Renaissance Art leather Moleskine cover

Here is the Renaissance Art leather Moleskine cover in the gorgeous Molasses color! It is a rich, deep brown that is very handsome and classy-looking.  The leather is so smooth and soft and feels nice in my hands.  And you will notice in the photo, you can use the Moleskine's elastic strap closure with this style of cover!

Below you can see the cover empty and open to see how it works. There is a slit in the right side that allows the elastic strap to come through. You can use the strap on the outside of the cover like I've shown above, or on your pages.

Below you can see what it looks like open with the Moleskine strap coming through:

The Renaissance Art logo is subtly embossed on the back cover:

Here is another view of the rich brown color of the Molasses cover!

Many thanks to Renaissance Art for sending me this awesome cover as a sample to review.  I have to admit my husband nabbed it as soon as I finished taking photos of it! He's now using it on his work Moleskine and loves it.

Renaissance Art has a fantastic variety of colors and leathers for Moleskine covers in both the Pocket and Large sizes. You can choose different types of closures including snap, stud, or wrap, or no closure. And some of the cover styles come with a leather pen loop, in your choice of three different sizes to fit your pen. Solves that pesky problem of how to keep your pen with your Moleskine!

This cover is part of the Rustic Elegance line of covers which comes in 12 colors and is a thin, soft leather. They also have a thicker leather for their Rustic covers, in brown and black.

All of Renaissance Art's products are hand made in the USA.

Click here to check out Renaissance Art's selection of leather Moleskine covers!

Poll for Filofax users

Hey Filofax users! I'm running a poll to see what size and format of planner/ diary inserts you use in your "main" Filofax. You can choose multiple things, for example if you use monthly and weekly inserts in your A5 Filofax you can choose all of those.

I'm really curious to see what everyone is using!  Please place your vote over at the right.

Filofax Competition Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the Share Your Filofax Memories competition!  They are:

Charlotte H.

Ray B.

Bluebonnetreads

Alexandra D.

Lynn R.

Jane O.

Congratulations to you all!!

Winners,you will receive an email soon from Filofax asking for your mailing address so you can receive your prize!  In your reply, please let them know if you would or would not like your winning entry to be posted on the Filofax Facebook page.

Many, many thanks to everyone who submitted entries and shared your significant Filofax memories. I really enjoyed reading about your emotional bond with your Filofax!  The bond we have with our Filofaxes proves it's much more than just a binder! It represents our lives.

Competition closed

The Share Your Filofax Memories competition is now closed. Many thanks to everyone who entered!

Winners will be announced Thursday at noon UK time!

My own favorite Filofax memory

In honor of the Share Your Filofax Memories competition, I thought I would share my own favorite Filofax memory.

This memory is an excerpt from a longer comment I posted back in August 2009 on Steve's excellent post How Do You Use Your Filofax In Your Job Or At Home.  Go read it, because there's lots of great stories on there about how people's Filofaxes enrich their lives!

Here is my own favorite Filofax memory:

"Fast forward to 2001 while I was in grad school, I found my Buckingham Filofax. It got me through grad school beautifully. Its most glorious time during that phase of my life was while I was traveling to various museums in Europe doing my research. It contained: a Europe map that was outdated but still useful; all the contact information that my graduate adviser had set up for me of whom to meet at each museum; addresses for the hostels I would stay at; train time information. I remember sitting in Munich with a beer and my Filofax, planning where to go next. It was great."

That memory for me represents my own personal freedom and growth. I wasn't used to traveling alone, and I found it liberating (if slightly lonely).  My Filofax was my companion and guide. I felt like I could go anywhere with my Filofax in my hand and I'd be under control!

Filofax Competition Update: More Winners!

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

Gakken planners selling fast!

You may remember my review last year of the Gakken rabbit planner with the excellent layout of months on the top that turn independently of the weekly pages on the bottom. (And if you don't remember it, click here to see loads of photos of the fantastic layout of this planner!)

I got an email from Ginko Papers that they have this format in stock again this year! The Twin Planners as they are called come with a variety of cover options (some of which are already sold out!). These planners are super-slim and portable, and the paper is absolutely divine.

As I write this the Clover cover is still in stock, as is the Collage cover, but the Pink and Black covers are already sold out.  These planners started at the beginning of October and go all the way through the end of December 2012, so you can start them right away and use them through the end of next year!

There are also lots of cute monthly planners, other week + month formats, and desk calendars available. Click here to check out Ginko Paper's entire calendar selection, be sure to click through all the pages to see them all!

New guest post on Love Notebooks blog: Alternative Uses for Planners

Go check out my new guest post on Love Notebooks blog, Alternative Uses for Planners! I had a lot of fun writing that one! There's even ideas for uses for past-year planners (which I have tons of!).

Can you think of other alternative uses for planners?

Moleskine madness and Filofax fun at Kinokuniya bookstore Singapore

Yesterday I went to Singapore and got to go to the massive Kinokuniya bookstore in the Ngee Ann City mall!  Imagine my delight when I discovered they had nearly every Moleskine product made, Filofaxes, Flex, and loads of other cool things!  I don't get to see Moleskine or Filofax products in stores here in Jakarta so I felt like I was blissfully swimming in goodies!

I was astounded by their enormous Moleskine collection. There were numerous rotating stands throughout the store, and a huge table stacked with Moleskine planners and limited edition notebooks (where I could almost hear angels singing!).  They had every notebook from the colorful Extra Smalls to the huge Folio books and everything in between. I was thrilled to get to check out the limited edition Star Wars series notebooks, which look great! They had the Moleskine bags and pens, eyeglasses and other accessories too.

I could hardly get over my joy at seeing all the Moleskine planners in person!!  They had samples available with the shrink-wrap removed so people could look through each type of planner to check out the pages. I  had a great time thumbing through the planner formats I hadn't seen in person before!  They had many of the limited edition planners including Peanuts and Bakin. I especially liked the coppery foil look of the Bakin design which looks extremely cool in person.

I was very happy to see the Moleskine Action Planner, which is a vertical weekly planner in the Extra Large size with a hard cover. I've been wanting to check this planner out ever since I first saw it online.  There is a column on each weekly page for lists with tick-boxes beside each item. I flipped through the planner and was happy to see there are month per page calendars.  It also has extra information pages including international flight times between major cities, very interesting.

I looked at the classic daily planners in large and pocket sizes with soft covers. I use these planners in the hard cover, but the soft cover is a nice option for someone who wants the flexibility and lighter weight.

I got to look at the Panoramic Planner, which is an excellent format but available only in Pocket size. I'd love to see this planner in the Large size.  I also got to see the new Cahier week per page planner. This would be great for someone with minimal scheduling needs, but I wonder how the cahier cover would hold up to a year's use.

I was very excited to look through the Monthly Notebook planners in Pocket, Large and Extra Large sizes. These are great because there is a two-page spread of lined pages between each monthly two-page spread, and loads of lined pages in the back. I wanted to get one of these for this year and by the time I got around to ordering they were sold out. My mom is sending me one for 2012 and I can hardly wait! I will use it as my goals planner to write my monthly and weekly goals and reviews.

I wondered what the staff would think if I joyously wallowed in a pile of planners but managed to restrain myself!!

The store also had some Filofaxes in various sizes and some inserts.  The Filofaxes were all behind locked glass, and since I knew I wasn't going to buy any I didn't trouble anyone to get them out. I noticed the brown Chameleon, A5 Amazonas in brown and red, and the Sketch personal size binders along with several Dominos and Finsburies. Even though I didn't get to handle any, it was fun to check out binders I hadn't seen before.

They also had a selection of Filofax Flex products in A5, personal and pocket sizes. I think Filofax could improve the packaging on these to make it more evident what the product is and how it works. Just looking at it, it looks like a regular notebook.

There were loads of other planners, Asian brands with really cute designs, and a very nice brand of planners called Luxe.  The Luxe planners were daily or weekly in various formats and sizes. One interesting format I'd never seen before was an A5 size book with two days per page, only on the right page with the back of the page blank. The day space was lined, and the daily schedule was at the edge of the page, perforated to tear off! I'm not sure exactly what the purpose was but guessed it's for when you don't want to carry the entire book, you can rip off the little timed section to carry in your pocket to see what your schedule is for today.  I really enjoyed seeing some different formats!

As wonderful as it was to see all of these things in person, I somehow managed to walk out of the store without a single purchase! Mainly because the Moleskine notebooks and planners cost about twice as much as they do in the US, so if I decide to buy any it would be much cheaper for me to order online. Now, should I get the Star Wars notebooks in Large or Pocket size....?

2011-2012 Plan-It Middle School and High School planners

I am very excited that Plan-It has a new line of planners developed specifically for Middle School and High School students! They incorporate goal-setting right into the planner pages, and are packed with tips on goal setting, effective studying, internet safety and loads more.

These planners have the same excellent weekly format with monthly calendars embedded in the weeks as the other Plan-It planners I have reviewed.  The layout is the same in both the Middle School and High School planners.  Both of these planners run from August 2011 through July 2012.

The inside cover has all of 2011 at a glance. The first page has spaces to write your personal information, emergency contacts and other information.

There are pages to write your class schedule for easy reference.

And there are LOADS of information pages! I won't show them all, but there are pages for Study Tips; Study Skills with advice on different learning methods; Goal Planning tips and space to list goals in different categories; excellent pages with information about Internet Safety; Test Taking Tips, Social Studies facts (shown below), details on the Branches of U.S. Government and how they work; English parts of speech, punctuation, spelling tips, and rules for capitalization; a huge list of Commonly Misspelled Words; Science tables of measurements, metric system equivalencies, conversion tables between U.S. and metric measurements; Geometry angles and shapes.  There's tons of information packed into this book for handy reference!

There are a couple of lined pages for notes, then the planner section begins. At the beginning of each month there is a monthly calendar on the two-page spread. Notice at the top of the monthly pages are spaces for Monthly Goals and Long-Term goals, which is a wonderful feature. There's also room for notes along the right side of the page, and holidays are printed in the day spaces.There are reference calendars for last month and next month too.

The weekly pages have lined day spaces with loads of room to write, even on the weekends. Holidays are also printed in these day spaces, and there is a reference calendar of the current month. I really like the color scheme in the Middle School planner, the pages are so nice to look at!

Starting in July the calendar switches to a week per page, saving pages during the summer when you probably will use your planner less than during the school year.  Inside the back cover is a reference calendar for all of 2012.

These planners measure approximately 5 1/2 inches wide by 8 1/4 inches tall and are only about 1/4 inch thick, so they are very portable and can go everywhere with you in your bag. The spiral binding allows them to lay totally flat and easily fold back on themselves.

As you might imagine, I especially love the Goal Setting pages (which I specifically didn't show a photo of because I don't want to give away any secrets!) and the space in the monthly pages to write goals, to keep them visible all the time. Plan-It, I would love to see a "grown up" version of this planner with pages of goal-setting tips and spaces to write goals on the monthly and weekly pages. This is extremely useful for everyone, at any age.

Many, many thanks to Plan-It for sending me these planners as samples to review! They are excellent for students of any age, and anyone at all really. I would highly recommend these for anyone looking for an academic-year planner.

You can find Plan-It Planners at http://www.plan-itplanners.com/, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/planitplanners, and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/planitplanners.

You can click here to see all the Plan-It planners currently available on Amazon.com.

Click on the images below to go directly to the product pages for the Middle School and High School planners I reviewed in this post.

Life Well Planned blog name change

Hey everyone, I just wanted to make you aware that kanalt's excellent blog Life Well Planned has had a name change and is now Well Planned Life.  The new website is http://wellplannedlife.blogspot.com/.  You can read more deets about it here.

Be sure to update your links and bookmarks so you don't miss any of her excellent posts!

Setting Goals with your Filofax

Today on Philofaxy I posted a big long article with steps for setting and achieving goals, and how to use your Filofax to help you.

Click here to go to the post.

How do you use your planner to help you set and reach your goals?