A Special Treat, Guest Post from Doris: MEET MY (CURRENT) FILOFAX TEAM

I'm sure you have already met Doris: her guest posts on Philofaxy amazed me (I wish I had a counter of the times I reread them!). If you haven't already, check her work here: 

- Philofaxy Reader review - Filofax Malden - Doris

- Philofaxy: Meet The Baroques - Guest Post - Doris

- and on her Flickr page

I was harassing her regularly to start a blog on her own and share her fab ideas, beautiful Filos and a great read with us.

Well, she didn't melt about it yet, but what I did manage was make her write a post here! :-)

And boy what a post she wrote!

Last night as I was merging her text with the photos I just couldn't stop staring at it: a masterpiece.

Doris, thank you - I'm so honoured!

When Vanjilla asked me to do a guest post on her blog, I was so excited.  But I also wanted to show you, her readers, something that you might find interesting.  I don’t know if I did that with this post, but here it goes anyway.  (:

A few weeks ago, I was inspired by Neil’s videos on Youtube of having Master & On-the-Go Filofaxes.  I write anything and everything in my filo, I have list upon list, not to mention those cute accessories we just have to have, all of which make the filo fat and hefty.  So the idea of a “Satellite” filo occurred to me.  My philosophy, if you will, was to be able to enjoy my filos and use more than one at a time, so this was the perfect solution to my dilemma.

I am an advocate of the Pocket size.  But I wanted to enjoy the Personal size as well since I hadn’t used one for years. With this in mind, I started using my pink Personal Classic (thanks Erin!) and enjoyed the additional space it provided.  I loved it so much I thought I should try to upsize my Pocket purse.  I’ve been curious about the Slimline and Compact sizes but never tried them before. When a matching Slimline Classic, again in pink, (Vanjilla knows my penchant for pink) showed up on ebay, I knew I wanted it to be the Personal’s little sister. I thought they would look good together, the pink is bright and cheery, and the Slimline would be light enough to use in my bag. And I knew Personal inserts would fit from this post by Cat and this by Steve.

This is nowhere near ground-breaking, but I have set both up in such a way that I can run out the door with the Slimline and it would have everything I would need.  If I needed something from the stay-at-home filo, I’d just add them in there and I’d be good to go.  (The beauty of Filofax at its best.)


MASTER FILOFAX

The Personal Classic is fat and full, and is my current everyday, at-home filo.  I previously thought the Classic was boring, but I take it all back!  They’re actually quite structured and “classic”.  The leather is super soft, smooth, and forgiving so it can be stuffed quite full.  It doesn’t lay flat yet, but it will someday.  The only thing I would change is a notepad slot at the back instead of the zipped pocket. To prove how much I love it, I have a new Finchley and I can’t make myself move into that, yet.

The inside front cover is empty as I don’t need cards in there.  As with all my filos, I print a personal info page first, followed by the registration page.

The tabs are as follows:  Contacts, Notes, Lists, Diary/Planner (I use a Dodopad and some stickers to pretty up the pages), Petit Blanc (my business), and Personal.  I received these tabs from a great Philofaxy reader (thanks Lostwithoutyou!) who very kindly sent them to me cause I couldn’t get them anywhere near me. I love them because you can label the tabs as you wish. I just printed off the topics I wanted, cut them out and inserted them. I prefer the look of simple, cohesive tabs.

I did make homemade top tabs on pastel paper, and they’re hand-written.  (Yes, I have a section for my filo.  It contains refills and accessories I need/want to buy, registration codes for each of my binders, things I want to do to tweak my setup, etc.)

 At the very back are jot pads which I love for short notes, and a few photos in a self-locking plastic envelope.

The pens I use are two 5-barrel Pilot Coletos (with Uni inks) which have 8 colors, pencil and eraser, and I love them.  I color-code diary entries and lists to make them fun and colorful.  Not original at all, but so much fun.  (I need to wean myself from multi-pens, I can’t write with just one color anymore.) 

SATELLITE FILOFAX

This was my first foray into Slimlines.  I knew they would be too slim as an everything-in filo, but to use it as a purse would be ideal.   It’s super soft and feels sturdy, I’m loving it already!  The 11mm rings would also prevent me from stuffing it too full and keep it light for my bag.  (It’s actually a glorified shopping and to-do list, but who cares, right?) 

Behind the front cover are a 3-color pen, debit/credit cards and my most often used store cards.  

I was decisive and only used 4 tabs:  Emergency and Important Contacts only, for in case my phone conks out while I’m out;  Notes, which has post-its and colored blank pages (the pastel paper looks pretty in the pink filo);  Personal, with shopping lists by category and a top tab for my business; and lastly, Diary, with 2 weeks on 2 pages to save on ring space.  

Beyond the Diary section is where the purse function begins:  2 credit card envelopes have IDs, more store cards, and business cards.

There’s a clear envelope for photos, a decades-old Post-It envelope called “Tach-It” has different sized sticky notes, a clear flyleaf with a small Midori pocket for paper, a hacked pen loop (I need another Leuchtturm pen loop!), and a Muji 6-color pen.

I was wracking my brain on how to include a coin purse so I made a homemade clear envelope with a brad closure for coins.  I didn’t like it though, it worked ok, but it looked wonky, so I tried the Pocket size zip lock envelope, and it fit perfectly.

And finally, the back pocket holds paper currency.

I have also included a photo of how snugly it fits in my bag, it doesn’t take up that much room at all.

I tend to “match” my filo choices (pink Baroques!).  There’s no rhyme or reason to it except that it’s fun.  I was using a Mini or a Pocket as a purse before I got the Slimline.

Finally, here are parting shots of my Filofax Team!  They serve my OCD organizational purposes quite well (:  and look pretty doing so (if I do say so myself).  Imagine waking up each morning to all that pink-ness!  (Unless you hate pink, of course!)  (:  

What I haven’t done yet is name them.  Any ideas?  (:  Thanks for reading!

(Thanks to Vanjilla for asking me to post on her blog.  I’ve been admiring her Filofaxes and enjoy her posts and I’m glad she’s been posting again recently.  Cheers!)

Doris - a big hug for you!!!! :-)