Planners - New Range of MLP Equestria Girls Stationery On Our Website

As requested the Equestria Girls Stationery is now available for sale on our website - Enjoy!

shop.wrightstationery.com

A few of the most recently requested:

- Minecraft;

- Lego Movie;

- Minnie Mouse chore charts;

- Ben 10 (<-- Again! I know I will get round to this, I promise! :-D)

If you have any requests or would like to nudge me on any you have previously requested, send me an e-mail: blog@wrightstationery.com  I am busy but no request is ever ignored, I will reply to you.

Planners - New Range of My Little Pony Planner Pages

As requested, the new range of MLP planner pages are now available on our website!

These are currently only available in Filofax sizes A5 and Pocket but we're working on the other sizes which will be uploaded soon so watch this space (literally as I'll update this post when they are ready).

Those who requested the Monster High range, your wait is almost over also, just a few more days until they are available.

So...ENJOY! :D shop.wrightstationery.com

New range of Monster High planner stationery now available! 

Planners vs Journals

I've noticed a spike in the popularity of bullet journals. Every once in awhile I consider using them instead, but after weighing up the pros and cons I always end up sticking with my planner.

I know you can buy journals with removable pages/dividers, but I find I'm not always accurate with which sections things go in and like to be able to lift and lay pages more than once (sometimes as much as five times). I have a habit of writing notes on a random piece of paper and adding it easily later.

The slots on journals with removable pages or sections make it more difficult to replicate if I print my own. But with my A5 Paperchase planner I can use any A5 piece of paper and use my planner punch to make it fit perfectly.

By buying a journal with non-replaceable pages it means you have to go out journal shopping again in 3 months, 6 months, a years time. For most who use them, this is a treat but for others, they simply can't afford the expense when you have so many other things to pay for these days. Whereas I purchased my binder more than a year ago and I only replaced it before that because my previous one was 15 years old and was held together with duct tape - it sounds pathetic I know, but it was a present from a late relative. But when my daughter was embarrassed by me using it around her, that's when I purchased a new one. 


Moleskine journals come in a range of sizes, soft or hard covers and various page types: squared, lined or blank.
 
Pocket (90 x 140mm, 3.5x5.5in)
Large (130x210mm, 5.1x8.3in)
- Expandable pocket
- Page marker
- Elastic band fastener
 
These can set you back anything from £5-18 if you buy from the Moleskine website, and cheaper if you buy from other shopping websites.









 

The Moleskine Professional notebooks are bit more expensive setting you back more than £20:
- Hard (or Soft) cover
- Rounded corners
- Elastic closure
- Exclusive layout dedicated to professional note taking
- Initial pages dedicated to: Contents, Key Tasks, Project-Planning, Personal and Group Goals
- Numbered pages
- Detachable tab pages and to-do list
- Chlorine-free
Again the main pages are fixed and I rarely know how many pages I will require per section so being able move them around is a big thing for me, therefore the Moleskine journals and notebooks weren't for me either. The is one unique thing about Moleskine products - you can have them personalised if you buy direct on their website.


Leuchtturm1917 is an A5 size journal:
- 249 numbered pages
- 8 perforated and detachable sheets
- Expandable pocket
- Blank table of contents
- Page marker
- Elastic band fastener
- Thread-bound book opens flat
- Ink-proof paper (80 g/sq m)
- Sticker for labelling and archiving
- Dimensions: 145 x 210 mm
This journal costs roughly £9-10 from most stationers online.
 For me I didn't like the idea of having to hang onto an old journal because I needed the info in a couple of the pages. I know lots of people keep all their bullet journals but I simply don't have room in my house for that.The ARC journal is one which allows you to move the pages about within it as it is bound by little plastic discs.
- Durable polypropylene cover
- Premium 100gsm paper
- 60 re-position-able narrow-ruled sheets
- 19mm discs
- Size A5, 148 x 210mm
These can cost anything from £10-20 depending which size and quality of cover you go for.
You can buy refill pages for £2-3.There is a way to print your own pages and punch them with the ARC punch...but the punch itself costs around £42 - for me this was just not worth it.

The idea that I could loose a couple of the discs that hold the whole planner together could mean I would lose vital pages and information and knowing my luck I would end up losing some of the discs down the back of my crafting desk...this planner just wasn't for me either.

  
 
NU Elite wire bound notebooks are pretty inexpensive and also come in a range of colours:
- Ruled.
- Perforated.
- Inside pocket.
- Dimensions: 216 x 168mm

These are more notebooks than journals and don't come in a range of paper types e.g. squared, dotted, etc. only in lined. It's the same with their range of project books with movable divers.




 


I do use similar notebooks in work to the NU project pads- project notebooks from Pukka where I can move about the section tabs but I don't use them at home.






 

Fauxdori style planners have no rings, instead they have elastic that holds in the pages often in two or more sections. This one on Etsy was my favourite:

But I always feared the pages would slip out easier than if they were ring bound.

 



The most common or famous planner is Filofax, but there are so many other brands which make the same size planners it is unbelievable!A Filofax A5 organiser can range anything from £38-180 if buying directly from their website/shop. But I'd imagine unless you have a lot of surplus income, you're going to head to eBay or Amazon if you want one a price that doesn't involve potentially dipping into your overdraft!  Their features include:
- Left Hand Details: one vertical slip pocket
- Right Hand Details: one vertical slip pocket, one elastic pen loop, one notepad pocket
- Diary Type: week on two pages diary
- Transparent flyleaf
- Ruler/page marker
- To do
- Contacts
- White notepaper
- Coloured notepaper 


Paperchase organisers are by far my favourite, I feel the colours and patterns are a bit more lively than Filofax ones.
- Slots for cards,
- Compartments for loose paper,
- A tear-away list pad
- A pen holder
- Week to view diary
- Section dividers
- To do lists
- Meeting minutes
- 4 blank dividers
Paperchase organisers range from £15-22 on their website, sometimes they have sales which makes them a little cheaper, their accessories are cheap enough and always temp me to buy more than I should.

In the end I went and purchased a spotty designed Paperchase planner with an elasticated closure.
Other than the diary, everything else in my planner are pages I have designed and printed myself, including the dividers.

I'd be lost without my planner and it's taken awhile to get used to a different binder, but after a year I think I'm finally there.

Planners - New Range of My Little Pony Chore Charts

As requested by so many of you by e-mail, the new range of My Little Pony chore charts, I am pleased to announce are now available on our website.

Disney characters - coming soon!
Equestria Girls - coming soon!
Ben 10 - coming soon!

Thanks for your requests, keep them coming and we'll update the website with the designs soon.

shop.wrightstationery.com

Also our range of My Little Pony planner pages are being designed as I type this, so for all who asked for them, I'll upload them soon.

Planners – How I Personalise with DIY Pages

As I've spoken about in my previous post my organiser holds everything I need to remember and more. But the issue I've always had is that most planner templates/printables are not set up for what I wanted.  I decided the only thing to do was create my own.

I started with buying the binder [many years ago] and every now and then I create new divider tabs for it. 
 As the names of my tabs have to change at times I laminate the dividers and use a label maker to print them out.  This allows me to simply peel off the old label and stick on the new one :-)

I've tried searching online for specific templates but not been able to find any, so I decided I would sit down and design my own. This turned out to be super easy and great fun. It meant I could use backgrounds such as wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, free designs I found online [and loved], etc. Then I would use a graphics program on my computer to scan and edit all the images together and create the templates I needed.

This is a link to my password log which was one of the first I created.
http://shop.wrightstationery.com/sd_product/password-log/
[I use an A5 binder so any freebies on my website are usually geared up to fit that - although you can purchase other sizes and pages on there as well.]

Projects - From FunFax to FiloFax - Keeping the Wright Family Organised

Keeping track of 2 kids and working full-time can be quite challenging sometimes. Especially if, like me, you have a mind like sieve. (Seriously I'd forget my own birthday if it wasn't on the calendar!) To help me remember all their important dates as well as my own, I use what I like to call a two-step exposure method.

Step One: In our entrance hallway we have our 'Wright Family Command Centre' where we write-up all of our dates for the WEEK ahead (I found it looked too messy and was difficult to take in when we tried doing it for the full month ahead).

We now have a place to write up other things to remember on the big board.

When we would get home in the evening we kind of got into the habit of sitting our mail on the radiator in the hall, but most of the time stuff got knocked down the back or on the floor. So now it goes into the wire basket on the wall for us to sort.

The kids chore charts are on clipboards, so giving them each a slot to put them into made sense.

There's also a slot for all forms (usually from the kids clubs or school) or letters that require our attention.

The bottom shelf of the wire rack is where we keep the kids stickers for their chore charts as well as all the whiteboard markers and pens we might need.

Step Two: The idea that you can add your own pages in simply by cutting them to size and punching holes in them and put them in your organiser, always got me super excited (I was a strange kid, but I know for a fact I was not alone).

But now I'm [a little more] grown up, I use a proper binder organiser.

In this I write all the reminders for the family for the whole year. This includes the kids clubs, school events, birthday's of everyone in the family (we have a lot of nieces and nephews) and any other events we know about in advance. As I've never been on that telepathy course (they're always saying I really should in work) that allows me to know every event to happen throughout the whole year e.g. dental appointments, doctors appointments, etc. I simply just add these in when I can so I don't forget them.

This system won't work for everyone, but it seems to work for us. Perhaps you can take some ideas from it and make it work with your family.