jennifer of 'My Purpley Life' kindly agreed to help me co-write this post. Her blog and You Tube channel has lots of information on them about her weekly page designs. So over to Jennifer....


Using our planners has now become a reflection of our creative selves.  I feel that this trend of decorating planner pages has been increasing due to the ability of personalization.

I have gotten reactions and comments like, “Wow, that looks fun!” or “You’ve inspired me to be more creative with my planner.” I have even inspired others who haven’t used their Filofax in a while, and have now been able to bring them back to life.

Using a planner has evolved from being an appointment tracker, and a list of to-dos into pages that can be decorated with stickers, and pretty tape to make it more pleasing to the eye.

For me, I can’t help but smile when I open up my Filofax. It gives me motivation to use my planner in a more effective manner.  It doesn’t have to look like an overwhelming list of things to do.

“Decorating” is another tool, which can help us to be more organized. Even before we knew about washi/ paper tape, masking stickers, and cute diary stickers in planners, we used color-coding dots, colored highlighters, colored sticky notes, and sticky flags. Using colors and patterns call out important words and phrases.

Using these effectively helps to put an emphasis for the text that was written.

There is a purpose to all this madness, not just for making things look cute and pretty. It’s one thing to use stickers and things to fill up gaps in our pages, but to say use a sticker that describes your mood for the day, or a something to remind you of an important task, is a more effective.

It’s our human instinct to be attracted to pretty things, but to utilize pretty things to enhance their usability and function is key. Otherwise, it would get boring and people would start to lose interest. So, let your creativity out! If decorating your pages with washi tape and stickers isn’t your cup of tea, it doesn’t have to be. It’s all about making your Filofax work for you.

 

You can also watch my video of how I created the page layout above on my YouTube channel here. Why not also join the Facebook group lots of help and ideas are shared there too.



So this post could have just ended there, thank you very much Jennifer, what do you think etc.. the end... 

Well no not quite... 'encouraged' by the lovely Alice of 'The Wonderful Life of Alice' blog who sent me a small parcel of tape and stickers for me to have a go.... 

So I did...  so whilst I was waiting for the parcel to arrive I 'had a first attempt' with the stuff we had in the office already...  

Not exactly pretty is it... more like how not to do it. Vinyl hazard tape, it is tough that's for sure... and fragile parcel tape is slightly transparent.... But this wasn't going to ever win any prizes more of a 'Must try harder' from my teacher Alice...  

And so my second attempt....

Well it's not perfect, but I hope you will agree it is a step in the right direction. If got a laugh or two from both Alice and Jennifer when I submitted my 'homework' to them for marking!  

I used some of the goodies that Alice had sent me. But I also had a go at creating some of my own stickers by printing simple graphics files on to mailing labels. The flags for instance to show the bank holidays in UK and France on this particular week. 

I found it a little fiddly to get the stickers and tape in the right position on the page, but that is mainly due to my big fingers and my less than perfect eyesight. But I enjoyed putting the pages together it was a bit of fun if nothing else. 

So again thank you to Alice and Jennifer for their help and support. 

Have you tried using stickers in your Filofax at all?