Day 19 – Another picture of yourself.

Filofax College Week 8 - Caring for your Filofax Organiser

Today everyone needs to bow, and take off your hats, as today’s guest lesson comes from his royal highness, the Filofax King, or Steve as everyone else calls him!

He is very lucky as he get to do magnificent posts for my favourite website, Philofaxy, and he also has his own blog here. I hope you enjoy this, and remember who it is that wrote it! The Filofax King! You can just click over there on the right hand side to view it hehe!

And yes he is another culprit of the Malden, its like a disease! Once you buy one you want MORE!!!!

So you have taken either weeks or minutes to choose your new organiser, you have agonised over inserts and diaries and crammed it full of stuff, and then you stick it in your bag and use it a lot. But how do you care for your organiser, so it will keep it looking like new?  Here are some hints and tips that I hope will help you care for your organiser.

1. Don't over load your organiser with too many pages and pens. I know it is tempting to put a full pack of To-do list in along with that multi pack of colour paper but do you need to carry them all around? I have a storage drawer in my desk reserved for my Filofax 'stash'.  I then keep enough pages of which ever type in my organiser without over loading it. This makes it easier to turn the pages and makes it less bulky to carry.

2. Try to not let your organiser be bashed about by the rest of the contents of your bag, particularly sharp items like house keys. Most Filofax organisers are quite tough, but if you just throw them in with a load of other stuff in your bag they will start to show early signs of wear and tear.

3. Avoid contact with things like make-up, things like nail polish and lip gloss etc can easily stain the cover of your Filofax, whilst it is possible to remove such substances from a leather cover there is a risk of damage to the cover when removing the make-up.  Obviously fabric and non-leather covers can be more easily damaged, although some of the vinyl type covers are easier to clean after such accidents.

4. Try to have a 6 monthly or 12 monthly clean out of your organiser. Remove all of the pages from the organiser and give it a very light clean with a slightly damp cloth (multi fibre cloth) to remove any dirt or dust. If the interior of your organiser is a textile or suede type material (Finsbury or Domino for example) these can get quite dusty with paper dust. The trick to cleaning the interior is to us a strip of sticky tape (scotch tape, sellotape or similar) and press the sticky side down on to the material and then lift it off quickly. This should remove the dust without leaving a sticky residue behind. You might need to do this a few times but it is quite effective.

5. Cleaning the leather. Whilst a slightly damp cloth will take off any light dirt and finger marks I find it also worth while to clean the leather on my organisers about once a year. This restores the shine and feeds the leather so it remains soft and supple and will prevent it from cracking and splitting.  I have tried several leather cleaners in the last year or so. I tend now to use a cream cleaner which I apply with a soft cloth and then buff it off. The sort of cleaner you might use on a hand bag or similar. The one I have been using recently is Autoglym Leather Care Cleaner, it's made for leather car seats and I only need to use a small amount on a cloth and it takes off any old polish and restores the shine of the original leather very well.

http://www.autoglym.com/engb/product-proddetail.asp?v06VQ=EJIJ&Range=1

If you have a coloured organiser (red, purple, cream etc) test which ever cleaner you are going to use on a very small area to start with to make sure it isn't going to change the colour of the organiser too much.

Don't forget to clean the interior leather of your organiser as well.

And whilst you have all the pages out of your organiser use the opportunity to review what you put back in to the organiser and what to archive and what pages need replenishing.

6.  If the interior of your Filofax organiser is cloth or part of it is cloth and it's starting to look a little 'grubby', mainly from paper dust, try this.

Open your organiser and lay it flat. Take a length of sticky tape or packing tape and press the sticky side down on to the cloth and then lift the tape off. Repeat this with a new length of tape until you have done both front and back of the organiser.

The dust will stick to the tape and leave the cloth looking like new again. The tape shouldn't leave any residue behind as it is only on the cloth for a few seconds.

7. Care of the ring mechanism. There is no need to lubricate the ring mechanism on your Filofax organiser. The only thing you should remember to do is to use the tabs to open the rings and then carefully apply even pressure to close them. This will ensure that you don't bend the ring mechanism and cause it permanent damage.

8. Use hole reinforcing rings. I have some inserts that date back to 1985 and whilst they are a little dated they are still in remarkable condition. Some inserts will be in your organiser for many years, such as information sheets, maps, etc. So it's worthwhile using hole reinforcing rings to prevent the paper from tearing on pages like these.  My 1985 maps are a bit dated now... they still show East and West Germany and a few other countries that have changed their names!

Look after your organiser and it will last you a long time. My 1985 Filofax Winchester is just as serviceable today as it was when I bought it. Enjoy.

So that was a lovely post from the Filofax King on looking after your Filofax! And it is making me want to go get some Autoglym leather care….I really need to clean mine!

I hope you have enjoyed Week 8 of Filofax College!

Look forward to seeing you all next week!

WEIGHT AND BABY PANIC

When I was in school, I always thought I was going to be one of those girls who gets pregnant after school, even though I always used protection, I just felt that unlucky.

I hadn’t started my periods at all, but I was just under the impression that it was all because I was underweight.

I had quite a few teachers telling me I needed to gain weight and telling me to drink these special milkshakes to help you gain weight. I just didn’t have an appetite, I just never really ate, a typical days food would be, breakfast - plain crisps, lunch – water, or a cookie if I felt adventurous, tea – peas, or if I was out for the evening (which was a lot) nothing. I went on eating like this for a long time, I don’t remember how long really, it didn’t seem to affect me. I know that I was under eating a lot, but not on purpose. If my mum cooked a proper meal (she did most nights) I would have some but only a small portion.

Then after we left school, about a month after I went to college, I met Martin, and started eating, for some reason being with him has helped me eat, I'm still not a very good eater by any means (but this isn’t part of the story), 6 months later I had to go to the doctors as my periods hadn’t started, I had this lovely doctor she was softly spoken and so nice to talk to.

I had a few tests and was referred to the hospital to have a Ultra Sound, now at least I will know how it feels to have one thing from pregnancy. In the ultra sound, they looked at me funny, and told me to drink more water, which I did, and had to wait, they scanned me again, and still nothing.

 I went to see this doctor, the was a gyne, she only let me go into the room with her, not my boyfriend not my mum, I asked it I could have them as it was obviously going to be bad news!

She sat me down (ALONE) and told me I was born without a womb, ovaries and had XY chromosomes. I could not have children, and I would never have a period. And the final thing she told me was I have testies inside me.

As she was saying all this her head was getting bigger and smaller, you know that thing when you hear your pulse and you feel like your about to have a panic attack or something, well that’s how I was feeling at the very moment she told me all that, I didn’t really hear any of it.

You don’t realise how much you want your OWN children until you are told you cant have any and at the age of 16, its not very nice.

Now that’s all for that for today, another extract another day!

I was thinking on the bus about the things that I really will miss about not having my own children (as I would only have a child if I got pregnant by accident). And I came up with the following things: -

• Giving her, her first Pink Personal Finsbury Filofax. (I even decided the one to give her)
• Platting her hair before she goes for her first day of school.
• Taking her shopping in Harrods and Benneton for clothes (yes I would be rich in this world haha)
• Having a spar day
• Having mummy and daughter days out.

There are just so many things.

And the one thing that I hate the most, I can never feel a child growing inside me, feel it kicking, just have all that.

Anyway after depressing you, I hope you enjoy your days.

Day 18 – Something you crave a lot.

The thing I crave the most is CHOCOLATE and sweet things, its really bad but I just have so many cravings for them!

Pocket Domino Filofax Review + Giveaway!

Hello Muffins

The lovely WHSmiths have sent me a very pretty Pocket Domino Filofax to review! 

P.s there is a competition at the end ;-)

I didn’t know what Filofax to expect, I was not told what would be delivered, I felt so excited, I got home and saw the parcel, I didn’t even know what size, but I had a feeling it could be a personal, just as that is the most popular size.

I opened it up, and I was amazed by its beauty, its not a top of the range one, but the colour just stands out so much and looks so beautiful! It just goes perfectly against the white band.

As you can tell I got a bit carried away at taking photos of the outside, and I even got out my DSLR too take the photos to make them extra special, it was so hard to catch the beauty of this colour, I think it’s the Ultra Violet, I’m not too sure.

I will give you a brief set out of the details of the Filofax then will show you more inside and what it comes with.

The Pocket Filofax has 19mm rings which are plenty big enough for the size of the diary, on the inside it has 4 credit card pockets and two full length pockets, at the back it has an elasticated pen loop, which means any pen can fit in to this lovely organizer. Inside it has a sued look material which is between cream and grey, and it shows the purple colour through the credit card slots!

So now on to the inside of the Filofax, and what it comes with.

The inside looks like this, it comes with a 2011/2012 week to view diary, which goes from 27 July 2011 to 2 January 2013, so that means it can cover you for an academic year, for school, college or uni depending on what you do.

Also to cater for people going “back to school” it has a space to write your classes and grades to keep a record throughout the year, and on the next page it has a timetable to record your lesson plans for school/college/uni. Which is very useful as it means it is all in one place!

After the diary it has an address section with A-Z dividers, and plenty of address pages to put one in each section.

Behind this are 6 numbered dividers to use for your personal preference, whether it is keep notes or just write to do lists.

At the very back is a clear plastic wallet to put in pictures or other bits and bobs.

It is a lovely Filofax and a perfect Filofax to have for Back To School!

If you want to buy one go on to WHSmiths, you can view all their lovely Filofaxes and 2012 inserts!

I was not paid to do this review it was my own honest opinion!

It breaks my little heart to give this beauty away, and I know I already have a competition going but, if you want to win this lovely Filofax then all you have to do is comment below telling me why you deserve it! Leave an email address if you do not have any type of account so I can contact you, the winner will be chosen at random on 31 August 2011!

Look forward to reading your entries!