The builder reckons the wet studio will be finished and ready for decoration on Wednesday. Hmmm. Would you put money on that?
Mind you, finished or not its probably tidier now than when it will be when I am dyeing and printing in there
Monday, February 25, 2013
Posted with Blogsy
Monday, February 04, 2013
Psst! Wanna see my design book?
The problem with having more than one blog is deciding where to put things. Over on Plan•Create•Succeed I just posted my Design Monthly video which might interest you if you want to see the design work I have( quite usually for me) been putting into my latest quilt.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Boy/ girl planners
My husband and I met up recently for lunch and had a little planning session.
Girl planner came out.
Man planner came out.
It makes my teeth hurt!
I waltzed him quick smart around to the stationers and showed him his choices : Leuchturm, Moleskine, mini Filofax, own brand knock off notebook. I could even live with a Silvine for goodness sake.
" But what would I write in it?"
All the stuff you put on crappy bits of crumpled paper!!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
How to make a Franklin Covey Like Page Finder (and why)
A few days ago noodling about the Webfinds on Philofaxy I came across the useful item that is the Frankin Covey Pouch Page Finder. Its a plastic pouch inside which you can slip an insert. ( If it was your blog please leave a link in the comments below as I forget who was writing about it now).
Hmm. How hard can it be to make something like that?
Not very. ( Although very hard to photograph! ) Here's how. You need two laminating pouches and a laminator.
1. Send a pouch through the laminator with nothing in it so you get a nice double strength plastic.
2. Cut out a piece the height you want and double the width. Dont forget that the rings mean you need it a little wider than the width of paper you want to put inside it.
3. Fold the cut out piece to form the pouch shape. It will be springy and not want to stay flat so send it through the laminator again in its folded state. The heat effectively presses it flat.
4. We now need to seal the bottom to form a pouch. To do this send another pouch through the laminator with the open edge of the pouch going through last. Insert the bottom end of your page finder into the open edge of the empty pouch just as it goes through the machine. You want to catch about a centimeter or so of the page finder between the empty pouch to seal it.
5. Trim, punch holes and cut tiny bits from between the inside edge and the holes as on a Filofax ruler and Voila! Pouch page finder.
If you want a tab you can either make the pouch longer and trim a tab from the plastic itself, or you can put the tab on your insert. I used a magnetic bookmark on mine. You can see mine still has blank paper stuck nt grey card in it. This does obscure the pages below but it occurs to me that you could print or write a list on an OHP transparency and stick it in the pagefinder to get a sort of overlay effect.
Having made it to prove I could, I now find myself considering how to use it. My initial thought before I am starting was that it was perfect for recurring tasks and goals.
But now it occurs to me that it would also be useful for planning ahead gym training sessions if you need to remember target heart rates for interval training or which weights exercises you are to do that session. Insert the training plan ahead of time and when you get to the gym, snap it out, lock the filofax in the locker and take the pouch in with you.
Or I know several people are on diets and have separate health filos. This could be a food diary in your daily planner. Ditto for people recording their daily spending and running a finance filofax.
Or it could have motivational quotes, a prayer list, a shopping list.. Anything really. What would you use it for?
Monday, January 14, 2013
Miss Malden dresses in style.
I am not someone who personifies inanimate objects. I do not name my filofaxes. Not least because I probably couldn't remember the list. ( Which reminds me of one mother I represented when her eighth child was being taken into care. I checked the child's name with her as it seemed there was a typo in my case papers because the name of this child was the same as her first. But no. She said that she "Had just forgotten that she had already used that name.")
But, there is an exception to every rule and I noticed that my newly acquired Crimson Malden was definately a Miss Malden and had to be set up accordingly. From the outside she is Miss Malden in the way that barristers are always called Miss by their clerks. She is neat and discrete and professional.
But, inside she is a Miss as in Driving Miss Daisy. She is vintage. Not vintage as in what used to be second hand. Vintage as in having old style grace and elegance. She is a lady still living in an antebellum manision in the Carolinas and wearing gloves to lunch. Don't ask me why. She just is. She belongs to an age gone by. And so, on the inside I dressed her accordingly with trimmed down postcards from www.zazzle.com glued o grey card.
I chose this domestic one because we often holiday in Bath.
Despite being a little less staid this one had to go in because my great friend lives near San Fran and even Miss Malden lets her hair down a little when with her girlfriends. Mint Julep anyone?
This next one makes me laugh because Blackpool these days is the last place a glamourous lady like this would go.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
I need a wet studio!!!
Fortunately work has started. The roof work to change a flat roof over garage and porch to a less ugly pitched one comes first before the garage is converted
However, having started it stalled again on Friday with one builder off because he pulled his back the day before ( probably, to be fair because he was working hard in freezing conditions) and the other went home after the tile delivery because his budgie was dying!!
But fabric design waits for no budgie and over on Tea and Talk for Two I have posted photos of the surface design work I did last night in the so called 'dry studio'. I do have a bathroom up there but the sink is made for looking pretty and allowing you to clean your teeth not for washing up inky screens. I have to fill plastic boxes of water, take them to my worksurface and washup in that until the water gets dirtier than the utensils. Then I lug it back and pour it down the toilet.
It works fine despite the midden in which I end up when I am in in a creative maelstrom. Or usually it does...
I was in the studio until the early hours yesterday so I was prettty tired for the final pouring away. Which is the excuse I gave when I confessed to Dennis that I saw, a tad too late, a plastic tablespoon vanishing down the Ubend! I am a bit worried as the plumbing in the loft only just has the required fallaway degree to make a macerator unit not necessary but I have flushed a lot and all seems to be well.
But the sooner I get my steel double sink and spray tap fitted the better!
Thursday, January 10, 2013
New Year Graffiti (Non) Filofax set up
In good new year Philofaxy tradition I am going to show you the set up for one of the three filofaxes I will be rotating this year as my daily planner. This is the Cannot-Be-Traced Golunski brand planner. Found in TK Maxx. The others are a personal crimson Malden and a compact Regency and posts on those will follow. I hope that my quilting readers will not be put off coming here by the fact that there will be more filofax posts in 2013 ... There will be plenty of art as well to keep everyone happy. But I want the blog to reflect my whole life.
Oh and finally the pen. The pen loop on this requires a very slim pen. I was recommended on Philofaxy to look at the Cross Centrury pens so I went to Rymans to see if they had one. They did and it was the same size as these white pens but far more expensive. These are I confess I little tacky with their swarovski crystal on the top but only a little, and the barrel is really nice. Besides, as they take Cross refils but the whole pen costs less than the cross refills I overcame my snobbery and bought several! No bleed though=happy writer!
Thanks for sticking with a long post. More filos to come another day....
My setup up might be a bit bland and lacking in stickers and stuff, compared to many I have seen but I like it like that. Uncluttered filo means uncluttered brain in my life! The left side is my stationery store and I love that I can clip a good few pens to the first verticle pocket flap and not have them interfere with the functioning of the filo. Also here I have sticky notes, the circular stickers you will see later in use and some Cavellini Ephemera Stickers. Just sticking out from the back pocket you can see a hint of my wash tape wall.. Just strips stuck to a fly leaf so I always have some. In the past I have not decorated my filo at all but late last year I sourced some products that I thought were elegant and grown up and I like how they make the diary creative and personal but not cluttered. The front sheet is, well, plain! That was temporary but actually it provides a good foil to how busy the actual filofax design is so it may well stay. Already it has been a good place to put stickies with info which require immediate Red Flag attention as soon as I open up. Immediately behind it is a Brain Dump Page where I jot down thoughts as they fly into my head to be dealt with later. Some will relate to the filos I keep for special projects and will get transferred.
Then I have Filofax brand month in two pages tabbed as an overview. This is mostly for achieving balance between work travel and art. The green circle stickies indicate 'studio days' or days dedicated to art activities. I actually try to have studio time everyday but these show the days when I plan to dedicate a good stretch of hours to art.
Then week on a page with notes. Life is quiet this week! I use Sticky notes for tasks that need doing but not necessarily that week and which I know may well get carried over. When they become urgent they get written in properly and done. I use the notes page for travel bookings, weekly goals etc. As I say, an unusually quite week!
Next the new to me pages. For the last six months of 2013 I used self printed day on two pages from Philofaxy which Steve helped me to modify a bit. I hated them. Oh, the design was great but my ability to print them right and get them trimmed without bits sticking out was non existent. It annoyed the heck out of me. So I invested quite a bit of cash in these pages from Filofax France as they were the nearest to what I wanted. And interestingly the format has dictated some new functions which I find beneficial.
As you can see the appointments page is divided by a gap into two columns. I don't have that many appointments in my personal planner so I have been using the right column each night to do a resume of the day. This is great for spotting where time is wasted and recognising where nice but unplanned things happened. I tend to focus on what I did not get done rather than my achievements so this also encourages me to look at my day with more balance.
Having numbered to do boxes helps me not plan to do more than is reasonable. And I find that I now do as we do at work when a day is full of appointments, i.e drawing a line through the remainder of the space ( or adding a line of washi tape. No more tasks today!
The notes section I am using for my new Focus practice. I have written all about that here on my Plan • Create • Succeed blog so I will not repeat myself here save to say it is working wonderfully.
I then have a section labeled Life which has To do lists separated out by topic. If something is vital, is day senstive or just a chore it goes on the daily pages. Otherwise I choose what to do next from these options. I am deleberately viewing them as options not tasks to reduce pressure on me from feeling I MUST do all these things. They are options for how I get to spend my free time. Here is my New Year Set Up All My Filos list.
I use two magnetic bookmarks from City Organiser here. I bought them in a whim last week becuase I broke the London Skyline ruler that came with the Lineburst Filo and I missed that design from the Olympics. They work great to tab the list I am focusing on this week and move around easily.
The inal section is labelled Reminders and is bits of informational notes. nothing interesting for public consumption!
This Non-Filofax has pockets galore. For now I have used the backslots for my RAC breakdown card and European Health insurance card but also to write down on cards my overarching goals for the year any my focus words etc. Behind that is a tube map and behind that you can see the spine of a Moleskine Volante notebook I am using as a sketchbook. More on that in another post. There is a full width pocket behind the rings too which is empty at the moment. For a personal this is the best design for quanity and capacity of pockets. I love it but I am glad I have others I love that I can rotate with it because I dread it wearing out! i am sure I will add stuff as the year goes on.
Thanks for sticking with a long post. More filos to come another day....
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Christmas fridge
Please understand, I am in no way complaining that, while I was at the gym, my husband braved the traffic to go and collect the Tesco click and collect order. I appreciated that. What I am saying is, on my return:
Man fridge unpacking: " There's a problem. There's no room for the Turkey and wine."
Girl fridge re-packing
All in. But yeah, I might have bought a turkey that is a smidgen too big for six people....
Monday, December 17, 2012
Filofax Frenzy
My friend Linda on her blog recently dubbed me Filofax Queen. I am happy to have that title but I think I might deserve to be an Empress after today. In my family it is a standing joke thay my sister gets bargain after bargain and everything I want to buy goes up in price the day before I go shopping. Well not today.
Little Sis, read and weep.
First, Personal Malden Filofax now unavailable save through Filofax France for €99, on ebay, grand total of £20.
And it comes with a filofax pen and sticky note insert.
Then, later, late night shopping in Liverpool, I stumbled on a TK Maxx and remembered that the Philofaxy community mention it as a place for bargains. So we enter with me saying, "Of course, there won't be any now I am in here." Wrong.
Long unavailable A5 red Amazonia, RRP £125. Mine for £39.99. Its a beautiful deep yet still slightlu orangy red. Like an african sunset.
And better, this piece of gorgeousness not made by Filofax themselves but with compatible rings and tshe softest of softest leather for £14.99. I put the ruler in to check the ring spacing. Is this not the happiest filofax ever seen?
There will be a video about this on Philofaxy's next webfinds in a hope more information about its provenance can be found. (ie.... Are there more?!)
Oh happy, happy day!
Little Sis, read and weep.
First, Personal Malden Filofax now unavailable save through Filofax France for €99, on ebay, grand total of £20.
And it comes with a filofax pen and sticky note insert.
Then, later, late night shopping in Liverpool, I stumbled on a TK Maxx and remembered that the Philofaxy community mention it as a place for bargains. So we enter with me saying, "Of course, there won't be any now I am in here." Wrong.Oh happy, happy day!
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
What I use the Filofax tower for...
To answer the questions left in commentS in my previous posts, this is what I currently use my filofaxes for, although of course the delight of them is their flexibility so who knows when this might change. Working up from the bottom of the big pile of A5 models first we have...
1. Chocolate Classic. Usually lives at work and houses notes on new law and procedural rules.
2. Pink Classic. Still being set up in its new use as a wet studio Filo containing dyeing and printing instructions and swatches of fabrics I dyed with notes of how I did it. I am taking my time setting this up as the true wet studio ( as opposed to the ramshackle temporary arrangements of buckets of water in the dry studio) is not going to be built until next month!
3. Saddle brown Cuban. Ah, actually after I took this photo I had a swap around, which is why I had all these together in the first place. It was holding sketchbook pages. It is now empty but about to go to work to hold case notes.
4. Chilli red Cuban. Currently holding a test set up for work which, as it is working, will be rolled out soon across three filos. This has a diary, case notes, protocol checklists, telephone lists, meeting minutes and the like. Now I know my system works it will expand as extra items in those categories are added. So the two Cubans will probably contain case notes in two categories ( excuse me being vague but I cannot discuss the detail of my work online) project notes such as material relating to a new book contract I am about to sign, and the other items will go into the wine Holborn. My colleague at work calls me a Filofax nerd. He is right so I take no offence!
5. Ochre Malden. My studio planner for my textile art life. Time recording, project planning, calls for entry, expenditure, inspirational cuttings, article ideas etc.
6. Grey Malden. My blog and website planner and journal.
7. Purple Malden. This also had a swap around. I had set it up to contain art materials and sketchbook pages but it wasnt pleasing me so I took the art stuff out and combined the pages with the sketchbook pages that had been in the thinner Cuban.
8. Mustard Finchley. Contains notes and website references, clippings, gallery leaftlets etc on contemporary african art which is an interest of mine. It may well expand to non african artists in due course.
9. Caramel Finchley. Currently my upgraded health filo. This was in the small and cheap lineburst but as I put myself on a serious training and weight watching programme I gave myself the reward of more space and more leather! It has a training diary, notes on exercise routines and general health research, yoga, psychology of health, a goals and reward section and a food section for listing health benefits of certain foods, their weightwatcher points and health characteristics.
10. Jade Finchley. Home Filo. Lives in the kitchen. Contains shopping lists, lists of recipes I want to try from my book collection, a bread making journal, and sections with to do lists, shopping research, plans and designs etc for the areas of the house still awaiting rennovation. I maintain this needs a list of all 79 different lightbulb models we seem to require in this house and which one fits which light fitting and how many spares we have on hand/ need buying. My husband says this is a step too far and we can just take the blown bulb to the shop. This is why I am going up and down the studio step using a torch at the moment.
11. Wine Holborn. Awaiting 2013 to come into fruition when it will go to work. Currently already full with a page on a day cream diary hacked from a bound Letts version.
12. Plum Osterley. This is where it kind of gets funny. Or super organised, depending on your view point. This is basically now my 'transit filo'. With so many filos if I have a few spare moments to say update my blog ideas list or to read about african art I often don' t have the right filo with me if I am not at home but I like to use them in cafes between home and work say or in the odd lunch time moment. So, this week I altered the set up of this slightly as it was underused with a commonplace journal, reading and Love Film lists and a bound journal tucked in the back pocket for general web browsing and magazine reading notes. Things I want to follow up on. It also now has a 'capture section' which is basically blank paper for mind dump notes and a transit section which is a space for me to insert pages taken from any number of other filos if I want to work on them but not carry the whole filo. I then have a section with five sheets of every type of paper I use in all my filos ( and an index list to remind me what I use for each section) and copies of all my homemade inserts. So yes, this is my filofax to organise my filofaxes! I also added a financial section this week and now its pretty full. I drive to the backdoor of my office so there is no problem carting an A5 with me. ( the driving to the backdoor explains the need fr a setious training and weightwatching programme!)
Turning now to the small pile, again bottom up.
13. London Line burst. This was so cheap online I bought it for the inserts and it was my health filo. Now storeing spare personal papers and likely to be used to archive this years diary.
14. Mushroom aston. This is my planner with monthly weekly and daily pages, to do lists and notes. It did have finances but I moved those to the Osterley in anticipation of a 2012 downsize to the Regency for daily use. It will probably get used to hold used 2013 pages as I go through the year.
15. Orchid Aston. Had a brief spell as a gratitude journal by my bed but that never really worked. Now housing most of the 2012 day on two pages I got from France. You cannot fit a whole year of these in a personal so some are loose inside and not on the rings and some are already in the ...
16 Compact Regency. All set up and ready to go as my 2013 planner. I can't wait for New Year to get to this new set up.
17 Pocket Chameleon. Used as my purse with extra credit / loyalty card holders, finance pages for noting spending and plain paper for shopping lists and general mind dump notes.
So, as I say, all used and justified ( if a little weakly in the case of the personals!) When I meet the first of my health goals my reward will be a grey Osterley. I have a little time to work out what to use that for...
Any more questions?!
2. Pink Classic. Still being set up in its new use as a wet studio Filo containing dyeing and printing instructions and swatches of fabrics I dyed with notes of how I did it. I am taking my time setting this up as the true wet studio ( as opposed to the ramshackle temporary arrangements of buckets of water in the dry studio) is not going to be built until next month!
3. Saddle brown Cuban. Ah, actually after I took this photo I had a swap around, which is why I had all these together in the first place. It was holding sketchbook pages. It is now empty but about to go to work to hold case notes.
4. Chilli red Cuban. Currently holding a test set up for work which, as it is working, will be rolled out soon across three filos. This has a diary, case notes, protocol checklists, telephone lists, meeting minutes and the like. Now I know my system works it will expand as extra items in those categories are added. So the two Cubans will probably contain case notes in two categories ( excuse me being vague but I cannot discuss the detail of my work online) project notes such as material relating to a new book contract I am about to sign, and the other items will go into the wine Holborn. My colleague at work calls me a Filofax nerd. He is right so I take no offence!
5. Ochre Malden. My studio planner for my textile art life. Time recording, project planning, calls for entry, expenditure, inspirational cuttings, article ideas etc.
6. Grey Malden. My blog and website planner and journal.
7. Purple Malden. This also had a swap around. I had set it up to contain art materials and sketchbook pages but it wasnt pleasing me so I took the art stuff out and combined the pages with the sketchbook pages that had been in the thinner Cuban.
8. Mustard Finchley. Contains notes and website references, clippings, gallery leaftlets etc on contemporary african art which is an interest of mine. It may well expand to non african artists in due course.
9. Caramel Finchley. Currently my upgraded health filo. This was in the small and cheap lineburst but as I put myself on a serious training and weight watching programme I gave myself the reward of more space and more leather! It has a training diary, notes on exercise routines and general health research, yoga, psychology of health, a goals and reward section and a food section for listing health benefits of certain foods, their weightwatcher points and health characteristics.
10. Jade Finchley. Home Filo. Lives in the kitchen. Contains shopping lists, lists of recipes I want to try from my book collection, a bread making journal, and sections with to do lists, shopping research, plans and designs etc for the areas of the house still awaiting rennovation. I maintain this needs a list of all 79 different lightbulb models we seem to require in this house and which one fits which light fitting and how many spares we have on hand/ need buying. My husband says this is a step too far and we can just take the blown bulb to the shop. This is why I am going up and down the studio step using a torch at the moment.
11. Wine Holborn. Awaiting 2013 to come into fruition when it will go to work. Currently already full with a page on a day cream diary hacked from a bound Letts version.
12. Plum Osterley. This is where it kind of gets funny. Or super organised, depending on your view point. This is basically now my 'transit filo'. With so many filos if I have a few spare moments to say update my blog ideas list or to read about african art I often don' t have the right filo with me if I am not at home but I like to use them in cafes between home and work say or in the odd lunch time moment. So, this week I altered the set up of this slightly as it was underused with a commonplace journal, reading and Love Film lists and a bound journal tucked in the back pocket for general web browsing and magazine reading notes. Things I want to follow up on. It also now has a 'capture section' which is basically blank paper for mind dump notes and a transit section which is a space for me to insert pages taken from any number of other filos if I want to work on them but not carry the whole filo. I then have a section with five sheets of every type of paper I use in all my filos ( and an index list to remind me what I use for each section) and copies of all my homemade inserts. So yes, this is my filofax to organise my filofaxes! I also added a financial section this week and now its pretty full. I drive to the backdoor of my office so there is no problem carting an A5 with me. ( the driving to the backdoor explains the need fr a setious training and weightwatching programme!)
Turning now to the small pile, again bottom up.
13. London Line burst. This was so cheap online I bought it for the inserts and it was my health filo. Now storeing spare personal papers and likely to be used to archive this years diary.
14. Mushroom aston. This is my planner with monthly weekly and daily pages, to do lists and notes. It did have finances but I moved those to the Osterley in anticipation of a 2012 downsize to the Regency for daily use. It will probably get used to hold used 2013 pages as I go through the year.
15. Orchid Aston. Had a brief spell as a gratitude journal by my bed but that never really worked. Now housing most of the 2012 day on two pages I got from France. You cannot fit a whole year of these in a personal so some are loose inside and not on the rings and some are already in the ...
16 Compact Regency. All set up and ready to go as my 2013 planner. I can't wait for New Year to get to this new set up.
17 Pocket Chameleon. Used as my purse with extra credit / loyalty card holders, finance pages for noting spending and plain paper for shopping lists and general mind dump notes.
So, as I say, all used and justified ( if a little weakly in the case of the personals!) When I meet the first of my health goals my reward will be a grey Osterley. I have a little time to work out what to use that for...
Any more questions?!
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Filofax confession
So far, I have hidden my out of control obsession passion for using filofaxes by keeping all my blogging about it as guest posts on the Philofaxy blog. But maybe, it is time to come clean.....The great thing about the Philofaxy blog is that it makes having an out of control desire requirement for owning multiple leather binders normal. The good folks over there are very social and like from time to time to meet up to discuss their Addiction organisational skills. The tradition is that the attendees on such a meet up bring a filofax or two and a pile is made...
Two are set up for pending 2013 use which means that two current ones will be retired as storeage binders, otherwise they are all in full use and so perfectly justifiable :)
I would name all the models except the only people who would care are the Philofaxy people who can do it themselves!
Like this
Except there was no meet up. They are all mine. Ooops. (And the A4 was still at work!) Two are set up for pending 2013 use which means that two current ones will be retired as storeage binders, otherwise they are all in full use and so perfectly justifiable :)
I would name all the models except the only people who would care are the Philofaxy people who can do it themselves!
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