My Van der Spek custom organiser - a planner love story

My planner love story begins with an unassuming, plain box.  Well, I say it begins with the arrival of the box but to be honest it really started when I received my leather samples from Van der Spek a few weeks back.  As soon as I felt the quality of the leather and saw the colours available I knew I would fall pretty hard for my custom planner once I had designed and ordered it! 

Van der Spek custom organiser

I talked about what I wanted in my workhorse post, a binder with large rings, that would be hard wearing on the outside with a pop of colour on the inside and this beauty is what I ordered! 

My perfect planner

The outside leather is ciocolatto (6202), it is a lovely warm shade of brown and it feels incredibly soft and luxurious.

Inside

The inside leather is turchese nappa.  I hadn't ordered a sample of this originally as it wasn't available as an option but as soon as Petra announced the new colours I had to see what it was like compared to turchese (19) so I requested a sample.  It is the perfect shade of turquoise and I preferred the texture of the nappa leather so that is what I picked.  I went with the standard pocket configuration, six card slots on the left hand side, a small pocket and two full hight slip pockets.  On the right there is another full hight slip pocket and a slightly larger pocket.  The pen loop is elasticated so it will take a chunkier pen which is great!

Giant 30mm rings!

The 30mm Krause rings feel very sturdy and well made.  I can't get over how big they are!  I thought they would be a similar size to the ones in my Webster's Pages Colour Crush planner but they are larger and hold quite a bit more.

Full width back pocket

I added a full width back pocket to the organiser, I thought it would be handy for keeping any import letters or paperwork safe while I needed them or before I filed them away properly.

Contrasting stitching

With the custom organisers you are given the option to select the colour thread used.  I wanted contrasting colours so the turchese thread is used on the ciocolatto leather and the ciocolatto thread is used on the turchese leather.  You can see how perfect the stitching is in this close up!  I also love the little Van der Spek tag which is sewn inside the binder.

All moved in

I moved everything in as soon as it arrived, I am still tweaking my set up a little but it is working well for me so far. 

Here are a few more photos for you...

I really can fit my whole life in here!

Pockets, pockets, pockets!

My pen matches the nappa leather perfectly

I think I have found "The One"!  I didn't really believe in planner peace before, mainly because no one ever seems to find it for long but I'm hoping I have found it and it stays because this is the perfect one for me!

Celebratory giveaway!

I said last week that I was going to run a little giveaway to celebrate reaching 300 followers on Bloglovin' so here it is.  Mrs Brimbles has given me some of her lovely dashboards as prizes and I've added some bits and pieces to them too.

There are two prizes, one has a personal size elephant dashboard and the other has an A5 size dashboard so please let me know which size you want to win.

Personal size prize

A5 size prize

How to enter:

• Leave me a comment below saying which size dashboard you would like to win.
• Let me know if you follow me by email, Bloglovin' or Google Friend Connect and you will get an extra entry into the draw.

I will number all the personal size entries and use a random number generator to pick a winner and then do the same for the A5 size entries.  This giveaway is international and open to everyone.  

You have until 12pm here in the UK on the 23rd August to enter, any entries after this time wont be included in the draws.

Good luck!

She's Eclectic - Enabling Filofax love!

Since I started blogging about my Filofax a few people have told me that I had convinced them to buy one for themselves!   I asked them to send me some photos of their binders so I could share them with you.

Stephanie at Never Mind Suzi brought a lovely A5 teal binder from Paperchase and wrote about it here. 

Stephanie's photos 

Dawn at Reflective Ramblings Of An OU Student brought a red Metropol in pocket size and wrote about it in her blog too.  I know she has also ordered a purple Malden now and I'm so jealous!

Dawn's photos

Slooky brought an A5 Domino in red and some coloured pens and lots stickers and was kind enough to take some photos for me.

Slooky's photos

My friends Frances, Kate, Kelly, Mindy and Keyonna all felt the Apex love and brought one each.   I know some people don't like the Apex binders but the colours are fun, they are a good price for a starter Filofax (especially if you are not sure it is a system that is going to work for you) and you don't have to worry about throwing it in your bag along with everything else and hoping it doesn't get damaged.

Frances' photos

Kate's photo

Kelly's photos

Mindy's photos

Keyonna's photos

I am so happy you all love your Filofaxes and thank you for taking the time to take these photos and sending them to me! If anyone else has brought one after reading my blog I would love to know, I'd like to make it up to a nice round ten soon!