Planners | How To Decorate Midori / Fauxdori Notebook

Hello everyone! Today I am sharing this over at Freckled Fawn blog on how I decorate inserts / notebooks for Midori Traveller's Notebook (in short TN) / Fauxdori. The original Midori TN inserts always come in kraft colour cover which pretty much beg you to decorate and personalise it. You can also decorate your favourite Moleskin notebooks or Field Note using the same method. I am someone who can't live without rainbow, so I decorated all my midori / fauxdori inserts with patterned papers, washi tapes, stickers and stamps.

So now, let's grab some of your favourite washi tapes, patterned papers, stamps and stickers and decorate your notebooks with me. Decorating the notebooks can be really therapeutic and easy - would not take you more than 10 minutes for each book ;)

1) Decorate with washi tapes.

You can choose to cover the cover partially or in full, with tonnes and tonnes of washi tapes. Here's what I have done with mine. The one on the left is decorated with MT masking tapes and Freckled Fawn washi tapes. Part of the kraft cover peek out and make the pastel colour washi tapes pop. I also added some epoxy stickers and letter stickers to make it even more personalised as this is my pregnancy journal ;)

The other two notebooks are of smaller size - same size as Filofax personal sized inserts. The one for my 'SHOP' I cover it up with pastel skinny washi tapes (you can get it here) in stripes. Added a piece of star-shaped sticky notes to put down the letter sticker 'SHOP'. The one with camera - I just cover the cover with 3 different rolls of washi tapes - randomly, then stamp the camera stamp with Staz On black ink.

2) Cover it up with patterned papers

This is probably the quickest and easiest way to cover up the kraft cover. I cut the patterned papers down to the size of the cover (a little bigger than the cover to get complete coverage) and stick it to the cover with tape glue / glue stick.

I also like to add wood veneers / stamps to the simple cover. This would only take me 5 mins to decorate each notebook.

 3) Decorate with stamp

I love the contrast between kraft cover and colourful stamped image. I stamp the heart stamps over and over again using Freckled Fawn February Oh Deer Me kit with Versacolors. I like that it actually looks like a piece of patterned paper. The other one I just stamp with a stamp set from Amy Tangerine that say Happy Place and I added my hand writing 'to brain dump' as my brain dump journal.

4. Stitch your stamp ;P

This is one of the cutest and unique way to decorate your notebook cover. You can just stamp the image using a lighter colour ink pad (say grey colour) and poke holes, add the stitching with embroidery thread. I am using Moleskin Cahier for the photo above. I have a detailed step-by-step tutorial that I written back in May 2014. I hate sewing and stitching, but I did have fun personalising my own notebooks with embroidery.

So these are the ways I use to decorate my notebooks and particularly, inserts for my fauxdori / Midori. Which one is your favourite?

Thanks for dropping by and I hope this post would inspire you to start customising your own notebooks.

Xoxo,
Sam

Planner | My 2015 Resolution

Hello everyone =) I know it's in already mid of January and now only I blogged about my 2015 resolutions seems a little too late for this. Oh well, I just want to document this on my blog and hoping that this would help me try my best to work on my resolution. I don't normally make new year resolution because I would normally try it for a month or two and tend to forget about it. 

But I want this year to be a little different since I am in my Big THIRTY and I really want to set some workable and achievable resolutions. 

Okay before we get into discussing my One Little Word and resolutions for 2015, let's talk about my new Kate Spade Agenda. This is a Kate Spade Anne Canvas Agenda in large. Initially I thought the cover is a dark blue canvas / denim. When I received it only realise it is in black canvas. I scored this baby on eBay just before Christmas and has been anxiously waiting for it.

And here's my humble collection of Kate Spade personal agendas (all in large size, equivalent to Filofax personal sized / Kikki K Medium sized planners). To be honest, I always prefer my Kate Spade ring binders more than my Filofaxes.

Top (From Left to Right) : Kate Spade Wellesley Zipped Around (in Black, Pink and Red)
Bottom (From Left to Right): Kate Spade Anne Black Canvas, no-idea of the name of the planner =P



Then I made this transparent flyleaf using a transparencies from Studio Calico (which I bought like 10 pieces to hoard). Stitch the cardstock circle with sewing machine and added the word 2015 (from Freckled Fawn Oh Deer Me Kit).

And here comes my One Little Word for 2015. Let me spend a minute or two explain why I picked EXPORE as my OLW this year. Last year my OLW was MAGIC and things has been magical - my little online store picked up real fast in a magical way, my instagram followers are more than 20 thousands towards the end on 2014, and watching how fast Ivan grow everyday, how much he learns everyday like a sponge is really magical. But things fall apart towards the second half of the year - my business continues to grow (more than I could handle and thus I been taking break / on hiatus every now and then), my planner addiction has became worst (I started with 1 planner in end of 2013 and ended with over 30+ planners in Dec 2014 (and this does not include the Midori, fauxdori and Happiedori that I have in my collection).

I was seriously very unorganised eventhough having so many binders. I only use a few for organising my personal stuff and work / online store. Yet I feel that something is missing. I have been feeling extremely overwhelmed since August 2014. My business plan with my ex-bestie didn't work out (and we aren't on talking terms, sadly), I lost a few good friends, not catching up with friends because of the crazy working hours, and also something awful happened in my family end of December (which made me really really sad).

So during my one-week staycation in Singapore 2 weeks ago, I have been thinking what do I do / achieve in 2015?

• I want LESS stuff (I have overflowing supplies of scrapbooking goodies and planner goodies - that actually blocked my creativity
• I want to spend MORE time with my family
• I want to be MORE creative - I do not want to just create something for assignments / sponsored post / shout-outs on Instagram. I love creating - and I want to be inspired + hopefully create something to inspire others too. Thus I have been resigning from some of the design teams that I am on as I want to have time to create for myself.
• I want to be more Organized - in terms of time management and also managing the amount of supplies that I have - thus I have been purging all the goodies for a week. And trying hard to not spend money buying unnecessary stuff (hard, but i will work on this)
• I want to send more Happie Mails - not just the mails to customers but send more mails to my lovely Instagram friends and besties
• I do not want to be obsessed with the number of Instagram followers that I have anymore. I want to create from my heart, posting pictures that I like (and hopefully people who follow me would enjoy my feed too!), be inspired by the lovely Instagram community
• I want to stay FOCUSED and have a SCHEDULED daily task / plan

So after spoken to my husband about what I want to achieve in 2015, he is really supportive towards my decisions and wants me to write down my thoughts. And here's what I have came up with: instead of picking MORE / LESS / CREATIVE / ORGANIZED as my One Little Words, I chosen the word EXPLORE. I want to explore more, be more open minded and also be more creative. I want to remind myself to learn something new and do something new everyday. Even if teaching Ivan a new word everyday is something fun & new for us! 

I am loving the memo pad that came in Cocoa Daisy Day Planner kit - January where I wrote down a simple quotes to remind myself to focus on the positive things.

And this is my simple (hopefully achievable) resolution / action plan for 2015.

I cut down a piece of vellum paper and put strip and strip of washi tapes to make it a piece of pattern paper. I wanted to use this section for my bullet journalling - but then i found that it might not work so I am gonna move back to a simple notebook for my bullet journaling. 

My daily task - I have very limited working hours everyday - probably about 4-5 hours during the time Ivan is in montessori and also his nap time. Hopefully sticking to this task list would help me clear my backlogs more often.

Then I am thinking of using this section to write down ideas that I want to try - for scrapbooking, crafting, planning that I found on Pinterest / blog-hopping / Instagram etc.

And last top tab section would be inspirational quotes that, again I read from Pinterest / Instagram / books etc.

And here are the 4 top tabs for the first section of my planner. The other half of the planner would be my Cocoa Daisy Day planner inserts / DIY fish inserts. I am still trying out see which works best. But at the moment, the planner is a tad too chunky to be closed comfortably *LOL* So we shall see if I could just keep to one master planner (ideally) or I have to use 2 planners!

Some of the little things I would like to try / achieve in 2015:

• be active in animal welfare (used to be a dog rescuer and help running a dog shelter 5 years ago, and now I am hoping I could still do something for the homeless animals)
• Do Photo-A-Day challenge - totally failed as I haven't even started. Does catching up count?
• Send more happie mails / pen pal mails
• Learn baking
• Learn Photoshop & Ai
• Purge and re-organise workspace & storage every quarter
• Revamp my website
• Set up news letter for my online store

Come to an important conclusion: messy craft room and office would deter me from being productive and creative. So must stay organised and focused this year! Almost done re-org the room, well almost there….

And I have set a little rewards for myself too! If I have achieve one of the mini goal, I will reward myself by buying 10-12 copic markers. Since I have purged 4 boxes of goodies last week (with the help of ChanWon), I have bought myself 15 copic markers last week!

Alrighty! Thank you for reading such a long post! I really hope by writing this down (and blog it here) would help me stay focused + remind myself to achieve my mini goals.

Xoxo,

Sam

Planners | Make Your Own Calendar Pages for Your Planner

Hello hello there =) I received a lot of complaints because I barely work on replying my emails, posting on instagram and updating my little shop. I just found out I am now 9 weeks pregnant with terrible morning sickness (or all day sickness you name it). I have been feeling nauseous all day, with weird food cravings and throwing up after meals. Well, I am not here to complain because I am feeling much better after resting at mom's place for a few weeks and this pregnancy isn't as bad as my first pregnancy. I do remember how I was eating and throwing up at the same time. disgusting I know ;P

Since every pregnancy journey is different and the last pregnancy I journal the whole process with my Project Life album. I haven't been scrapping much so I decided to journal the journey in my Happiedori instead. I used a blank inserts (regular sized) so i can choose to draw, write, doodle or even make a monthly chart / weekly chart on the pages.

I dressed up the cover with tonnes and tonnes of washi tapes (using MT tapes and Freckled Fawn tapes here). Very simple cover with a bit of embellishments using Freckled Fawn Oh Deer Me kit. Love the bug sequin star! My baby #2 is a star of course ;P

I have just started decorating some of the pages and also decided to make a monthly chart on this blank journal. I want to write down the days i have weird cravings, doctor appointment or the days I am falling sick. I have had mild fever for no reason when I just found out I was pregnant. 

So today I would like to show you how I made a very simple monthly page using washi tapes. 

I started with using the monthly inserts as reference for the measurement. 

I made each box at approximately 2.8xm (W) x 3.2cm (H). You can definitely make it slightly bigger or smaller depending on your preferences. So you would need to draw 7 x 5 boxes in total.

I draw the lines lightly so it's easier to be erased later on.

I decided to use washi tape to line the boxes. You can also doodle the lines or draw your own boxes. I am planning to doddle my next month chart. I am using the Rainbow Chevron tape from my shop and also the super skinny washi tapes from Amy Tangerine.

I use these super skinny washi tapes from Amy Tangerine so they wouldn't take up too much space on my monthly boxes. And I am loving the bright colours!

It wouldn't take long to do this and I was erasing the pencil marking just before I stick the washi tapes down. then I added the Month with Freckled Fawn vellum sticker from the past Oh Deer Me Kit. Love this cute sticker sheet.

Then I added the days from the Days of the week washi tape (sorry I have no idea who make / sell this roll of washi tape) ;)

And this is how it looks like once it is complete.

I have also journal a few pages using Oh Deer Me Kit. I only decorate the page and I want to journal how this baby #2 is a precious gift (+ the best birthday present to my hubs this year). We found out that I am pregnant on his 30th birthday ;)
p.s. Thanks to my subscriber @penemuel for the tips that these gel stick highlighters are water soluble! they works like neon colour water crayon! So awesome!

I will be sure to post more pics of my pregnancy journey on this journal whenever I am feeling better and make more pages! Thank you so much for dropping by! And happy holiday + Merry Christmas to you!

XoXo,

Sam

Altered Projects | A Peek Into My Fauxdori / Happiedori As Travel Journal

Hello there, as mentioned in the previous post, I have uploaded a video, walk you through how I made my Happiedori (Fauxdori / Midori-inspired traveler's notebook). And this post, I would like to show you some of the pages in my Shanghai traveler's notebook.

Here's the video and remember to leave me a comment / give me a thumbs-up! That would mean a lot to me for making more and more videos.

Here's a pic of my travel essentials:

1. Midori Traveler's Notebook /Fauxdori / Happiedori 
2. Freckled Fawn pouch + Oh Deer Me kit
3. Pens (I used Pilot Coleto & Uni Style-fit here)
4. Fujifilm Instax Share printer (which can print iPhone photo wi-fi) (Related blog post on how to edit your Instax photo)
5. M&M's (I can't travel without these!)
6. Washi tapes - I use them to decorate my journal, seal my M&M's bag, paste receipts to my journal etc. Sky is the limit when it comes to how to use Washi tapes.
7. Stickers

I also love how the Frecked Fawn Oh Deer Me kit August pouch actually match the neon yellow Happiedori.

I added a love charm that I got from a gift shop in Shanghai.

First page: Travel Itinerary and self made pockets with Project Life cards. And also love the colourful rainbow tabs.

Things to pack / bring:

Daily Itinerary which I stamp the list using this Freckled Fawn stamp sets.

The rest are some of the daily pages that I added my journaling, instax photos, memorabilia, train tickets  etc. I do it in a Smashbook way and just journal down my thoughts on how I feel about the places, weather, food and people. I like that I actually did most of my journalling on the spot (right in the restaurant, on the train or in the hotel at night) so I could remember and jot down my thoughts immediately.

Met my Instagram friend @abshanghai (Arlyna) in Plaza 66, Shanghai. The Dining Room is such a cute restaurant with yummy Shanghai food!

We went to The Dining Room 3 times just because my hubs loves the food there! I ran out of Instax film so I drew the food here. The blank inserts from midori (not the water-colour paper type) actually holds the water-colour painting quite well!

I initially bought Malaysia Airlines air tickets to Shanghai but decided to asked for a full refined because of the tragedy that happened to MAS recently. So we switch to Thai Airways and transit at Bangkok to meet my Instagram bestie - Golf. So glad that I got to meet her just a day before she gave birth!

She brought me to a Thai Cuisine for lunch and a cute cafe called Mr Jones for some pastries and tea.

In love with creative lettering recently and considering taking an online class to work on it. Just wish I would have more time to do more things creative. I haven't been creative or crafting much lately and that makes me sad :(

And this is a pic showing the side tabs. I added diary stickers to the side tabs to prettify them. They are really pretty, aren't they?

XoXo,