Taming the Scatterbrain in Fluro Pink

I can be a bit scatterbrained at times and I am always looking for ways to tame this beast. During our ultra busy middle and high school home school years we used a five piece layout of the ever popular Pottery Barn Daily System. We have two calendars, a linen board, the office organizer and the letter bin. We called it Command Central, which seemed a bit unique all those years ago but it's pretty common today.

It looked great in our last house on the kitchen wall and, more importantly it helped keep our family on track. It was out in the open and everyone could see what we were all up to. My family has long been color-coded and we used a collection of Vis-aVis pens to keep everyone's activities straight..

My youngest graduated four years ago and my oldest is now married and lives out of town. The old Command Central won't even fit in our present home because of the very open floor plan. The calendars hang in the laundry room, the office organizer and letter bin hang on a sliver of wall just as you enter the kitchen and the linen board is off its hinges and is wedged between the kitchen desktop and the wall cabinet above. What worked so well a few years ago is not cutting it today.

I needed a new system to keep track of my quilting, blogging, social media, appointments, activities, Hubs ride schedule, the family business.... Basically, life as I know it post home school.

I may be scatterbrained when it comes to my schedule but I am an absolute neat freak about my purse. Nothing can float around, it must be contained neatly in my wallet, two small zip pouches and the one or two zip pockets I allow in my spare style handbag of choice. There is no spare change to be found hanging out on the bottom of my bag.

I will not carry around a standard purse calendar either.  I've tried many times and once the corners start to dog-ear I give up and its gone.  I knew whatever system I went with had to be special.

So, I went for an eye popping Fluro Pink A5 Filofax. As the only girl in the castle I often get my girly fix of pink in my personal items.

This was my second recent try at an organizer. A couple of years ago I opted for a gorgeous lime green leather Folio/A4 DayTimer. Love, love, love it but not for planning. It is too big for that but it is just what I need to carry and track things for work.

Here is a side by side comparison with my iPhone and iPad for scale.  This collection represents my favorite colors; orange, hot pink and lime green. I realize my favorites are a bit loud so I use them sparingly.

I have recently started to follow a lot of planners on IG. This has inspired me to make inserts and accessories for my Filofax to get it dialed in to my needs. I love looking at all of their cute layouts but that will never be my style. My sticker and washi use will be spare. I do have plans to use some "useful stickers" but I will not be decorating my pages. I am sticking with personally made items in 2015 while I am building my full system.  

I made a personal size pocket file to hold mail supplies and extras using a tutorial by Alexis, aka Miss Trenchcoat at Strange & Charmed. Click HERE to go to the Youtube tutorial.

I only sliced the ring punches on the right side of my folder so mine stays in my organizer and just flips open. I used See Jane Work file folders from Office Max and they do not seem as stiff as the Target $1 Spots that Alexis used so I had to reinforce mine with washi tape. Would you believe this is the first time I have ever used washi tape?!? 

I will probably need to reinforce it better with packing tape or I may run it through the laminator and slice the pockets open through the plastic.

That is what I did when I made this larger A5 size folder of my own design. It was a first attempt and the plastic came out with a crinkle but it works great. It took two laminating sheets and two passes through the machine to cover the whole thing. You can barely detect the seam. To get a nice crease I folded it while it was hot and then ran it through the laminator folded. It was too thick to melt together but it made a nice tight fold. I had to give it a little extra push at one point. My laminator is fairly heavy duty so I would be careful if you have a light weight version.

And there you have my little peek at what I am up to with my quilting. And here's another...

Thanks For visiting!