29 July 2011

Week 3 Budget #Fabfrugal


Bonjourno Fab Frugelers!

Now this post is VERY late and this last week I'm in at the moment is not going well, but this post is for the week from Monday 18 July to Sunday 24 July.

So my budget for that week was as follows: -

Monday - £4.00
Tuesday - £20.00
Wednesday - £4.00
Thursday - £47.00
Friday - £4.00
Saturday - £7.00
Sunday - £0.00 NIL

But my actual spend looked like this : -

Monday - £3.57 – UNDER
Tuesday - £20.49 – OVER
Wednesday - £4.72 - OVER
Thursday - £46.44 – UNDER
Friday - £3.81 – UNDER
Saturday - £18.53 - OVER
Sunday - £14.00 - OVER

So from Monday to Friday I didn’t do too bad, when I went over it was only by a few pence and when I was under it was by enough to cover the previous over spends!

But on the weekend, we decided we should actually go somewhere, he had no money, and I had money left, big mistake.

On the Saturday, I had to go into town to get passport photos for my passport, as I needed one to go away! And I had to pay for Martin to Roller Skate as he ran out of money, and he promised to pay for us to skate on the Tuesday, so I thought ok that’s fair! After skating we got a bit hungry and decided we should have McDonalds!

On the Sunday we wanted to go out for the day, so we decided to go to The Grand Day out, it was a big craft thing near us, where you just have a day out and see all these things, it was £4.00 to get in, but I had to borrow £10.00 for diesel! Which was annoying but otherwise alright!

So I didn’t have a very Fab Frugal weekend, but my week was perfect!

Here is some before and after pictures from my hair cut on the Thursday! Then last of all I shall do my budget for the current week I'm in which is Monday 25 July to Sunday 31 July.

Before

During

After!!!

I am really happy with the new hair, did you like my before picture tried to make myself look really awful so there was a definite difference haha

So this weeks budget is as follows: -

Monday

£3.00 Lunch
£5.00 Passport Photo, the last passport photo had too much fringe! WHAT
£??.?? Passport

Tuesday


£3.00 Lunch
£16.00 Bus

Wednesday


£3.00 Lunch

Thursday


£3.00 Lunch

Friday


£3.00 Lunch
£5.00 Socks for Sock Monkey

Saturday


£3.00 Lunch
£4.00 Roller Disco
£5.00 Sock Monkey
£2.00 After Roller Disco

Sunday


£0 Hopefully

I hope you have enjoyed my update, I know its totally late, and I'm doing really badly but I'm really trying! I just took my bank card and it really buggered everything up, back on it next week, as I will envelope up again and not need any money at all!! (other than lunch and the usual).

Budgeting is tonight’s task!!!

Much Love <3 xxx

Filofax College Week 5 - Choosing a Diary - GUEST POST


Today we have an EXTRA SPECIAL TREAT for you, we have a guest teacher in the building, and she goes by the name of Laurie, most of you will know her from Plannerisms, but if you don’t, you should go read her blog, its magical, and full of all the planners you need to know about, she has reviewed most planners! She is pretty lovely! <3 THANK YOU LAURIE!!!! :-D

Hello students! Today’s lesson here at Filofax College is on choosing your diary insert(s) for your Filofax.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the plethora of diary insert choices available. Don’t worry! I’ll walk you through and help you decide what you need.

Filofax diary inserts come in an array of formats including monthly, weekly (in various permutations), two days per page, day per page, and one day on two pages. Note that not all diary formats are available for all binder sizes. The Personal size binders have the largest selection of diary insert formats.

Other brands of diary inserts that fit into Filofax personal size binders are Franklin Covey, Dayrunner and others, but I won’t get into those here. Another option is to print your own diary inserts and hole-punch them to fit, which is especially useful if you use an A5 size binder.

So now let’s talk about your own needs and narrow down the selection for you.

First of all, I recommend everyone use a monthly view calendar. There are a few monthly options including month on two pages, month on one page with notes, or a pull-out annual calendar with the months as columns. Whichever you choose, you need to be able to see the entire month at a time to see paydays and bills due; other due dates and deadlines; travel and holidays; patterns of events and forward-planning of appointments. Depending on how many pages and notes you keep in your Filofax, you might not be able to hold an entire year’s worth of diary pages in your binder at once so the monthly pages serve as your future-planning.

The real “meat” of your diary section in your Filofax will be the diary pages you use most often every day.

Most Filofax binders come supplied with a week on two pages diary insert, which is the most popular format and serves most people’s needs. You can use the daily spaces to plan appointments and record details of your day. You can also buy a weekly diary insert if you want one that’s different from the one provided in your Filofax. For A5 binders you can choose between weekly vertical (with the days as columns) or horizontal formats. Personal and Pocket binders have week on two pages inserts available in white or cotton cream paper.

If you find the day spaces in the week on two pages too small, but don’t want the bulk of using one day per page, the two days per page might be an option for you. It’s a good compromise between larger day spaces than the week view, and fewer pages than daily diary inserts.

If you have fewer appointments and more notes and lists each week you may prefer the “week plus notes” format which has the days of the week on the left page and the right page lined for notes and lists.
Alternatively, if you have very few things to write in your daily spaces you might want the space-saving week per page, which gives you an overview of two weeks at a glance.

If you have a lot of appointments, daily notes and things to record you will want a day per page or even a day across two pages (which is available on the Filofax USA website). This will allow you to write lots of details each day. However, I strongly recommend you use a daily diary along with a monthly calendar for forward planning and an overview of the upcoming weeks. Without a forward view it’s very difficult to plan ahead with only daily pages.

Some people use a combination of daily, weekly and monthly pages in their Filofax, but please be careful if you do this. In my own experience, it’s very difficult to keep up with three different formats for planning ahead. With three separate places to record upcoming appointments and events, it’s easy to forget to write something in all three places, then later the appointment is overlooked or double-booked.

I recommend writing forward appointments and events in a maximum of two places (such as monthly, and either daily or weekly). A way to incorporate monthly, weekly and daily pages is to use the monthly and weekly for your forward-planning, and daily pages for recording and planning only the current day. I use this method with much success.

One of the many wonderful things about Filofax is the flexibility of using whatever diary inserts you need, whenever you need them. If you normally use the week on two pages but are having a very busy time, you can add in daily pages for more space to write. If you go on vacation, you can switch to monthly-only or week per page inserts to save space during times when you don’t need much planning space.

If you graduate or get a new job and suddenly need a new diary format, you can easily put the new pages into your binder. Your Filofax can hold whatever diary pages you need, whenever you need them!
So there’s the rundown of your diary choices! Here’s the summary:

Monthly: recommended for everyone, great for forward planning.

Week on two pages: works for most planning needs.

week on 2 pages
normal

week on 2 pages
cc

Two days per page: more space to write each day, less bulky than daily pages.

2 days per
page

Week plus notes: good if you have fewer appointments and more lists each week.

week with
notes

Week per page: good for an overview of two weeks at a time, for people with few appointments.

week on one
page
Day per page, or day on two pages: great for anyone who wants to write lots of details each day and/ or has lots of appointments.

day on page
personal
Personal

day per page
a5
A5

I hope you have found today’s lesson helpful and informative! Happy planning! :-)

28 July 2011

#Filofax Competiton Simple Steps!


Bonjourno

I just wanted to do a short and sweet simple post to explain the competition I announced last week, to enter you just need to do the following things: -

Step 1 – Join Filofax College on Facebook

Step 2 – Take a photo of your Filofax, Diary or Notepad/Notebook in an unusual place or doing something interesting!

Step 3 – Upload it to the album on Filofax College called Competition Entries!!

So here is my EXAMPLE entry: -


And don’t forget you win the most AMAZING prize ever!!!

IMG_3072

Isn’t she amazing!!!

Competition closes on 31 August 2011!

Here are the entries we have had so far, CLICK HERE.

Look forward to seeing your entries!!!

Much Love <3 xxx

22 July 2011

Filofax College Week 4 - Making Dividers


Today is week 4 of Filofax College!

Let’s call register!

Say Here if you are in today!

In our lesson toady we are going to be learning a lesson that is very useful and potentially could save you lots of money!

And what is that lesson I hear you ask, well it is How to make your own Dividers!

It’s the simplest thing you can make! Its literally as simple as going around the block for a walk!

So first things first, for this you need the following: -


  • Scissors – Flowery is not as important
  • Pencil or Pen
  • Divider you want to make, i.e. Personal, A5, Pocket, A4, Mini etc
  • Hole Punch of the required size (preferably the metal hole punch, as the plastic one struggles a bit)
  • Sheet of Cardboard, not too thick, can have any pattern or be plain up to you!

If you do not have a divider to trace the dimensions are the same size as a piece of paper in the Filofax but just with a little tab off it, you can have the tab in literally ANY position you like and any shape you like!  I have just done the basics for you to help you along your way!

STEP 1


Draw around the divider (or sheet of Filofax paper if you do not have a divider) using the pencil of pen mentioned at the beginning, it makes more sence to do it on the edge of the card then you have one less line to cut!

Once you have done that it should look like this!



Very simple I know, but still a useful lesson!

STEP 2


Using the scissors, (if you are small or a child maybe have an adults supervision with this part! We do not want students with one finger missing from a mistake cutting a divider!) cut around the line you made, try to be as straight as possible, if you have a guillotine handy use that will be perfect then!

Once you have cut it out it should look exactly like (unless you have decided to put the tab somewhere else) the one you started with, your guide divider!


STEP 3


Hole Punch the card divider, I found that my hole punch would not go through it easily so I decided not to use it as I didn’t want to break another! (I tried to hole punch some glossy cardboard and it blunt the blades :’-( ) you can do it with the plastic one you just need to put some pressure on it. My handy tip for cutting through tough paper and card with the plastic hole punch is STAND ON IT!!! It really helps!

And once you have hole punched it yours will look a lot better than mine: -



(I was too scared to use my hole punch so marked out the holes then I used a pencil to make the holes and scissors to cut away the excess, which is an easy way to do it if you don’t have a hole punch, use the rings inside the Filofax to make out where the holes should go!)

Then you are done!

So that was your lesson for this week! SHORT AND SWEET!!! Do not forget to enter the competition!

So as the lesson was to make your own dividers, then I would like to see these dividers you make, so once you have made them, take a photo and add them to the Flickr Group!

The prettier the better!!!!

Good luck with your Homework and see you again next week, if you have any questions or need any help just leave it in the comments below!!

Much Love <3 xxx

Just so no one misses Steve's Comment, or just doesnt read the comments he has a very handy link: -

I would suggest buying a metal hole punch for things like this.

I would recommend this one:

http://philofaxy.blogspot.com/2009/08/rapesco-diary-punch-66-p.html

It does Personal, Pocket and Mini Filofax sizes. And only slightly more expensive than the Filofax plastic ones...

Filofax College Week 4 - Competition



Win a Special Edition Pocket with Swarovski Elements

Bonjourno!

As you all know I started a competition 2 weeks ago!

Well I have decided that I made it FAR TOO HARD, and no one was ever going to win the competition, as no one would enter as it was FAR TOO HARD!!!!!

So I have decided to completely change the competition! It is now going to be a lot easier! 


The closing date is still 31 August 2011, if you have entered the previous competition, your entry will still be counted! (Not that anyone has yet)!

So here is what you have to do to win the competition! Its very simple!

Follow my Blog, and Join Filofax College on Facebook (if you do not have Facebook just email me on filofaximy@live.com with your entry and I will enter it for you in the album). (All the links will be below).

Once you have done that, all you have to do is take a photo of your Filofax (if you have one, if you don’t there is an option for you too) or Diary (if you do not even have a diary, a notebook will be fine, if you use your iPhone, Blackberry, have it open on the diary) then take a photo of it in the randomest location! Photoshopping is aloud! YAY

So you can take a photo of it in any location, you could have it floating on a lilo in a swimming pool, at the beach on a swimming towel, in a cinema eating popcorn! The most imaginative one will win!

I do not want any nudity, you can cover it with your chosen diary if you like, literally anything goes as long as you don’t get hurt, in trouble, or offend anyone etc…

It does not matter if you have a posh camera like me or a phone camera that’s only VGA quality! 

Example: -



So here are the links you need: -

To follow my blog –  FOLLOW BY CLICKING HERE - p.s follow publicly
To join Filofax College –  FILOFAX COLLEGE
My email if you do not have Facebook – filofaximy@live.com

This is free to enter and you just have a really simple task to do!

If you have any questions, please email me or comment on a post, filofaximy@live.com

The prize is the following: -

IMG_3068

IMG_3069

IMG_3071

IMG_3074

IMG_3076

 

Terms and Conditions


Competition ends 31 August 2011 at 12pm GMT

You have to be16 years old or have parents permission! 

The winner will be chosen by me choosing the best 3 pictures then putting it to the public vote, voting will be from 1 September 2011 to 15 September 2011. 

The winner will be contacted by 15 September 2011!

If the item gets lost in the post, there is not much I can really do about it other than put in a claim with Royal Mail! 

Anyone in the following counties can enter this competition: - Europe, USA, Australia. Sorry if you are not included, they are just the easier locations to send this to I believe! We don’t want it getting lost in the post now do we! 

Any injuries you obtain while  taking pictures are not my fault! 

You can enter more than one picture per person. 

You can use Photoshop or any other editing software to edit your photos and make them look interesting, or place the diary/Filofax in different places. If you are going to use a Photoshop for your whole entry and do not have a Filofax find a picture online, or use the Pocket Filofax above!

It has to be original from you, not something copied from another source, unless you were the owner of the original source! Please make it your own, make it different and fun! :-)   



20 July 2011

First Graze Box!


My first BEAUTIFUL Graze Box, I thought I would show you my first Graze box and give opinions on what I had in it!

It will be mainly pictures as you need to be very picture heavy when telling people about the Graze Box in the hope you can SELL it to them! ;-)

On Monday and Tuesday this week the postman got to my office between 9:00 and 10:00 which is a normal sort of time, but I'm guessing he knew that TODAY was the day my first ever Graze box came, so he came thought the door and I said, “I’ve been waiting for you”, he responded with “Ooo do you have a Fact of the Day for me?”. I have such a nice post man he gives me a fact of the day! He is the best!

So I explained and he said, oh we have been having a lot of those recently, I tried one a few weeks ago was very nice, so I sat there all happy, and signed for some other post, so as soon as I got it on my desk I stared at it, thinking ooo I wonder what is inside! But oh no I wasn’t going to open it straight away, I needed to take photos AS I did it, to share the beauty the wonder with you!

So here it is when it arrived, I have covered up my work address from you as it’s a secret!


Doesn’t it look so inviting! I will now post lots of pictures then have an explanation afterwards!




Savoury Roasted Seeds (Said in a posh voice)


Golden Honey Nut Cashews (Said in a posh voice)


Strawberry Milkshake (Said in a posh voice)


Cherry Tomato, Basil & Pesto (Said in a posh voice)

So I decided to go for the seeds first, I will show you the pictures from during and tell you what is in each thing and what I thought about each little thing! I was very impressed with the packaging!


I opened the Pumpkin and Sunflower seeds and took a few in my hand and quickly ate them, oh, it was luxury, who would of thought eating seeds would be so satisfying, but I was thinking touching them is not working out for me so I grabbed a plastic fork, (I have a cutlery problem, I have to use plastic cutlery the majority of the time if it looks dirty or just creepy) here is my left overs!


I left hardly anything really, but those little ones after all while gave off a bit of an after taste!


Afterwards I had the honey cashews, oh my they were amazing, like just I do not know how to explain it! But I was over excited about the cashews and forgot to take more photos :-(


Focaccia with Tomatoes and pesto, now this was not as I expected, the bread was lovely, but the tomatoes were a bit bitter for me, so I took them out and perfect tasted lovely!




Lastly was my Strawberry make up, I have to tell the truth, I loved the white chocolate, but the texture of the bananas and the strawberries made me cringe I do not know what, I expected them to be dryer I guess but it was just too weird for me, I don’t think it helped that I was not feeling all that well!

Dried fruit is not for me :-(


Left overs!

The last think I wanted to show you was the inside of the packaging! How pretty is it!


Then in the back it says Hannah was ere! So that was either who packed it or who did the box design.

I am going to see how tomorrow goes then If that goes well I might allow myself one every Wednesday!

But the only thing I can say so far is, there not filling enough! :-(

See you tomorrow

Much Love! <3 xxx

If you fancy trying one use this code:  6GMZY6L Then you can have the first one free, and the second for £1.74 (then if you cancel it you have paid £1.74 for two boxes!) After that every box is £3.49, but cancel it as soon as you receive them if you dont want to receive any more!

My Knitting Lesson with @Ohlittlecloud

My Knitting lesson with the Beautiful Lovely

Oh Little Cloud


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<3

A little photo of our Skype Conversation! (Sorry about my scary face, I pulled a silly face as I did not realise she was going to take it that second hehe)

She has a blog click here to visit it :)

I bought these knitting needles a long time ago, and this wool or yarn, I'm not too sure which you are supposed to call it!


They are Knitting Needles for little children, but I loved the little cat like creatures at the ends of the needles! Made me smile so much!


There is my pretty wool/yarn, I found a little bit of hay twiggy or something, Ohlittlecloud said that was a good thing!

So first of all she taught me how to tie a slip knot, now this turned out to be a lot harder than I thought, at first I just tied it in a completely wrong, but then I managed to get it! Once I got the slip knot down she taught me how to cast on, now that was even more harder, but once I got the idea it was not too hard, I think I might need to be show again when I have to re start! She told me it should look like a sling shot, that’s all I seem to remember, but I'm sure if I tried I could do it easily!

After we had a lovely chat whilst I was casting on she taught me the Knit stitch, It was so lovely to have a nice conversation with her! I even gave her a tour of my room, and she gave me a tour of hers!

So I got my knit stitch down ok, I had a few little troubles, getting confused and all, but after I got it all worked out she showed me how to do pearling (think I may of got that wrong, is it pearl stitch or have I missed something) and I kind of got the idea of that, was a lot more complicated!).

So all in all I had an absolutely wonderful time chatting and knitting with Ohlittlecloud! She is a lovely person and so beautiful! At the bottom I will put some pictures of my knitting!

Our little Skype chat lasted a nearly 2 hours! Which is a long time!

We did try to add Rorirants in but she seemed to be watching cartoons? And it would not let us do a conference call, but we found you can get a 7 day free trial, so any one want to have a big conference call this week before the free trial runs out? All on cams hehe

So here is my knitting: -




Ohlittlecloud gave me homework to knit one pearl one knit one pearl one etc….

It went wrong!!!

Thank you so much for the lesson and the chat was lovely! Look forward to our next one, and meeting you in September!

Much Love <3 xxx

p.s Graze box today!!!!

18 July 2011

Week 2 Budget #Fabfrugal


Happy Monday Monkey Nuts

I just wanted to do a small post today about my forecasted spend for the week ahead, kind of a public budget, I don’t have a red suitcase but I have a Crimson Malden so that will just have to do!

I am carrying my Crimson Malden ready to announce my budget to the world of Fab Frugleness!

So for Today which is Monday, even though I have already spend money and below the budget oh yeah!

Monday



Simply £4.00 for my lunch!

Tuesday


£16.00 bus fair, I pay weekly and it is usually £4 a journey but they do a special offer where it is £16.00 for a 7 day ticket and I can go between two points as many times as I like, not that I use it that much other than the 5 days I go to work, which saves me £4.00!

Then my lunch money of £4.00

Wednesday


Simply £4.00 for my lunch!

But I also have the first of my Graze boxes coming, I'm rather excited about this, thank you so much Sharon, she gave me a voucher to get my first one free!

So today’s Graze box will cost me nothing! And hopefully it should keep me full enough I can spend hardly anything on lunch maybe a yoghurt!

Thursday


EXPENSIVE DAY!!!

£4.00 for my lunch!

Second Graze box that has only cost £1.74, I want to test out two then if I like it I'm going to budget to have one a week starting 3 August! It usually costs £3.49!

I will do a review at lunch about it, which pictures and all!

This bit is the hard to type part!

Now I'm getting my hair done and this shall cost £43.00! I am having a T-Section done and also a trim, I was originally going for a full head but I'm not that rich, so it has to be a T-Section!

Friday


Simply £4.00 for my lunch!

Saturday


Roller Disco, which is £4.00!

I will allow £3.00 for after the Roller Disco, as I get a bit of the nibbles and I get a bit thirsty, so I will get a drink then!

Sunday

NOTHING

So my total spend for the week should be no more than: - £86.00 Remember that does include my hair cut, without that it would only be £43.00!

I have not had a hair cut in 2 months or more! I need it badly!

Much Love <3 xxx

17 July 2011

Benefit Lip Gloss - Kiss you - Review


Bonjourno Cute Cupcakes!

This is going to be my first lip gloss review!  As promised from my post the other day!

I am going to review Benefit Lip Gloss in Kiss you, its kind of a purple colour.



As you can see it looks rather purple, but when it is on it looks nothing like the tube! I tried to get some photos of it on my lips but you could not really see the proper colour so I did a swatch on my hand instead.


As you can see its more pinky than purple and it has a lovely glitter through.

It smells like, well I cannot smell as I have a blocked nose from hay fever so this test I gave to my boyfriend and he came out with Sex Wax or Surf Wax for those who didn’t know!

As this is my first review of a lip gloss I’m going to explain the next bit before I start it  as I’m going to use a rough sort of similar thing throughout all my reviews.

First thing will be staying power, which I will mark out of 10, 1 being 5 mins or less 10 being 30 mins or more, I find that lip glosses never last any more than that on me.

Colour which I will mark out of 10, 1 being non visible and 10 being true to the colour in the package, or a bright colour.

Texture, 1 for a grainy textue, 10 for a smooth texture, not that a grainy texture is bad, but more for you to know how it feels on your lips.

Smell, 1 for no scent, 10 for a lovely scent, my boyfriend will give this number for me.

Then the final score will be my overall score out of ten, so here it goes.

Staying Power – 6/10
Colour – 9/10
Texture – 10/10
Smell – 7/10

Final score – 8/10 I really like the lip gloss but not too sure about the colour.

So that was my frist lip gloss review, if you think I missed anything out or want me to add anything else in for the next one let me know :-)

I just thought I would show you a quick picture of my Lady Gaga inspired make-up I did this afternoon on a bored moment!


I know its not too exciting but I got a bit bored after I started hehe

Much Love <3 xxx