Brief Update! May 2013

Hiiiii!!!


Today is my birthday! But it doesn't feel real yet- maybe later with cake and presents :D :D I know I'm getting some goodies I bought from Artbox with early birthday money, a Cath Kidston bag, and some fountain pen stuff, but unfortunately no Filofaxes (that I know of at least!) :(

Today's is a brief post, but with lots of lovely pictures!! :D


Recently I bought a couple of new binders from ebay!

This is a 'De Villiers' binder, A5 in a beautiful brown leather of a similar hue to the Ochre Malden, which I think dates to the 1990s! I can't find out any more information about it! I'll do a review soon :D

I also bought a Mulberry agenda!! I won't tell you much about her because I will do a review and a set-up post soon, and hopefully a video too!

Filofaxes:

Although I've had a few problems with my Filofaxes over the past year and I told you I was going to stop using the personal-sized ones, I always intended to continue using the A5 ones for my hobbies and projects :) I love them so much!!

Mrs Purple Malden, a.k.a. 'Penelope'!! It's hard to describe briefly what I use her for, so I will do a post soon :D

Mr 'Indiana Jones' Malden- I use him for my Egyptology research :D He's my rugged adventurer, travelling through ancient history with me!!

Framboise, my A5 Raspberry Chameleon! I've set her up as my 'organisation' binder, but she's been a bit neglected since I've been setting up my Mulberry! I'll get back to using her soon!

My A5 red Amazona, in which I am slowly accumulating notes for my novel! :)

Birthday pre-haul: Fountain pen inks!

It's my birthday on Thursday and for the past few days I've been searching online for presents for myself from my family. I had a bit of a rush because I still hadn't decided what I wanted, and time was running out to get it delivered!

In my Filofax I have a wishlist of things I want, but shouldn't buy immediately. A few months ago I also made a list of things I'd like for my birthday. It's really interesting to come back to these lists a few months later and see how your desires have changed. Sometimes, you've changed your mind on something so completely that you are very happy you didn't buy that thing on impulse, because you know that if you haven't been missing not having something over the past few weeks, you didn't really want it badly enough, and if you now look back and think 'I really don't want it now', it would have been a waste of money if you had bought it on impulse!
So I consulted my lists and transferred the things I still really want onto a new birthday list. I worked my way through the items on my new list- things like Sims 3 University Life and a Pilot Prera fountain pen- and worked out that if I wait, I can get them cheaper in a couple of months, and do I really need them for my birthday now anyway? Choosing to not get these things for my birthday opened up some money for other options for presents. For example, the Pilot Prera fountain pen would have cost me just over £40, plus I wanted some more things, but in the end all of my presents cost less than £40!! My mum (who was paying for my presents) doesn't give me a budget, but she and my dad have always taught us to be careful with our money, and I feel bad asking for too much money.

I had a few things I really wanted for my birthday: fountain pen stuff!! A new pen, a few inks, and an ink syringe to fill my converters and cartridges from the bottled inks. This is my new hobby, and I know I'm really going to enjoy it! However, I also know it's going to get really expensive! Although a bottle of ink can cost as low as £5.80 (much cheaper than buying a Filofax to get your stationery thrills!), it's difficult to stop at buying just one! I think I will have to put myself on a tight leash and permit myself to buy only 1 ink per month!
I already knew where I would buy most of this from: Cult Pens. This is an excellent stationery online shop, with the most amazing customer service! I will be doing a review of this company soon in my Retail Recommendations series! The reason that buying from them was so brilliant is because I know that, even though I've placed my order only 3 days before my birthday and today is a Bank Holiday so Royal Mail isn't operating, I will get my order on my birthday! If you order before 3pm, Cult Pens will ship your order on the same day!, and they are based in Tiverton, which isn't far from where I live in Plymouth, so I know it will get to me even if they post tomorrow morning (when Royal Mail starts working again!). I recently bought a pen from them at 2pm, and received it before 9am the next day!!

So how to decide what to buy?

I decided to evaluate the inks and pens I already have, so I laid them out like this:

L-R: Diamine Registrar's ink with Lamy Al-Star Raspberry; blue cartridges with Parker Urban; Parker Quink black, Herbin black and a little vial of black with a Waterman silver f-pen; Herbin Rose Cylamen cartridges with Kaweco Ink Roller; Waterman Havana Brown with Lamy Safari Aquamarine; Waterman Violet with Lamy Al-Star Purple; My 'Raspberry' ink made of a mix of Diamine Cerise and Waterman Violet with Lamy Safari Pink pen; Herbin Bleu Azure ink; Rosetta Magellan pen, Lamy Safari Apple Green pen and Lamy Vista pen.

I realised I have a lot of blacks (I don't know how that happened, since I've never bought any, and don't really use them!), and blue-black, brown, purple, turquoise and a raspberry colour. Therefore, I could see a few gaps in my colour palette. I consulted my wishlist of inks, and realised that they would slot into those gaps nicely!!
I really love the colour of Diamine Ancient Copper, and I also wanted a vibrant pink, so I chose Diamine Deep Magenta. When I heard of Diamine Eau de Nil, I realised that as an Egyptologist I needed this ink as it's named after the Nile!

Then I set about working out which pen would be used for which ink. This was harder than it looked! Finally I decided on a sensible arrangement (the pens on the picture above show which pens are now assigned to which inks, and the 3 on the right are assigned to inks that I don't have yet, but will be coming from Cult Pens!). I realised that I don't have an ink that suits the gorgousness of my Rosetta Magellan, so I chose Diamine Red Dragon for it, which was another one to add to my order! Then I thought that Diamine Ancient Copper was such a gorgeous colour, that it deserved a wonderful pen- so I decided to get a Lamy Al-Star in Ruby Red as another birthday present specifically for that ink :)

Picture from www.cultpens.com

List so far:
Diamine Ancient Copper
Diamine Deep Magenta
Diamine Eau de Nil
Diamine Red Dragon
Lamy Al-Star Ruby Red

However, there were a few more things I had needed for ages, including the ink syringes with needles and a converter for one of my Lamys, and I decided to buy them out of my own money, as I have some money in my paypal. The only place I could find the ink syringes was The Writing Desk, which is another great stationery website. I decided to buy three, just in case I lose a couple, and I also wanted a waterproof ink because I've been having trouble with my Diamine Registrar's ink, so I consulted The Writing Desk's list of permanent inks and, after a lot of deliberation, decided to invest in De Atramentis Document Ink in blue! This would be one of my normal everyday inks, so would go in one of my favourite pens, my Lamy Safari Apple Green!

List so far:
Birthday-
Diamine Ancient Copper
Diamine Deep Magenta
Diamine Eau de Nil
Diamine Red Dragon
Lamy Al-Star Ruby Red
Me-
Ink syringe with needle x3
De Atramentis Document Ink Blue

But the bug had bitten me and I wanted some more ink! Once you pop, you can't stop!! So I went back to Cult Pens, and shopped for some more things to buy myself (not for my birthday!).

I decided to get some more pretty inks, maybe not ones I would use all the time like the ones I had chosen for my birthday, but ones I could use when I felt in the mood :) I chose the gorgous Diamine Sunset, and Diamine Emerald!
Unfortunately, I then didn't have enough pens to put these inks in, so I decided to buy some Platinum Preppys, which are cheap and cheerful fountain pens at £3.25 each, which I can use to hold my occasional inks by refilling their cartridges with my ink syringe needles. I bought a pink one for a handbag pen, 2 blues to hold Herbin Bleu Azure and Diamine Eau de Nil, a red one to hold Diamine Sunset and a green one to hold Diamine Emerald. I have assigned my Lamy Vista to be the pen I use to hold whichever of my occasional inks I love the most at any one time, to use instead of one of the Preppys, to just switch the ink out whenever I want!

Final shopping list:

Birthday-
Diamine Ancient Copper
Diamine Deep Magenta
Diamine Eau de Nil
Diamine Red Dragon
Lamy Al-Star Ruby Red
Me-
Ink syringe with needle x3
De Atramentis Document Ink Blue
Diamine Sunset
Diamine Emerald
Platinum Preppys

I noticed a pattern when I had finished choosing my inks.

Swatches from http://www.thewritingdesk.co.uk/
L-R, U-D: Ancient Copper, Deep Magenta, Eau de Nil, Red Dragon, Sunset, Emerald (looks darker in writing)
Swa

I love really deep, gorgeous, brooding colours. Ones that look like they would have been around hundreds of years ago, as if Shakespeare could have used them! Although I'm attracted to bright, fun colours, like lime green, I stop short of buying them. I like inks that look like they have a story to them, inks that I can use when I'm feeling in a certain mood. I'm attracted to Diamine Oxblood, and I saw that someone said it looked like you were writing in blood- well, if I'm feeling really melancholic one day, I might just buy it and pretend I'm writing in blood! I want a fountain pen inks to make me feel.
I think writing is such a passionate thing. I love the process of a thought or idea shooting down your arm, out of a pen and onto paper. So I want my inks to feel like they are my thoughts and emotions in liquid form, coming out of your pen, the extension of your fingers, and to soak into the paper. It's almost as if the ink is your thoughts' essence, your emotions' blood. If I want my writing to be magenta pink, or Nile blue, then it will be. If I want it to actually look like blood, why not? Ink is the blood of your thoughts.

NatStatWeek- My favourite stationery: Notebooks

Sorry for another late post, I had a busy and stressful day yesterday- we had to take our cat to the vets (she's ok now!), I got an email saying I didn't get the job I really wanted and thought I'd get, which upset me a lot, and then I found a vacancy for another job I've been looking for, so I spent an hour applying for that and got an interview, but I used to work there so I'm 99% sure they'll give me the job. After all that stress, I spent the evening playing Sims 3, which is what I do when I'm upset or stressed, and I completely forgot about the blog post!!

I have lots of notebooks. Lots and lots! Probably more than I will ever need!
I'm not very good at using them because whenever I start one, with a purpose for it like for drafting a novel, or for an Egyptology project, I change my mind about what to use it for after 3 pages and then feel like I've ruined the notebook! This doesn't happen with Filofaxes, because I can just take a page out and start again!
But I still LOVE to buy them, collect them, look at them on my shelf!
Most of my notebooks are unused (in fact, I'd say 80% of them!), and I think the rest are unfinished. Maybe one day I'll use up my current stash, but I don't think I'll ever stop buying them, so I think it's a never-ending situation!

My favourite ones are the pocket Moleskine-esque (actually Blackwells bookshop knock-offs!) ones, which are filled with notes, to-do lists, assignment lists, essay ideas, etc etc from university! I used to keep it in the front pocket of my handbag, and I'd just grab it and scribble whatever was on my mind- they truly are brain dumps! I loved to flick through the pages and see them full of writing. I used to read through them while walking home from uni, and put a diagonal line through the to-dos that were done, ideas that had already been implemented into essays, notes that weren't needed any more. I loved how the paper became indented onto the other side when I wrote with a biro. I used a 4-colour pen, and sometimes I colour-coded, sometimes it was random. I LOVE these notebooks, because they truly are my brain on paper. Random, eclectic, messy- and only I can make sense of it!

Personal Notes etc

Uni notes

Here's my rather large collection of notebooks on my bookcase and in my basket by my desk!

 

Smaller, pocket sized to A5 sized notebooks. Most of these are unused, and too cute to use!!

Bigger notebooks, from A5 to A4! I use these for research notes, language learning etc, so they get used more than my pocket notebooks. I'm not as precious about them as my cute smaller notebooks!

 

NatStatWeek- My favourite stationery: Mechanical Pencils

I really love mechanical pencils! I like writing with pencils anyway; they are very useful as it doesn't matter if I make mistakes, I don't have to worry about colour-coding, it doesn't go through cheap paper like some inky pens do, and my handwriting looks quite good when I write with them!
    But I often drop my writing implements (I carry too much at once!), and regular pencils break really easily! Continually sharpening blunt pencils, or especially annoying broken leads, is frustrating and often difficult to do when you are on-the-go, or don't have a sharpener or a bin around! Plus I don't really like the bare/varnished/painted wood that pencils are usually made of, and they are too thin for me to hold comfortably in my fingers.

But I love mechanical pencils! They don't break as easily as normal pencils, the leads last for ages, the barrels/bodies are generally easier to hold and more comfortable for your fingers as they are similar to pen barrels, and they are relatively economical.

 Zebra Mechanical Pencils, 2 of a set of 5- zebra print, leopard print, and the other is tiger print.
These are really cute because they look like normal pencils, but are made from pencil instead of wood. They even have the metal part and the eraser at the top, and the 'wooden' bit at the bottom where the lead comes out. You push on the eraser and the lead gets pushed out like a normal mechanical pencil.

Lamy Safari red mechanical pencil- I love the Lamy Safari fountain pens, so I extended this to the Lamy mechanical pencil! It's a bit slimmer and smaller than the fountain pens, but has the same great design.

My favourite mechanical pencil- Uni Kuru Toga!! I LOVE this pencil! I also have one in pink.
The ingenious thing about these pencil is that the special mechanism inside, made of cogs and wheels, rotates the lead a tiny bit every time the pencil is touched against the paper. This means that the lead never gets blunt, so you don't have to turn the pencil in your fingers to use the sharper side of the lead, which means the lead doesn't snap off!! The nib stays perfectly not-too-sharp + not-blunt all the time! The diagram below demonstrates. This means that you don't have to keep rotating the pencil in your fingers to get the sharp lead- which takes some getting used to, as you unconsciously do this when you use a regular pencil or even a regular mechanical pencil!
It's such a good invention, it changes the way you write so much!!

NatStatWeek- My favourite stationery: Sticky Notes!

(Sorry for this post being late! ;b )

I have a lot of sticky notes (a.k.a. Post-It notes), but how can I not- they're so useful!!
I use them for taking quick notes that I only need temporarily, for lists etc on my dashboard/WO2P and other places in my planner, and for more permanent info in my Egyptology research filo, which I can move from page to page as I work, and then stick them down again to store them.

I actually prefer cheaper sticky notes because I mostly use them for temporary things, so I don't want to use expensive (i.e. Post-It brand) ones, when I'm only going to use them for a couple of things and then throw them away. So I don't mind if they don't stick very well!
But for things that need to stick for longer- e.g. in my Egyptology filofax- I use 3M brand's Super Sticky Post-It Notes!
I really like cute and novelty sticky notes, but when they're limited edition (e.g. seasonal ranges from Paperchase) or ones I won't be able to get again (e.g. grid Post-Its from the USA sent to me by Kristin), I feel like I can't use the, so I keep them in my stationery box and I don't use them!

Here are some photos of my collection :)

These are my main sticky notes in one of my Hello Kitty boxes :) A mixture of Martha Stewart, Post-It Super Sticky, cheap ones from supermarkets etc, and other ones. I take this box to my desk so I can use my sticky notes there, or with me when I'm working in bed with my filos or books :)

The sticky notes drawer in the set of drawers on my coffee table. It's basically the same contents as my Hello Kitty box duplicated, but missing a few as I can't fit them all in. The big pink one is my new Post-It block I got quite cheap from Staples! I love this drawer as it is so useful when I'm sitting on my sofa, it's within an arm's reach so I don't have to get up ;b (Lazy me!!)

Martha Stewart Avery sticky notes and tabs sent from the USA by Amy! I feel like I shouldn't use them as lots of them are discontinued and I can't get them again, but I've got some others I bought from Staples here in the UK which I'm using, so I might start using them after those!

These are my novelty and cute sticky notes, mainly from Paperchase, but also others I got as gifts, e.g. Hello Kitty :)

NatStatWeek- My favourite stationery: Pens!!

It's National Stationery Week in the UK!! I think it should be international really, so everyone around the world, come and join us celebrating!!

 

To celebrate, I am doing a series of blog posts this week, showing you my favourite stationery items!

Today: Pens! 

I really love pens, they are some of the greatest tools for me. Besides paper and my laptop, I really can't think of anything else that I NEED for my working life (university included), hobbies, projects and personal life. 

I really think that pens are some of the best things to invest in. I don't mind using poor quality paper, cheap sticky notes etc, but pens are something I prefer to spend money on to buy quality. If you buy cheap pens which are of poor quality, you could end up with a pot full of pens that don't work well, and feel obliged to use them up. But if you buy quality, those pens will last you ages, won't dry up, won't fade, etc etc. And you will enjoy using them!

My aim is to get rid of all my cheapy pens (I recently gave loads of cheap biros to my mum, who doesn't care about good stationery, she will use anything!!), and only have great quality pens that I actually need!

Some pens I don't really like, e.g. gel pens, which always skip for me :(

My favourites!

Fountain pens:

Lamy Safari Aquamarine, Safari Pink, Al-Star Raspberry, Vista, Safari Apple Green, a Waterman pen, Rosetta Magellan, and Parker Urban Pink. (I also have a Al-Star in Purple, but I can't find it at the moment!)

I LOVE Lamy fountain pens, specifically Lamy Safari, Al-Star and Vista. I have a couple of more expensive fountain pens, and some more on my wishlist, but I love my Lamys more than any of them! They are lightweight, pretty colours, I love the design, and the strong clip! I have to have quite lightweight pens because I only have small hands. The Parker and Rosetta pens are too heavy for me, so they make my hand hurt and my writing poor- but the Lamys are perfect.

My other favourite writing pen:

Uniball Eye Micro in black!
I use this when I'm not using my fountain pens. I love it because it is a great writer, it never skips (ever!), it doesn't tend to bleed through cheap paper (including Filofax paper), it's permanent and it's waterproof, which means you can use a highlighter over it and the ink won't run!

More lovely pens:

A Vera Bradley ballpoint pen from the lovely Kristin; a big chunky resin/glass ballpoint pen I bought years ago from The Works; a pretty Swarovski lilac ballpoint I won from Karina; a Hello Kitty Liberty ballpoint; and an Egyptian Exhibition souvenir ballpoint pen from The British Museum where the mummified body moves through the Book of the Dead's judgement scene to the sarcophagus as you tilt the pen!!

Favourite coloured pens:

Stabilo Point 88s in the pen wrap my mum helped me make!
I love these pens, the colours are so vibrant and they work great for my colour-coding! They bleed through cheaper paper a tiny bit, but it's worth it :)

Multi-coloured pens:

Pilot Coleto Lumio with black, blue, red and pencil inserts (I have a pink Coleto with green, light blue, purple and pink, but I can't find it at the moment!); Muji 3-colour plus pencil multi-pen; Zebra 4-colour pen; Bic Fashion 4-colour pen.

More coloured pens:

This tin pot contains lots of assorted coloured pens, including my favourite felt-tip pens, from Crayola; sparkly gel pens; two more Muji multi-coloured pens, and some more coloured biros :)


Tune in for more posts this week about my other favourite stationery items! 

March Organisation Challenge: The Results!!

Hi guys!

I'm finally getting around to showing you the 'After' of my March Organisation Challenge!

I managed to finish the challenge on the last day of the month, and I'm really proud of myself because I thought it would take me until the first few days of April! 

Since then I've managed to keep my room quite tidy and I love how organised it is compared to how it used to be!

I haven't gone with the minimalist approach, because I don't think I could ever be one! I love my 'stuff', and I do try to get rid of the things I don't need, but I think most of what I have I need, and the rest of it has sentimental value!

So my room might look like it has a lot of stuff in it, but now the majority of those things are organised, and I just love it!

The things that still need sorting I'm in the process of doing, I have a list in my Filofax which I implement into my weekly to-dos, so I hope my long-term projects in my room will be finished soon!

I decided to make a video because I wanted to show you more than photos can do! Please enjoy :)