Filofax Planner

 I'm so excited to share my planner with y'all!! It includes my hot off the presses Start Fresh Workbook as well as some of the other planner inserts I've purchased from Hello Forever.

I customized this entire thing, right down to the cut files for the page dividers. I loved this mix of patterns! The color scheme I went with was: black, white, gray, nude, blush, gold, kraft, so I picked papers in that theme.

Papers: [Pebbles - Homemade Collection - Florali] [Teresa Collins Designs - Tinsel and Company Collection - Dots] [Teresa Collins Designs - Life Emporium Collection - Striped Wood] [Teresa Collins Designs - Life Emporium Collection - Dots]

The planner itself is the Nude Patent A5 Filofax. I loooooove it! It's just so pretty to look at and hold.

As I mentioned, I used a mix of planner pages. I purchased quite a few from Marcy Penner's Hello Forever shop but didn't end up using as many as I thought I would. The ones I've included here are the: [2015 Calendar-Grey] [Live Add-on Grey] [Work Add-on Grey]. What I ended up using the most was the free [Weekly Planning Guide] go figure!

I also purchased the [Create Add-on Grey] but my brand spanking new Start Fresh Workbook is taking the place of that!

This year, Jennifer came up with a totally re-done and slightly re-imagined workbook that's also a planner. And I have to say I'm in LOVE (picture me with big hearts for eyes) with it!

There are monthly calendars for you to use for your planning. Click this link to see a sample of what they look like.

And the lists feature I love so much is also back. You can see more of one of those in my old planner from last year's Start Fresh.

She revamped the plans portion which is fantastic. I've also included the Hello Forever Blog Ideas and Blog Lists pages in this section to round it out.

So lets talk a little about my pens and things. I have this gorgeous Kate Spade pencil pouch, that 100% inspired this scrapbook page of mine, and which now holds all kinds of goodies.

I went on a bit of a spree at Jet Pens a few weeks ago and bought just about every gray pen that they had plus these little cat bookmark tabs. They were just too cute to pass up! (And they helped me get to my $25 minimum for free shipping. Win win!)

MT's mama gave me the Kate Spade Roller stamp for my birthday. And I picked up that fabulous gold pencil sharpener in Basel earlier this month.

Here's a better look at the pens and how they write. To note, the thinner ones scratched a lot more and didn't glide as easily on the page. (I'm looking at you Zebra Sarasa and Pilot Juice!)

I purchased the following (from top to bottom):
[Pilot FriXion Colors Erasable Marker - Gray] [Zebra Sarasa Push Clip Gel Ink Pen - 0.4 mm - Gray] [Zebra Mildliner Double-Sided Highlighter - Fine / Bold - Mild Gray] [Pilot FriXion Color-Pencil-Like Erasable Gel Ink Pen - 0.7 mm - Gray] [Pilot Juice Gel Ink Pen - 0.38 mm - Gray]

I have to point out that the FriXion's both erase. These things are awesome. I use this Black FriXion as my everyday pen.

This post was so long in coming. But I'm so glad I got it together. I'm so excited to put the planner to use and for Start Fresh to…well, start! It's got a special place in my heart. It was the first Simple Scrapper event that I participated in and why I joined the group in the first place. And now, a year later, I'm a part of the team!

If you're a fan of planning, I'd totally recommend it. If checklists and worksheets give your heart a thrill, this is definitely the class for you! Jennifer is also offering the option for 2 months membership free with the class. It's the perfect introduction if you're interested in learning more about Simple Scrapper and the premium membership.

Maybe I'll see you in class? If you have any questions, please ask! There's a lot of info here and I'm happy to elaborate if you're interested in hearing more about something specific.

cheers & besos,

Please note I am an affiliate of Simple Scrapper/Create More Media. All opinions, words and photos are my own.

London to LA

As I type, I'm working on an the first assignment from Simple Scrapper Start Fresh class. I'm very excited about it! 

So let me share this page with you, using some other great Simple Scrapper content. This is based off of one of this month's sketches.

Products: Printshop Mini Flair, Fables Storytime patterned paper, Oh Snap Snippets patterned paper, Moon & Back Printshop patterned paper, Printshop Accent stickers

I used a whole mess of Studio Calico products to make this page about me and my friend Keely. You know my OLW for this year? Open. Yeah, that word is pretty much a direct result of this new friend.

It's weird to think about, but it's been awhile since I've made a new friend.

I have my college friends, my grad school friends, my Houston friends. Everyone's kind of formed into groups. 

Keely's part of my work friends group. She was an intern a few summers ago who came back to take on a new role we had open in the office. We weren't very close back then. But from pretty much the second she walked in the door this time around, we instantly bonded. I don't know what it says about me, but her 23 year old humor is pretty much the same as mine. We laugh and giggle a lot. Much to the chagrin of my fellow colleagues I'm sure. But she makes work fun and I definitely appreciate that.

It all goes back to the open thing. I wasn't expecting it, but I'm always open to making new friends. And because of that, I did!

[PHOTO]

We travel a lot for work. All of us do, even us junior employees. Keely and I ended up on three trips together this year, to LA, London and DC. So I had these great photos of us in front of St. Paul's in London and the other is us in the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica. I also had this photo of a club card we got at a happy hour we went to together.

I knew I wanted to use these photos together, as different as they are. And the sketch from this month's Simple Scrapper mag was perfect for it, with just a few amendments.  I decided to tilt the photos on an angle a bit. The sketch also called for a doily at the top left hand corner but instead, I decided to fold the paper back to show the awesome B side of the yellow grid. That was a happy accident really. It wasn't until nearly the end that I realized the aqua on the back was really similar to the aqua on the front. The benefits of working with papers from the same manufacturer! 

I love how the aqua looks with the yellow and just a few pops of gold and green. The paper tucked in the corner was some I knew I wanted to incorporate but didn't quite know how. And once I figured out that I wanted to fold the corner, I knew it could work there.

I like this mix of paper. Some modern. Some traditional. Some quirky. Kind of like me and mah friend.

[PHOTO]

The paper did most of the heavy lifting, so I really didn't do much to embellish this page. I machine stitched the flap down and around a few corners at the bottom. Other than that, it only took a few sentiment stickers, some tape and a badge or two to complete.

Oh! And I almost forgot the best part (and completely forgot to photograph it) but the middle photo flips up to show a few more photos from that same night at happy hour. They were screenshots of the crazy text messages we were sending afterwards. Probably for the best that they're tucked away ;)

And here I am, at the end of this post and finished with Assignment #1 for Start Fresh! I'm excited to think about what I want to accomplish this year-scrapbooking wise. And happy to dive in!

cheers & besos,