DIY Planner Cover-First Look!

I was getting antsy thinking about creating a DIY planner again, and I know that I could be looking for that "perfect" notebook for months.  So as I was planning on Mod Podge-ing some coasters using the left over maps from the Europe trip, and I thought, "how about I just make this planner happen!"




I had not created a DIY cover for my previous planners, but I have done this type of cover on hardbound journals in the past.  I picked up a grey, lined Moleskine Cahier in the largest size for this planner.  The decorative paper is from the scrapbook section at Hobby Lobby and the rest is washi tape that I had in my tape collection!

So here is the first look at the cover!  The Mod Podge is still drying so ignore the wax paper that I am using to mask the pages.  I haven't even began to consider the different layouts yet, but if this all works out, this cover is a sneak peak at what is to come!

DIY Planner for 2013

I loved my DIY planner.  I had used a large hardcover Piccadilly notebook and I have also used a grid lined Clairefontaine multiple tabbed notebook with colored pages.  I currently still use that type of notebook for my work notes and to-do list b/c it fits in my Louis Vuitton cover. (I did just order a Kokuyo CamiApp notebook from jetpens though, as I want to experiment keeping my work notes electronically for a month or so.)

I had quit doing a DIY planner and switched to a weekly Moleskine and now have been using various undated planners like from MMMG or other Korean brand planners.  Now that my life has gotten less busy, I find myself having enough time to go back and do my own DIY planner pages each week.  Unfortunately, this a double edged sword, b/c now I have less things to plan or record in my planner.  Even in my undated planners, I have a lot of blank pages.  Also, since the Piccadilly was so large/hardbound it made my purse too heavy.  I will probably look at using something a bit smaller, even if it isn't as small as a medium Moleskine.

Basically I am on the fence about starting back over with DIY, I feel like if I could find the perfect notebook, I might just go ahead and try it out again. 

So here is my wishlist of the characteristics of the notebook:

• Smaller width lines, like a Moleskine
• No spiral binding or perforated pages, hard or soft cover
• Lined, not grid
• All one color pages, non-multicolor
• Blank, solid color cover
• It would be awesome if one page was blank and the other lined, but that will probably too much to ask for.
• Paper is friendly to markers, felt tip pens, paint pens etc. 
• Smaller than the large Piccadilly bigger than a medium weekly Moleskine

I think this may be an impossible wish list, but I'm going to look through every blank book I have and I am open to suggestions!  If I can't find anything to use in what I currently have or online, I think I will try an extra-large Cahier since it should be lightweight.

I will also need some new DIY inspiration, so if there are any sites out there with some DIY planner post/pictures, please leave it in the comments!

Pens From Europe!

Stockholm, Sweden

In July, my husband and I went on a cruise that left from Stockholm and traveled to several European countries. We had an extra day on either end of the trip in Stockholm so I had a chance to do quite a bit of browsing for both office supplies and everything else.I took this opportunity to purchase a lot of pens and paper in Stockholm and Visby, Sweden.  I have always loved the idea of buying the supplies that "the locals" use so this was my chance!   

We saw a lot of amazing things on the trip, but Stockholm was one of my favorite places. To quote my husband, "Three truths I have learned about Stockholm: 1) Stockholm is an IKEA the size of a city. 2) Every store is apparently a TARDIS, from the street they look like a small storefront, but hold more stuff than a Wal-Mart. 3) There are only about twenty different stores in Stockholm, they just repeat every few blocks.

One store that I only came across once in my travels, was a department store called Ahlens. This is where picked up the Muji markers above and the unknown short makers in the photo.  The pen test is for the white markers.  I think the real winners in the maker set are the  purples, there are a lot of very subtle shade differences that make each color unique.  If there was a tag with these markers, it was long gone by the time I took the pictures, so I am not sure what brand they are.  There is a tiny tag inside the zippered pouch they came in, but it says made in China, so that isn't much of a clue. (The Muji pens below also came from Ahlens.)

In Visby, I stopped into a bookstore and they had a large stationery section.  I picked up several of the pens in the following pictures from there.  I think my favorite one has to be the retro looking, retractable, teal BIC pen.  I also like the orange BIC pens because they are fine point and they aren't sold much, if at all, in my area. 

 

The pen above the Faber-Castell pens is a "b.n.t/office pen." I do not know much about this pen, and a quick google search didn't shed any light on it for me either, so I am not sure if it is sold in the US or not.  But it seems to be very similar to a Pilot G2 pen, only in ballpoint.  Surprisingly, I do not have a G2, otherwise I would compare them side by side to be certain that they are as similar as I think they are.

I know I have a few more pens hanging around that got adsorbed into my pen drawer at work so they weren't available for review.  I also have around 10 notebooks that I picked up in Sweden, but I'll save all that paper for a following post!

If there is anything you want to see a better of picture of or would like more details about, just leave a comment and I'd be happy too oblige!

So it has been a year since my last update....

Well it has officially been a year since my last post.  So it probably goes without saying that it has been a crazy time for me.  Last year, I was excited to have more time to post due to a job change and then last November my job chose that moment to explode.  When it finally calmed down towards spring, I took another job within my company and that one is currently still exploding.  But I did manage to finish my graduate degree which freed up some time, so I am just left with work to take up my time.  Throughout the craziness of the year though, one thing has remained constant---I still LOVE pens and paper.

I have managed to continue to collect items throughout the year.  I have a bunch of new things actually, including a nice assortment of pens/paper I purchased when my husband and I traveled to Sweden and some other European countries this summer.  So barring any uptick in crazy-town stuff at work, I have quite a few things to share!

One of my favorite purchases from the last year, is this file cabinet for pens.  Who doesn't need one of these?

Pen File Cabinet!!

I picked this up from The Container Store.  I purchased it in-store when I happened to be near one, but I assume they sell it online as well.  I did have to look at several to make sure there were no scratches or dents so that is one good reason to pick it up locally, if there is a Container Store near you.

This cabinet feels very solid, sturdy and it is metal, just like a regular file cabinet, only smaller.  The plastic inserts are sold separately and help to divide up the drawers.  They aren't necessary, but I wanted them so I could sort my pens.  The inserts had two size choices, one deeper and one that was shallow.  I purchased a mix, but ultimately ordered replacements for the shallow inserts.  They just didn't hold enough pens.  I have left the bottom drawer without an insert for now, it is just a catch all drawer.  This cabinet  holds all of the pens I have from JetPens and the like that I have at home and I rotate items between this and my desk at work. Right now I have around 300 pens in this cabinet and I think I could fit at least 150 more without a problem.

As you can see from my photo, I also have a small cardboard type drawer organizer on top of the metal cabinet.  This is pretty much only for mass market pens and markers. Just to compare the two, I think the cabinet makes for much better organization than the cardboard drawer simply due to how much it holds and the fact that the drawers are more shallow than the cardboard, you can actually see what you have. 

Keep in mind, this metal cabinet is not small, it takes up quite a bit of real estate on my craft desk.  Even though it is large, I would love to pick up one or two more in the same color as what I purchased.  I figure I could easily fill them up with additional JetPen items over time.  For example, I just purchased all 18 colors of the Uni Mitsubishi Pure Color Double Sided pens. They will probably take up about half of the depth of one the compartments of the plastic dividers.  That is another reason I love the dividers as I tend to buy all the colors of a pen, so it is great to be able to store them all in one spot together.

Does anyone else use a cabinet like this or have other innovative ways to store your pens?

More MMMG Goodness, now with pictures!

Due to the anonymous comment on my last entry, I was directed towards The Hach to help me fuel my MMMG planner addiction. Before I talk about the planners, let me comment on The Hach. I have no affiliation with them and I paid for my products so I feel no reason to say anything one way or another about them. That being said, this was an excellent company to buy from. My items shipped quickly and they even refunded some money to me for shipping. My shipping cost less than expected so I actually got that money back! When does that ever happen? Never! So, if you have a few bucks to throw around, visit The Hach, because they were awesome. I will surely be placing another order soon as they have some Washi tape calling my name.

Back to the planner addiction...I have no idea how I will use the 134 planners I have now, but I am going to give it a shot. I also ordered pens, because I clearly do not have enough of those either. When I am going to get my own episode of Intervention for all of these paper product purchases? My friends really should be stepping in at some point.

Maybe my friends and my husband view my paper/pen addiction as a victimless crime (if you excluded the damage done to my bank account...) And when I think about it, really everyone wins, because I am about to share some MMMG goodness.

(Notice the handwritten thank you note from The Hach as well!)

I think the paper is thin on the Planner.M model and the paper wouldn't be suited to fountain pens.

I haven't actually written in any of these because I simply can't bear to taint the pages if I am not using it. I hate writing in something and not using it. However, from the feel of the pages, the Past Present Future and Tomorrow planner will take gel pens and wetter ink ok, with limited bleed through.

Here are a couple of pages from the Past Present Future, it is basically laid out like a weekly Moleskine. There are blank calendar pages in the front and then some additional unlined and lined journal pages at the back.

Overall, if you are looking for a functional, undated planner with weekly layouts, MMMG is great option.

Lets not forget the pens! These are just standard color pink and purple ink pens (ignore the lighting issues, it is Iowa and gets dark at 2:30 this time of year.) They are .38 and really are nothing special in the pen department, but I liked the aesthetics and simplicity of the barrel. Seems like a good enough reason to buy something I suppose. I will probably pick up more in this set because they write well enough and I wouldn't be heartbroken if I lost one.



Anyone else out there love these planners? If so, let me know which one is your fave!

MMMG Millimeter Milligram Planners

I love planners. I have made my own planners, made planners for other people, printed out free printable pages, used Moleskine's, Quo Vadis, generic Mead academic planners, assignment books, the uncalendar....I've been around the planner block. But like with most things, I want to try something new and travel to far off planner lands. I started my journey with these two planners from Poketo:
Weekly Planner
Perpetual Planet Planner (in brown)

But now, I need every single planner at MMMG. Millimeter Milligram is a Korean company I believe, and they sell every planner an addict could ever dream of. I literally must have every single planner listed below.

Check these out:
New Day
Daily Color
Planner. M
The Collage Book of Daily Life Travel
Tomorrow-L
Past Present Future and You (Large version)
Daily Color

Apparently you can order online, but unfortunately the site doesn't seem to link to an US version. I have the "Draw Your Tomorrow" planner already. However, I want nearly every other planner on the site.

I'm not sure why I need all of these different planners, it seems like a bit much. However, being rational when it comes to paper products isn't something I am good at. My point is, if anyone knows of anywhere that is selling these adorable MMMG products, tell me in the comments. I don't care if the store is from overseas or in the US. As long as there is an English version of the website, I will be happy. If you can't help me find these awesome products, feel free to suggest some of your favorite planners in the comments!

In the mean time, I will try and do a review on the two planners from Poketo and let you know what I think!

Dialogue Journal and Rolling Writer

It is coming up on my favorite time of year, school supply season! I have already started browsing the displays cropping up at the mass market stores, but I also love college bookstores. I decided to beat the rush of students and visited a nearby college bookstore yesterday. I came came across this Dialogue Notebook by PaperLuxe and the Pentel Rolling Writer pen. This book has a soft flexible purple cover with attached elastic band. I couldn't get the book to open flat, but I think it will be more likely once it broken in. The pages are lined on the front and blank on the back. This was actually the selling point for me and I how I use journals. I like to make collages in them and a blank page would be great for that. Or I could use this book as a DIY planner and a mix of lined and blank pages would be perfect.

My main complaint is the layout of the lined pages, that the spacing on the lines is wide like a Rhodia, I prefer a ruling similar to a Moleskine. There is also a lot of wasted space at the top and bottom of the page and there is a logo, which I typically do not like. (You may need to click on the picture to see the lines they are kind of faint.)

The paper performs as expected. I did a quick test with several pens.



All showed through on the back but they didn't bleed through to the next page. I would recommend this book as more of an art journal rather than a writing journal, but you would have to be aware of the medium being used to avoid bleed through.

I also want to talk about the Pentel Rolling Writer (the first example in my pen test above). The package lists this pen as a .8 however, it is liquid ink pen that is very bold. I have come across this pen a few times, usually in offices where I have worked and immediately appropriated them as my own. I rarely see these in stores and when I do, I buy one.

I even have several dried up ones in my pen box. I love the pen but if I could nitpick one thing, it is that the width of the line varies greatly as you can see from the pen test above. The package says it is because of the writing pressure that is applied. I feel like it more about the angle of how the pen is held. That being said, I still enjoy this pen and like to use it for journaling.

Does anyone else use this pen? I rarely see them in circulation so I am not sure how popular they are.

Quick Cheap Pen Review

Tomorrow is my first day at my new (old) job. Needless to say I have continued to fantasize about how I am going to supply my new office and have been dying to make the rounds to every office supply store and website known to man. Unfortunately, a rowdy going away party and homework limited my shopping time this weekend.

Because I was short on time, I decided to visit Wal-Mart to get my pen fix! I picked up a package of pens by Papermate. I liked the clean white styling of the pens and I thought they might go well with the white supplies at Poppin. I also picked up a pack of Elementz markers made by inc. I really have no need for these, but I thought they could be useful when decorating my planner pages every week.

I decided to test these pens out in the notebook I received in the Germany Rad and Hungry kit. As a side note, I am so in love with Rad and Hungry! I have previously speculated on what different countries office supplies were like and it seems as though Rad and Hungry read my blog and decided to start a company to satisfy my curiosity! If you aren't yet signed up with Rad and Hungry, you should do it right now, or you are going to be the only kid on the playground without a notebook from Latvia and paperclips from all over the world.

Back to my review... the Der Brunnen Block notebook paper is 70gsm and reminds me of the writing tablets that you used to see everywhere, both in size and the weight of the paper. I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the grid lines on the paper are done in grey, rather than blue. I like this better than normal grid paper simply because of that fact.

The Papermate pen is a Silhouette Elite and is classified on the package as a medium pen at 1.0mm. It is really just your standard ballpoint pen. It wrote smoothly and didn't seem too goopy. There is nothing fancy about the pen, but nothing bad either. I can see filling an office supply closet with this type of pen if you wanted to get away from the stick pens or avoid gels.

Closer view of the ink shows a little bit of skipping, but I think it is because it is brand new. I don't think it would be a problem long term. The pen comes in blue and black.

The Elementz markers very metallic. The picture doesn't really do the colors justice. The package says they work well on light and dark paper. They are not listed as permanent markers, but they do say that they are fade resistant. These markers are labeled as fine tip. However, that clearly isn't the case, they are similar in size to regular sharpie, so they may not be best for very detailed crafts. I am sure I will get some use out of these pens, but they won't be something I use everyday.

Both the ballpoint and the markers showed through on the back of the paper. However, there was no bleed through on the markers. So if you are looking at them for crafting, I don't think it would be a problem.

Now that I have my pen fix in for the weekend, I have to start deciding what notebook and pens to take with me on my first day of work! I know I will be taking a lot of notes during my training and I want to ensure I have a trusty pen and a notebook that I won't mind using for awhile as i get up to speed in this new job. I am already planning on using my Uncalendar as my work "to-do" book (but I follow my own system, not the one at their website). I have all manner of bound books, office project notebooks, Rhodia pads etc. to choose from. But I would love to hear from you in the comments! What would be your must have supplies on your first day of work?

I'm still here and back with a new review!

I have not posted in a very long time, I just got busy and my work was stressful. For awhile I didn't do much in the way of collecting pens and notebooks. My once monthly jet pen orders had even fallen by the wayside for a few months.

Recently I have restarted ordering from www.jetpens.com at least 1x per month and bought a subscription to http://www.radandhungry.com. I am also starting a new job in a week where I can fill my office with anything I want and I am super excited to place a large order from www.poppin.com. I think this new job is going to give me some more time for my hobbies because it will (hopefully!) be far less stressful.

So today I visited the local Blick store after work and bought a variety of pens and then came across some new journaling products. All of the products are made by SMASH. I bought a journal, some page markers, a stamp, quotes pad and tape (not pictured).

I didn't even open the plastic on the journal to see what kind of paper was in it at the store, but I knew I could use the stamps and quote pad in my planner if I wanted. I am not doing a complete DIY planner right now, but I am using a Moleskine planner and making and collages and doodles in it most weeks. So it is a combo scrapbook/journal/planner.

Back to the SMASH items. The journal had a a plastic envelope on the outside and then another plastic cover actually on the journal.

front


front cover without plastic and showing double ended pen/glue stickback cover


explanation page

first page

sample pages

stamp/page markers and quote pad and page samples

I haven't tested the paper to see how it takes different kinds of inks. Overall I get the sense that this journal is very versatile but probably not for journalers who just write. I can't see my self using it as a daily journal but more as an art project journal. The pages are quite varied and there are many many more designs than what I have shown. I could almost see myself using this as a DIY planner but the pages are very unstructured and might night suit me from a planner aspect. The pen that comes with it is cute because of the glue stick, but I do not see myself using the glue stick. I am a bit more particular when it comes to gluing stuff into my books. It sees like a run of the mill glue stick so I am not sure how well it will work.

I do love the stamper and quote book. The stamper is not self inking which is kind of nice because it gives me an excuse to buy ink pads! I like the fact that there is a date as well as phrases on the stamp. I think it could be really fun, but again I see myself using both the stamp and the quote book in my planner more so than in the SMASH journal.

Overall people who scrapbook, do a lot of collage type projects or art journals will probably like this line and they seem like fairly decent quality and since I bought it all for less than 20$ I think it is also at a great price!

The Seventh Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

The Seventh Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

Welcome to the February 9, 2010 edition of carnival of pen, pencil and paper. My name is Melinda and I happy to be the host this month!

I would have made this entry "prettier" and added more pictures or at least something I had written, but started a new job last week, and I am tired! Apparently ordering tons of new office supplies for my office takes more energy than I thought! Or it might be the fact I am used to sleeping until noon everyday and now I have to get up at 5:30am. Either way, I apologize for the lack of pictures, now on to the Carnival! (Please note the links are there, just hover and they will appear, my settings over rode the links an my html skills are limited.)

Editor's Choices

Julie (Okami) presents a Featured Pen - Sheaffer Statesman Snorkel posted at Whatever.

Passion shares a great review about Comparing Pencil Cases posted at The Pen Archives.

Notebook Reviews

Cynthia Niklas presents a review: Pen and Paper Test in Leuchtturm's Pocket Journal with New, Ink-Proof Paper posted at Journaling Arts.

Ryan Wolf presents a comprehensive and helpful review of ecosystem notebooks posted at RE:Wolf.

Pens and Pencils

John Johnston presents a Platinum Preppy Fountain Pen Review posted at Coffee-Stained Memos.

dianeb presents a Guest Review by Jack Labusch: Jinhao Evening Stripes Fountain Pen posted at Pocket Blonde.

Alberto presents a Lyra Colorstripe Colored Pencils Review posted at Lung Sketching Scrolls.

Lito Apostolakou presents Faber Pencil and Vincent Van Gogh:The Artist and his Letters (or his Pencils) posted at Palimpsest.

Snarky's Soapbox (I think we can all relate!)

Snarky's Machine presents an Open Letter to a Pen Thief posted at Does This Pen Write?.

User's Collection

George Fox presents a great collection of Pentel Roller Ball Pens posted at My Supply Room.

Well it is time to tear down the rides at this Carnival but don’t worry, another Carnival will be heading your way next month! Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of pen, pencil and paper using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page. The carnival is organized by Nifty at Notebook Stories, and so if you have any feedback or would like to host, please contact Nifty.