a Kate Spade agenda

A few weeks ago, back in early January, Kristin on Twitter tweeted that she had a Kate Spade organiser for sale. I think it was the Wellesley organiser and it was a lovely shade of green, had a zip all around it and the interior was a pale nude colour. However, this binder was sold to Imy (a worthy recipient :) ) and I found myself lusting after Kate Spade organisers. As luck would have it, I found one on eBay and for a good price too, and when the final few seconds of the listing were approaching, I put in a last second bid (I always do this - I'm one of those dreaded snipers) and as there were no other bids, I got it for the minimum the seller was asking for.

Although it is not the same as the one that Kristin was selling, it's still a beautiful binder :) It arrived a few days after I paid for it and here it is, in all of its glory:

The red colour is a bright pillarbox red, and the clasp has the lovely 'Kate Spade New York' logo on it - adding meat and weight to the closure. The leather is pebbled (I have tried to show this in the picture) and the quality really is brilliant!

Upon opening, one is greeted with the view below. Note that you'll see 2012 diary inserts - the seller didn't include 2013 ones, as judging by the contents, she only used it for a few weeks or so before abandoning it. Look at those lovely gold rings! And the polka dot fabric interior, the card slots which should please those of you who enjoy carrying around loads and loads of cards. 

Furthermore, there are more pockets on the left than first meets the eye. You can see a bit of paper poking out of a full-length pocket on the far left, but what you can't tell is that there is yet another pocket under the stitching on the right. 

The rings are actually 30mm (I actually measured them to check) and so, they can hold a lot. The plastic ruler is clear, but is wider than a Filofax one. One thing I dislike about the ruler is that the bottom doesn't stick out like the Filofax one and personally, I use this bit at the bottom a lot to flip to my current page. However, it is clear and that is one thing that really appeals to me. The diary pages are week to view, with a notes section on the bottom right - and the paper is delicious (but more on this later!).

Separating each month is a picture/creative collage of some kind on the right, and the upcoming month denoted on the left. I have no idea what the space is for but you could use it to write notes for the upcoming month if you wished.

The month to view looks as follows:

One good thing about the month pages is that they appear within the weekly spreads. This means that there is no awkward flicking between one part of the organiser and another. I just love the design of these inserts! However, Saturday and Sunday share a single box in the monthly view - not something I'm a fan of. I don't know if it is any different in the 2013 inserts though.

Next up, I have a picture of the tabs for you. Yellow = notes; red = to do; brown = birthdays; green = restaurants; blue = addresses.

The notepages look like this:

To-do pages:

Birthday pages:

Restaurant pages:

Address pages:

The back has a secretarial pocket where you can store whatever you like in it. The pen loop is smaller than the one in my Smythson binder but I find it sufficient for my needs so I'm not complaining.

Now, onto the paper. For 2013, I know that Kristin and Hannah from Blue Bonnet Reads are both using the Kate Spade refills in their Filofax organisers - and I can definitely see why. The quality is brilliant, it feels luxurious and the collages for each month are so pretty.

The obligatory pen test:

The only pen where I had a slight feathering was my fountain - but that may be because I hadn't used that in a while?

And overleaf:

You could even use a permanent pen, if you wanted, if my Staedtler Lumocolor is anything to go by (it has permanent ink) as there was barely any show-through with that. The paper is thick too. Like, seriously thick - Filofax cotton cream paper ain't got nothing on Kate Spade diary paper, that's for sure.

There was a card that showed the pictures of each month (February was missing for me):

My favourite had to be January. The monogram flower background, with a hand holding a simple Ace of Spades card is simple, but for some reason, it really stands out for me. 

And nine other months (I missed off the March one as I just chose my favourite nine after January, sorry March!):

If you had read my blogpost on Wednesday about my new Smythson binder, you will have read that it developed ring problems on Tuesday - quite a big problem in that the rings do not close properly but leave a 0.5cm gap in each of them. As a result, I have now moved into this binder temporarily. I have to say, I'm loving the space I have with the 30mm rings, but ultimately, I would like to move back to my Smythson binder once the replacement arrives.

I love it too much to sell it - gold rings are something that really appeals to me (a love that @JoshuaLaPorte and I share!) but I love my Smythson binder too, so now, my binder collection has risen to the grand number of three (with an additional two that I am trying to sell, so a total of five).

NOTE: The text on the inserts came out as blue in these images - they are actually black. A mixture of the lighting and photo-editing made them come out as blue! Sorry :(