2015 Planners and Journals - What am I useing?

This post wont be a long one! as I filmed a rather long video about this which you can find below.
With my word for the year being accountability I had to really think about what I wanted in this years planner journal line up, I needed them to inspire me and also keep me in check.

With the sudden hype around the Hobonichi journals/planners I must admit at first I wasn't as pulled as others were...till I saw this video
and that video is like a drug for me! I watch it more times than I care to admit to the universe. My husband even mentioned the video in his VOWS! yep...I love it.
As I mentioned in my video, I am a left hander and we suffer a lot with writing and what we write in and ring binders well they annoy me...I have had my arm and hand banged up against the rings for a whole year and it get's to a person after a while, so I decided to go rouge and try all BOUND planners and journals this year, and just use a ring binder for my wallet.

As you an see the bulk of my books are hobonichi's. I am using the two a6's as my home and work planners they are small and easy to carry both without putting my shoulder out.

Above is my work a5 hobo month on two pages, as things go up I write them into the calender.

This was a gift for xmas from my Besty Joanne (go check her blog shes just started up and already I know it is going to be amazing ) this planner is AMAZEBALLS it is helping so much with my one little word accountability

It is helping me immensely keep my dates for the blog, knowing when things are coming up.

there is a weekily spread aswell, too much awesome for one planner!

Above is a cheap notebook from Kmart, that I bought for the quote on the front and it now houses all my notes and brainstorming for the blog and my youtube channel then that gets filtered into actual posts which then make it to the blog planner....so streamline...I know proud right!?

and then you have both my journals, my daily drawing hobonichi a5 and my Gillio Giramondo, these are my two journals for the year of 2015!
I have been drawing daily on camera for everyone to see, so if you havent see any of them I'll leave the latest one down below for you to watch.

and that is me done for the journals and planners for 2015 I hope you enjoy the videos

x C

Planners and Journals 2014

Let me start with saying 2014 was a total B*tch to me, I set out all bright eyes and excited with my word for the year being Joy...and before the end of January I was failing at all the things, and totally riddled with anxiety trying to plan my wedding from the ground up. 

I posted a total of three posts this year...3. Thats how much of a time suck planning a wedding was! Next year I have a plan, many plans and many calenders so that I wont have a repeat of this year. Stay tuned for the 2015 planners and journals which will include a video along with the post.

Lets start with the above planner, the Gillio Mia Cara A5 in Rust. It isn't a planner for the feint hearted, it is big...which is why I call her Big Girl. The a5 was our household planner and didnt leave the house often!

I had monthly spreads that were tabbed, but I changed my inserts a few times till I decided to go simple...with cheap undated ones from officeworks. 

These inserts cost under $5 they are undated, and plain and boring, but I decided to make them work for me, as the budget was tight and I couldn't afford to be buying inserts every 5 mins when I wanted to try something new. So I divided the pages up left hand side housed reminders, dinners, appointments, bills all that wonderful housey stuff we all dead with when running a busy household, and on the right side was my cleaning schedule, my little ones homework and readers, and sometimes my work tasks that I needed to attend to, and I colour coded those accordingly. 

Sometimes cheap and simple work just fine!

 I dabbled only once towards the end of the year when a friend of mine designed these inserts for herself I fell hard for them and she sent me over the file with my customizations, part of me still looks at these inserts and adore them! even though next year, I'm going RINGLESS!

I had random to do lists that spanned pages, school calenders and also the canteen list punched in for the days when the school snacks had run out.

I also used a personal during the year of 2014 as my everyday carry, there were only two personals in my life a dark brown companga, and a hot pink Wesley zipped Kate Spade.

these housed my week on two pages, with basic reminders for when I was out and about. Also things from the a5 got transferred like bills, school notes, school dates, parties all things appointment related, I also kept running to do lists in my personals as well, I'm a list maker what can I say!

Moving onto my Journals of 2014, and there was only one journal the entire year, my Midori Travelers Notebook  in brown pictured above with a field-notes sized black  Raydori. As you can see I have already finished one inesert and close to finishing my second for the year of 2014. This journal captured my heart instantly and I knew I had to get one, and as soon as I did, it hasn't left my side. 

My midori hasn't been replaced so to speak for 2015...lets just say she got a little upgrade...more to come on that later.

I experimented with drawing my weeks to get a feel for that hobonichi style that has taken the planner and stationery community by storm, being a visual person in my journals anyway, drawing my days became a fond love of mine, and something that will feature heavily in 2015 in video format.

There are going to be some exciting changes in what I used next year for my planning and journal system and I can't wait to show you guys! I have got myself centered and ready to hit the ground running in 2015 with lots of projects, reviews, some design team work, speed art videos and also some drawing of my day weekily videos, I want to make this a place of colour and inspiration in the coming years, so hold on tight while I make some blog changes between now and the new year, but dont fret it will be worth the wait! Next post will be what's my 2015 Word of the year.

Friday Round Up - Art and Life.

Instead of just Friday pages, I thought I would change it up, and do a Friday Round Up, tidbits from our week, more mine than ours I guess, as I am the one behind the camera all the time!
the 6:30 wake ups have been KILLING me!

 

barely awake, but trying hard! I have a goal to reach by Christmas, and maybe just maybe I will make it. 

 

trying to keep up with my daily writing, knowing it is helping me, get ideas out of my mind and onto my paper. and my planner, the brains of life hehe.

working on art for a dear friend of mine, just the base layers so far, soon they will have more on them! little canvas board filled with original art.

a page from a journal swap I am in, where each month I sent a journal page to a woman in the group, this page's theme was 'black and white' I struggled very much with this, till something clicked and before I knew it, I was finishing it up!

working on homework for Jane's class JOYnal, a dancing flower fairy! she is still very much a work in progress, but I am at least liking how she is turning out!

every afternoon, I pick this little man up, and he makes my heart sing, telling me all the things he did that day, asking me way too many questions and generally being adorable.

so how was your friday?
xx Courtney

What Keeps Me Together.

I am a woman of routine, as much as that drives me crazy its the truth. I hold myself together by doing things a certain way. As silly as that sounds, when you are juggling 50 million things, being a mum to two kids that are developing into their own personalities, being a loving fiance, planning a wedding for 60+ people, changing my lifestyle and losing weight, whilst fighting depression and trying to make a name for myself Art wise...something has to be there in place so that I don't lose the plot.

Now I've posted about my beautiful Malden in one of my latest posts, This is my new love, one that my darling fiance purchased for me, and it is just delightful to live in. It is handmade in Italy by many many talented craftsman and its second to none. A Gillio Medium dark Brown Compagna. She is holding my life together, keeping me 90% sane!

I never thought such a simple thing, could help me get so many aspect of my life in check. It's like My one woman show book.

I use a week on two pages, and have toyed with the idea of a week on one page with a notes page opposite, maybe next year I will trial that. I get our lives down in this book, from bills, to school things to remember, daycare days, letters I need to write to penpals, our weekend plans and so on. Using  highlighting stickers to make important things jump out at me.

I make my planner my own, with little drawings, stickers, bright tape and coloured pens, it helps me feel like I am in charge of my life, not the other way around.

My daily routine was an idea from a fantastic video by Joy over at enjoyette @youtube if you haven't seen her, do watch her filofax vids. they are some of the best I've seen.

I can move my tags around if my day is different, and I should have taken a new shot of this page, because now my work outs are at the crack of dawn lol and my blogging is later on in the day...I've got these post it flags on a hambly screen print dashboard - all my dividers are dashboards now.
Another idea from joy was context boards...which I quickly adopted into my own planner

they get checked off once they are done...the errands one has been replaced a few times already once all the jobs are done, a new board is put on. It's awesome, I love this idea.
Major daily things that MUST get done go into the weekily board.

my planner is where I go to remind myself of little important things...

it is where I store things that I know will make me smile when I flick to them

I don't just use mine as a planning tool, I also use my Gillio as a wallet...it is working so far, but I see another pocket sized Gillio in my horizon.
Some people may think its silly, or archaic, but for me...pen to paper is how I get through life be it art or writing...so paper planning is the only thing that makes sense to me...even if I am a digital girl in so many other areas of life, it will never be part of my planning life.

 I will do a more updated set up video soon, so keep an eye on that if that is something you would enjoy.
maybe paper planing is something that youre missing in  your life...
It keeps me together, it makes me happy...and I collect things that make me happy.

I will be more present within the walls of my little blog nook...enjoy your evening, and thankyou for reading.

xx Courtney

around here...

Images from the last two weeks...alot of baking, catching up on project life filofaxing and general loveliness...
how was your week?
xx Courtney

little update on life atm...art and the new filofax.

I've been a little bit MIA lately! and all for good reason, I've been working on commissions and playing in my art journal, plus I got the filofax bug so I was on a crazed hunt for one. When I fall for something, I fall hard, and devour videos and blogs devoted to them, so I fell down a filofax hole lol.
currently on my easel is one of a set of three of a commission for the one client.

 and with each layer, i fall a little more in love...even though I know I have to add in things I wouldn't normally add...I will be taking shots of sections that I want to preserve just for me.

I'm in a mail art group over on Artgeeks and I also put a call out for penpals over on facebook, I miss writing letters and getting little bits of love in my mailbox so I've been sitting making little index cards into postcards to fly across the skies to their new owners.

with my word for this year being organized, I did end up getting myself a filofax...after a much appreciated mermaid circus angel, offered to buy one in her state and post it to me..saving me a lot of cash. My life atm looks like this

 my beautiful leather malden personal filofax, my writing brain dump book and my art journal these three books contain my life and I love them.

I thought I'd lost my muse the other day, my mojo was gone and I was desperately trying to find it...but as a lovely woman said...my mojo was being poured into my filo creating instead of my artjournal, and its true...I got my filo on Monday, and started making it fully mine with customized items and little 'courtney' touches.

I started by replacing the cream dividers because...as much as I like cream...comon...lol do you know me! lol

so I used some of my scrappy journal pages I started months ago to turn into a journal and made dividers.

I also made sure I added a little of myself into my weekily pages...this is where I am atm..but I know I have done a few things since this image, mainly add more colour...because I am a visual girl and wherever I go..there has to be colour.

then I knew something was missing...photos! my world is kept in photographs and I needed my filo to hold the people that ment the world to me, so i started to DIY some little photo holders out of trading card protectors I had lying around. I printed my photos to the protector size, and added washi tape boarder to punch holes in...and before I knew it, I had my family happily at the front of my filo.

 

so that is where I am at...making art...making art snail mail...and getting my life orgaizned and personalized. I want the filo to help me flesh out the ideas for the future of little raven ink...I am in the process of making repeatable patterns to make fabric...featuring the nook dwellers..so look out for that.

have a wonderful Wednesday..yes I didnt cook...but you got art and filo love! 

xx Courtney