101 Progress Check - May 5th 2013

Hi Guys,

Firstly I apologise for the lack of 101 updates over the last couple of weekends, I had to go to the UK for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, and last weekend I just really didn't feel like doing an update, although I had actually achieved stuff.

I took the boys on a family day out (minus Ben as he was away, but I'm still counting it as it was a success). We went to the wilderness park near Zurich, which the boys love so much and as the weather was lovely we saw a lot of the animals - even the foxes were out and showing off :-) The boys were most impressed by the frogs and the huge blobs of frogspawn though.

I had a few days off work and was mainly lazy (and felt guilty for being so, what is that about? even I know that I deserve some lazy days), but I spent a bit of time one afternoon doing my very first attempts at scrapbooking, using some photos of my chaps. As these were first attempts there is nothing ambitious in there, but I am happy with how they turned out, now I just need to buy a 12 x 12 binder to store them in.

Last weekend I tried out digital scrapbooking using a trial of Corel Paintshop, and it was going quite well, but I got a bit stroppy trying to get the photos to do what I wanted (I have very little patience, and I was already tired, so it probably wasn't the best time to try it). I also downloaded a trial of Photoshop Elements 11 (it turns out we already have version 9 as standard on our home pc which I was totally unaware of), which I tried out last night, and here is what I produced using the freebie that came from The Digichick via the special freebie for April on their Facebook page.

I'm not accomplished enough to get the photos to fit to the shapes properly yet, but I am very happy with the layout and even though it is quite flowery, the boys are impressed too :o)

So "Scrapbook 3 photos of my boys" - done :o)

On the fitness side of things I am very pleased to report that I have completed my Les Mills Combat programme and am happy with the results - I am still not putting up any before and after photos though as I would feel like an idiot. However, if I manage to carry on with the next programmes as planned then I may be looking my best ever by my 40th birthday and may post some then :o)

I was supposed to be getting my "3 sessions of Just Dance or Dance on Broadway in one week" challenge done this week, but as I can't actually find either of the games I'm a bit stuffed on this one. I should probably have swapped and done my "4 sessions on My Fitness in one week" instead, but got far too grumpy to do anything else when I couldn't find my dance ones. I was really in the mood to get started on the dance one and jump round the room like a loon, but it just wasn't to be. Today I need to get off my butt (before it starts to expand again) and get on the "My Fitness" challenge as I really want to get this and the dance one out of the way so I can get myself going on my next Beachbody programme.. which to choose, that will be the next question.

On the organisational side of my challenges I also have things to report. Before I do this though I have a confession to make - over the last 3 weeks I have barely used my Plannerisms planner for my household routines, this isn't because the planner doesn't work for me, but because I have been ridiculously lazy/distracted, so it's time to give myself a kick up the butt and get back on it.

However, I have managed to set up an events planner Filofax (using my lovely A5 antique rose Finchley) - at this stage it is pretty basic and I haven't taken any photos as I will be tweaking and prettifying it, but as far as the challenge of setting it up goes, it is done.

After my initial failed attempt at moving my Christmas planning stuff from my Dodo Book of Christmas to the A5 events planner, I decided that there must be a way, and there was - it's not perfect due to the size differences, but I bit the bullet and cut down the inserts to size (losing one year of Christmas card list functionality, which I can live with) and re-writing everything. So now all my Christmas planning is in my events planner Filofax :o)

I have also been doing lots of planning for one of the other challenges on my list, but I will let you know about that one a bit nearer the completion date... ;o)

I won't be posting an update next Sunday as I will be away completing another of my challenges "A Family Weekend Away", we are leaving for Europapark on Friday, and coming back on Sunday (which is Mother's Day here, so I will mainly be having a fun time and eating nice food).

Have a great week,

LJx

 

New Purchases/Presents In Brief...

OK - it says in brief, but what it actually means is that I just don't have time to do lots of separate posts, and I'm lazy. As some of the items get used more I will post about what I have done with them  :-)

As you may know, I put myself on a no shopping stint for 12 weeks, did I save money? Probably not, because since then I have probably bought all the stuff I would have bought in the course of that 12 weeks anyway - yay!!!

These are the lovely things that were waiting for me when I got to Weymouth:

 A lovely personal Malden in Ochre from the fabulous Charlotte, who included some filofax stickers (which are great), and some diddy post-it style page markers (which are always so handy when you're trying to actually be organised). I now have almost a full Ochre Malden set - I'm only missing the mini, and I don't think I want one of those, they don't appear to have enough pockets...

Filofax and inserts

The other thing that I got with these which I've never had before (or even considered) is the 2DPP diary. I think I may have to start doing a one line gratitude journal and then I can pretty each day up with stickers, doodles and washi tape. I think this would be perfect for in my happiness binder :-)

Opened up

 My next package was my beautiful teal Plannerisms planner, I haven't put in loads of photos, but if you haven't seen the insides of these before check out this link to the Plannerisms blog of Laurie who designed them - they are amazing.

Love the colour, so excited to get started

I was so pleased to get this and was going to start using it the first night, until someone (thanks Dave) thought they should tell me that I shouldn't write in here with a normal BIC biro, it needed a special pen, not just a black biro... so much for starting my organisation and new set up immediately.

Next came the cute washi tape that I spied over on Alice's blog (The Wonderful Life of Alice), I'd mentioned that it was I thought it was great, and as she didn't want it anymore she sent it to me. How sweet is this personal notepaper that Alice uses - I want!!!

Ooh!!!

But not only did Alice send the washi tape, she also included a bag with loads of bits and pieces for me (and my boys).  There is a picture of a lot of the stuff that arrived below, but there was even more than this. In the evening of the day that I received this I met a friends niece who was just fabulous and she loves stickers too (and yes, she is an adult too - see, it's not just me), as she was so nice and loves stickers sooooo much I did her a little pile of various stickers out of the ones Alice had sent me. I got a message the next day (I left them for her, so she didn't get them until the morning) saying that she was very pleased with them. I am glad to have been able to share my gifts from Alice with someone else who really appreciates them too.

Felt stickers, owl stickers, butterflies and bugs, metallic
tape, stickers with little bits inside, magnetic bookmarks,
hearts & stars for tracking, cupcakes, hearts, robot skulls,
cute girls, animals and bling - so many things

Then came the pens - a pack of 20 Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, and check out the packet these come in, that is amazing. I happened to mention that I like my pens to stay in the correct order in the holder, and then got paranoid realised that if I left them in the meeting room without me then they would very quickly be rearranged by the mean boys, therefore every time I left the room (regardless of what for) my new pens had to come with me.

A veritable rainbow

 On my last day in Weymouth my final package arrived - 6 new washi tapes from eBay, I only have one problem now...

I need some more tea-lights to use them on - ha ha ha!!!

Bag of wash-tape decorated vanilla tea-lights

After work on Friday I was dropped at Staples in Bournemouth, as I wanted to get some BIC medium crystal biros (???) and I was desperate to check out the ARC system that I have read so much about. I really liked the paper (nice quality, reasonably priced) and so cam out of there with the system, spare paper and a pack of 3 hotlist type pads - result!!!

Saturday in Bournemouth... where to go?...

Paperchase of course!!! Unfortunately (or fortunately maybe) the Paperchase concession in Bournemouth is only small so I didn't buy a huge stack of things, but managed to pick up a few good bargains.

E-Book case, writing set, stickers and a couple of Santa packs

I also went into TK Maxx (had to be done) and although they had some lovely notepads there, they didn't have anything that I really wanted desperately (or at least nothing that I would have actually been able to get home anyway). However, one thing they did have which I hadn't expected were a few packs of the standard block colours of scrapbooking paper from American Crafts. If I'd had any chance of those fitting in my case I would definitely have got some.

And then on Friday this week while I was working from home as I was too poorly to be allowed out of the house, this arrived from Maaike of the wonderful blog My Filo World.  Now this is the only one with proper unveiling photos as I didn't have a camera with me for any of the others, so lets see...

Lovely wrapping - how sweet!!!

With a little note

And here it is.. the gorgeous, green Windsor

So sweet with this little floral pen

Inside there was also a special today style marker, Month on 2 page tabbed dividers, and some funky paperclips (heart, star and a particularly cool circular one).

Thank you to all of you who designed, sold, or gave me any of these lovely things - thank you, thank you, thank you :-)

LJx

New Year, New Dividers!!!

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all had a fabulous time.

As for me, with two young boys who don't value sleep that highly, I didn't stay awake to welcome in the new year in, but that meant that I didn't have a hangover on New Year's Day and meant I had some energy for the day itself, to enjoy my time. Yay!!!

With the help of my Silhouette Cameo and the button pressing skills of my little helper I made some basic filofax dividers, using various scrapbooking papers. The templates were easy to pull together (although I may need to alter the A5 ones slightly as the tabs are rather large).

Here are the first attempts, cut from Mariposa paper (quite heavy) which I got from Mayflower1990 on eBay.

A5 6 Divider for Work Setup

Personal 4 Divider for Personal Setup

I chose to do these ones first as these are what I needed for my setups.

When they were finished I showed Marcus (the damaged child) who immediately asked if the personal ones were for him to put in his new Filofax - who could say no to that gorgeous little face?

Cheeky, crazy filofax nut on the left, and my gorgeous
more sensible boy on the right

Using my FF A5 metal hole punch (weird one, see photos) I put holes in the A5 dividers. Unfortunately, having left my Rapesco 6 hole punch at work I had to Marcus' ones with my single hole punch (there is no way he would wait until today, such a patient boy), so they are a touch large, but still fine.

Looks like a standard metal hole punch (the sort
I really struggle to use)

Made in Sweden - this is the front, straight up with no
angled lever handle thing going on

And the back... simple and yet so effective :-)

I didn't put any tape on the tabs of these dividers as they are reasonably sturdy, and to be honest, they're not really here for the long term. However, colour-wise they go beautifully with the Domino Snakes.

My A5

Marcus' personal

Marcus is very proud of his new filo and dividers and he has already started jazzing up his plain dividers. Here is his saltwater crocodile :o)

Next up it was time to try for the three sets from six sheets, as I worked out you can fit an A5, a personal and a pocket divider on one sheet, and now have files that I can use to cut each divider from. File 1 contains divider 1 for A5, personal and pocket, file 2 contains divider 2 for each size, etc.

As these were cut from a much thinned paper I used Scotch tape on the tabs to give them a bit of protection.

A5 and personal - thankfully you can't see the holes on
all the dividers as in my excitement of finishing them
when I got home this evening I punched the personal ones
with the setting on pocket... luckily I did the back 3
first - oops!!!

Pocket size in all their glory

I am quite pleased with my results, and pleased that I can now cross another challenge off my 101 in 1001, although I am sure this is just the beginning. Next stop may be to change the templates to include a pocket on the back.

One last pic as it is cute. Marcus had the offcuts from the first sets of dividers so I came home to this on the table...

Raiding his new pirate stickers and the craft box

What did you do on New Year's Day?

LJx

101 List Progress Check - 9th December 2012

What a week - it has been tough!!!

Let's start with the good news though:

      I finished my two week challenge to drink 1.5 litres of water a day on Tuesday!!! I am very pleased that I managed not to actually drown during this process, and despite the good intentions of trying to keep to it, I spent the last three days in a planning meeting which isn't exactly conducive to drinking that much (I couldn't really disappear off to the loo every hour without everyone assuming that I'm pregnant), and then came the weekend, which is the hardest time for me to remember to drink. However, back to work tomorrow, so I will try to drink 1.5 litres each day that I am in the office.

      For my Fabulously Frugal No Shopping Challenge... I have been a total angel :-) I resisted the lure of a vintage green Windsor filofax, which was particularly tempting as it was in perfect condition, green and I don't have any vintage filos...  I then had to look for Silhouette Cameo suppliers as this is what my wonderful DF is getting me for Christmas, this obviously led to me having to browse various scrapbooking sites to try to get together a list of the other bits and pieces I need to go with it, and I have found some amazing designs and scrapbooking kits, and all the other paraphernalia that goes with it. So far I have been able to resist, although totally unable to let Ben know what I actually need - I am totally loving the SMASH book stuff from KandCo, I really can't decide which things are most important to get. I have seen so much fabulous stuff that I'm almost tempted to say that I can wait until my birthday for the Silhouette Cameo. It is just so tempting to sneak in an order...

      My kitchen is still (mostly) getting it's final clean of the day before I go to bed so that when we get up in the morning it is nice and tidy - lovely!!! I had a bit of a moment this morning and started cleaning and rearranging the cupboards (rearranging the contents of, not physically moving the cupboards, that would just be crazy - they are fitted...), and now we can get to the things we need most for cooking easily, let's see how long they manage to stay in the right places. Next stop sorting out the food cupboards - my OCD really needs to kick on on those bad boys, instead of just closing the doors and ignoring them :-)

      And this is where it all goes wrong... :-(  I still haven't finished reading my final prizewinner book (Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel), because I had a bit of an accident on the way to the bus stop for work on Monday (imagine full on comedy, slip on ice, legs right up in the air, landing flat on the back and then smacking head on the floor). The accident itself was kinda painful but my neck and head are both OK again now and my lower back is almost back to normal, but my Kindle wasn't so lucky :-( I was carrying it (in its cover) in my rucksack, which was thrown over my right shoulder and took quite an impact when it hit the floor. It wasn't until the end of the day that I realised that it was broken and why (yep, that knock on the head made me pretty useless for most of the day, I was really struggling to think). I had tried turning it on at the bus stop, but the picture wouldn't change, I tried restarting it and still nothing - I figured it was just having a funny five minutes (being totally unaware that it was likely to have been battered in the fall - I'm sure my brain must have fallen out you know).

      Thankfully I can still read it as I have the Kindle app on my iPad, but I hate reading books on the iPad, and simply refuse to carry it to work and back each day - so there goes pretty much all my reading time each day until I can get a new Kindle... why did this have to happen while I'm on my 3 month no shopping challenge - bah, sucks!!! Maybe I will have to give in and start taking my iPad to work... bleurgh!!!

But looking on the bright side - I have been listening to music on the way to and from work, which is really nice as I don't get time to listen to much music usually :-)

Have a great week,

LJx




  

101 List Progress Check - 7th October 2012

Hello!!!

It´s time for another update...

OK - so the prizewinner book "Paddy Clarke ha Ha Ha!!!" by Roddy Doyle did grow on me. I found the style of writing quite off-putting at first, but as the character gets older you notice the changes and it is very cleverly done.

Ripped abs - hmmm, well today I have started again and taken my Day 0 photos ready for comparison. Thankfully the work I did earlier in the year, despite only being for a short time, wasn´t all wasted - I lost 11 kilos at the time, and have only put 1 back on, so hopefully the exercise will be able to tone me up reasonably quickly. I did my first workout today which was X2 Core from the Beachbody P90X2 programme - it nearly killed me, but that´s a good sign right? Anyway, I think I´ll leave the P90X2 to Ben and stick mainly to P90X myself - with maybe a bit of Brazil Butt Lift thrown in for good measure. The main question though is do I do the full 90 day programme (exercising six days a week) or do I just try for three workouts a week...?

Scrapbooking - nope I still haven´t actually done any yet, but I have discovered Jessops photo books, which I can use to have my photos printed into books for posterity - how did I not know about these? I love looking at old photos, but since going digital I hardly ever print any out at all, but with this I can upload photos, design all my layouts, add text, borders etc. It´s not quite scrapbooking, but to be fair, it´s not a million miles away from digital scrapbooking. I may make up a few books and then save physical scrapbooking projects to be done for special occasions.

I also had a proper look into the world of digital scrapbooking and found the app ScrapPad for the iPad. Unfortunately I don´t have any photos on my iPad yet to be able to create any meaningful pages, but it is so simple to do and there is a pretty good selection of backgrounds and borders. My two boys also had great fun playing with the app and creating pages, just using the backgrounds, borders, embellishments and stickers that are in the app. For only 3 pounds it has a good selection, and you can get more kits for around 99p each, although you don´t need to. I´m going to be looking to see if I can get this app for the MacBook as well, who knows, I may even be able to print some pages out to go in my filos or on my desk at work.

Hope you all have a great week.

LJx

Ooh – New Pretty/Functional Things…

Wow, wow, wow!!!

Last week was a fabulous week for me. Not only did I get my boys back after their holiday at Dad & Jo’s (my dad, not theirs – he was with me enjoying the peace and quiet), but when I got there to pick them up I had fun stuff waiting for me :o)

Alison had blogged here that she was selling some of her precious Filofaxes, and mentioned that she may also be parting with her raspberry Compact Chameleon… Now, I don’t have a compact (apart from the Pennybridge, but I don’t count that as it’s more of a purse), so it would be rude not to put myself forward as a potential owner for said compact in case Alison did decide to sell. Luckily for me, soon after I asked Alison to keep me in mind if she did take the leap, I received an email saying that it was indeed going to be leaving her and was I still interested? Of course!!!

Here is the stunningly attractive Cassie the Chameleon in all her compact beauty - I’ve not named any of my other filos, so don’t know why I had the overwhelming feeling that she should be called Cassie, but there you go!!! I think it’s the whole compact and beautiful thing, and I know someone who fits that description and she is called Cassie.

She has arrived complete with the Swedish/Danish insert that I love so much more than the UK ones (who wouldn’t?). And check out her dividers…

TOP TABS!!!

I also had a present from Graham, who plays badminton with Dad & Jo, which he dug out for me after he heard that I love all things Filofax. Check this out…

It is an insert holder (holds personal size inserts) from Time Management International from a course that he went on. It cam complete with dividers for the holder (I’m not sure what all the symbols mean), a few plastic dividers that will fit in a personal Filofax, and various inserts.

I am really looking forward to storing my inserts in here. Maybe I will move back into a personal filo for a while so I can try and use them properly J

My third parcel (yes, I am a very lucky girl), was one that arrived while I was at Centerparcs, but his was the first time I’d been to Dad’s since to be able to get it.
This is what Alison sent me as a thank you for the Sunflower Piazza that I sent to her... TA DA!!!

Huge stash of scrapbooking stuff!!!

Boy stuff ready for pictures of my little chaps

The pretty stuff for doing pretty things with :o)

I am so pleased to have got these – I now have papers, brads, ribbon, buttons, photo frame, letters, stickers and everything I could possibly need for my first scrapbook project, and for many others if I don't do too badly on on my first attempts. I am so looking forward to printing out a photo of my two gorgeous boys to use, and when it is finished it can live on my desk at work.

Signing off with huge thank yous to both Alison and Graham for their kindness and thoughtfulness.

LJx

Hauls Galore!!!

Woohoo I am so excited!!!

I know I'm supposed to be packing ready for my flight in the morning and don't have time to be blogging, but OMG - stationery hauls galore!!!

DF arrived this evening while I was starting to get my clothes out ready to pack, when what should fall out of his case? Not one, oh no, but two parcels of stuff for me, so obviously my natural reaction is not to pack as fast as possible, but to open it all, take photos and tell as many people as possible - if the worst comes to the worst, as long as I have one set of clean clothes I can always go to Matalan and get some clothes after work on Monday. Before I go any further I would like to apologise for the number of pictures - I got a bit carried away :o)

So first up - scrapbooking papers ready for using to make dividers for my FFs to and possibly for doing some actual scrapbooking - both items on my list of 101 Things to Do in 1001 Days. I ordered these from the Mayflower Creative Crafts shop on eBay and the service was amazing. There was a comment that if you were buying more than one item to ask for postage discount before ordering, which I forgot about until after I'd placed the order and just thought that I was a bit daft but it wasn't a huge amount of money so didn't email them to see if there was any way I could get the discount applied after or add some stickers to the order or something, but they refunded to my PayPal account with no prompting, which was really good of them.

These are the first scrapbooking papers that I have ever actually seen close up and I just can't get over how amazing they are:

Spring Fling - 60 Sheets

Mademoiselle - 24 Sheets

Mariposa - 24 Sheets and Bright Dots - 30 Sheets Yes - that makes a total of 138, oops!!!

Sample of Bright Dots - not very thick, but a nice basic paper

Sample of Mariposa - thicker and absolutely stunning

Sample of Spring Fling - similar to Bright Dots

Mademoiselle - thicker and the patterns have to be my favourite - they are just gorgeous!!!

Parcel number two was from Modes4U and contained the first of my stationery packages from them. Check these out...

Such a pretty bag - with really cute messages on

Love this business card so just had to take a photo...

... of both sides

Sentimental Circus, writing sets, notepad and stickers - I love Sentimental Circus - soooo cute!!!

Various writing sets

A5 notepads - perfect to go straight into the A5 - maybe it won't look as professional as my To Do lists - but these are fab :o)

Perforated pages, same design through the whole book, but it is fabulous and double sided, so I'm happy

Special surprise - the cat notepad comes with a sheet of stickers - wow!!!

Two designs - single sided print, but lots of designs...

Another two designs...

And the final two :o)

Mermaid sticky notes, washi tape and deco tapes

I can't wait to play with this stuff and start using it in my FF - in fact, it is so nice that I am sorely tempted to move away from the one life one filo practice...

Watch this space for another stationery post as I will be collecting my second Modes4U parcel and my first ever Artbox delivery tomorrow - I won't be able to post until after next weekend though as I won't be home and won't have a camera with me, or my MacBook :o(

Right - now I must pack (or maybe play with my stationery a bit...)

Have a good week :o)

LJx