Review: Charlie's Planner Goodies

Hi everyone!

I am so sorry about the absence here on my blog lately. Things have been hectic to say the least but I have a few posts planned for the coming weeks so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things for you guys. I miss blogging a lot.

Today I have a review of a planner item to share with you!

This item is from a fairly new shop, Charlie's Planner Goodies. She sells her items through her Facebook page.

She sells cute items for Filofaxes/similar planners including dashboards, monthly sticky tabs as well as dividers.
I have one of Charlotte's handmade dashboards to show you today, which has an elastic pen loop attached to it! The one I have to show you is a Pocket sized dashboard, but she does them for all the Filofax sizes.

Her dashboards is made of a sturdy card stock and is covered with a patterned paper of your choice. They have a thick elastic pen loop on the right hand side.

The dashboard I have, is a very cute pastel polka dot pattern. Here it is inside my Small Lilac Kikki.K planner.

The elastic pen loop is quite thick and will hold most pens. I used a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto pen and a thick Sharpie Pen in it, and it held them very well.
I think the loop is too wide to hold something like a Frixion Slim pen (it may slip through), but if you do want it specifically to hold a slim pen, I'm sure Charlotte would accommodate that for you.

When I first tried out this dashboard, to be honest, I was a little worried that it would not hold up over time and may be flimsy, but was proven wrong. I used it for a couple of weeks and it was fine and has held up nicely! I wouldn't go tugging on it like crazy, or trying to fit a huge pen in it, but if you treat it nicely I'm sure it will last you quite some time!

This dashboard will be great for anyone who wants to add an extra pen loop to their planner. I definitely could have used these when I had a Kate Spade planner as the pen loops on those can be very tight and it was hard to find a pen to fit in! But even if your planner's pen loop is fine, it's always nice to be able to carry an extra pen.

Charlotte's dashboards are $6 for Mini/Pocket size and $8 for Personal/A5 size.

Charlotte also sells some other planner items such as monthly tabs and dividers (in particular superhero/comic dividers which look so awesome!). Be sure to check out her Facebook page to see what she's got to offer! Send her a message or write a post on her page. She's super nice!

Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you'll come back soon as I hope to get myself back into the swing of things on here, especially in the new year! ♥

*Product(s) in this post were provided to me by the company or PR for my 100% honest review. For more info please read my Disclosure Policy*

{Unboxing} Kikki K Pink Textured Planner

Hi guys!
Ah, I feel like I say this every time I post but I'm so sorry for the lack of posts. Argh, I feel really awful about it. I'm sorry! I have been pretty busy with my Etsy shop lately, and other stuff. You know how it goes!

Anyway, I shared a video on my YouTube channel on Friday showing an unboxing of my new Pink Textured Kikki.K Planner! You can check it out here, or watch below! :)

I hope to have a video up later this week or early next week, showing how I'm using this planner and my current planning system. I'm trying to figure out what works best for me, but it just keeps changing!

I'm able to film more videos now, which is great, so if you have any video requests, be sure to let me know!

Thanks for reading/watching. ♥

Filofax Original Patent Purple {First Impressions}

Happy Filofax Friday friends! :) 

Today I have another Planner First Impressions. {Check out my Large Kikki.K Lilac First Impressions & my Small Kikki.K Lilac First Impressions.}

This is the Filofax Original in the Patent Purple colour, in Personal size.

I kind of bought this on a whim from eBay, to be quite honest. I was looking at a few different Filofaxes, and this one was the cheapest {and was located here in Australia} so I bought it. {If you are looking for one of these, Peters of Kensington usually has them in stock.}

A day or two after buying it, I was having second thoughts.

I have had a Filofax Original before {in Fluro Pink} and loved it, but I had watched some videos on YouTube of the Patent Purple and wasn't sure how I'd feel about it. Being Patent Purple, it's shiny and glossy, whereas the Fluro Pink had much more of a matte look. A medium tone purple like this isn't something I would usually reach for, either.

Plus, the package took a whole week to get to me from just two states away, when it really should have only taken 3-4 days max. {Not the seller's fault, of course.} That was a bit frustrating, because I'm super impatient with mail.

I thought that when I received this, that I wouldn't be impressed and I'd just want to sell it straight away. 

Buuuut I actually really like it!

The leather is shiny as expected, but not in a tacky way. Some photos and videos I'd seen had made the shine look a bit tacky and unattractive. But in real life, it's much nicer! :) I love the feeling of the leather!

I'm happy to report that this Original that I have is the newer version.

The first release Original Filofax had a shorter strap and people were finding it hard to fit a lot in. The newer version's strap is a bit less than 4 inches long, and the older one was 3.5. It might not sound like much, but apparently it makes a huge difference!

I love the simplicity of the interior of the Filofax Original, but lately I've actually been utilizing the pockets in my Filofaxes - I never used to use the pockets. So it will be a bit different to go from lots of pockets in my Malden, to almost no pockets in the Original.

I also love how the Originals almost lay flat right out of the package. This one doesn't lay quite as flat as my Fluro Pink one did but it's still quite flat. The one thing that annoys me about my Malden, is that it doesn't lay totally flat on the table.

My Original didn't come with everything that a brand new Original is supposed to come with, which is the only thing I'm a bit bummed about. The seller did mark it as Brand New, but in the description they said that only the 2014 Diary, dividers, note paper {it ended up being only the grid paper}, ruler and note pad were included. I would have really liked to have gotten the top loading envelope because I don't have one {I sold all mine when I thought I wasn't using Personal size anymore. D'oh!}, but oh well. I'll get one eventually.

The Filofax itself is definitely brand new, though. I can't see any signs of use and I received it in the plastic protective packaging.

 My Original & My Malden. ♥

 As you can see, the leather of the Purple Original is pretty shiny, because you can see my reflection in it!

 Purple Original in the sun. :)

I'm super glad that I decided to try out the Purple Original. It is really nice!

Thanks for reading! ♥

Small Kikki K Lilac Planner Update

As promised in my Small Kikki.K Lilac Planner First Impressions post, today I have an update on the planner! :)

I also got a new camera, so I can give you some better photos!

Here is my little pretty. I have been using her for about a week now.

In my first impressions post, I had said that I was a little disappointed with this planner.
I felt that the quality wasn't as nice as my Large Kikki.K planner*, and the rings weren't as great as I had hoped. They are much smaller than my other Pocket size planners, and they also had some slight gaps.

{*The Large Kikki.K planner is actually on its way to a new home! Not because I didn't like it, I loved it! But I am not using A5 size planners anymore. I bought the Small one, because I still wanted to have one of these gorgeous planners in my collection.}

However, after my week of using this beauty, I'm much happier!

I do feel that this one is a little more stiff than the Large planner was, but I actually don't mind it now. It makes it easy to write on when I don't have a table to lean on.

I did have to reduce the amount of inserts/information I keep in my planner when I moved into the Small Kikki.K from my Filofax Malden {that baby holds a lot}, but it's okay. I would prefer the rings to be a little larger, but oh well.

I do still think that this planner would work better as a wallet, or for someone who doesn't want to keep much in their planner.

It's not my favourite planner, but I do really like it now. :) It's very cute!

I will also have a set up video of this planner on my YouTube channel ASAP, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading. ♥

Kikki.K Small Lilac Time Planner {First Impressions}

Hi friends! I hope your week is going well so far. :)

Today I have another planner First Impressions for you! I did one of these about a month ago, here, on the same product that I'm going to be showing you today, but in a different size!

This is the Kikki.K Small Lilac Time Planner for 2015. {Review on the Large size.} This planner retails for $39.95 on the Kikki.K website. They can also be found in some Kikki.K stores.
The Lilac Time Planner line was released at the end of July. At the time of writing, all 3 sizes are available on the website.

FEATURES / LAYOUT

The Small Kikki.K planner is equivalent to a Pocket size Filofax, which is my current favourite planner size and what I am using every day.
This is my first time ever owning a Small Kikki.K planner. I have only ever owned Medium or Large.

The leather is a pretty lilac colour, with gold diamonds on the outside. The inside is plain lilac leather.

The insides of this planner are very similar to the Large one, obviously, but it's a little more simple.
On the left you have 3 card slots and a secretarial pocket.

The tabs that you get in the Small Kikki.K planner are different to the Medium or Large, as the planner is obviously a lot smaller.
The tabs and inserts that come in this planner are Monthly View, Weekly View and Addresses.

The rings in the Lilac planner are gold, to match the lilac/gold colour scheme.
I'm not sure what size these rings are, but they are definitely smaller than the rings in my Filofax Pocket Malden, which has 19mm rings.

At the back of the planner, there is slot with a notepad in it.

The planner has an elastic pen loop, and an elastic closure.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS / OPINION

I have to say, I was a little nervous when I was first opening up my planner. Although I had a great experience with my Large planner which arrived in good condition, I had heard a few people say that theirs arrived damaged and had some defects, especially regarding the rings. However, they were able to get a replacement or refund.
To be 100% honest, my planner did not arrive in "perfect" condition. I do believe that all of the rings have a small gap to them, which is unfortunate. But for me, not a deal breaker, unless they were very damaged. I'm not really the type of person to return something unless it is extremely damaged or unusable, so I won't be returning my planner.

While I love the look of the Lilac planner, I don't think that the quality of my Small planner is quite the same as the Large. I can't quite explain how. It doesn't feel as "squishy" or soft as the Large.

I thought it was also worth mentioning that the Small planner does not lay flat, unlike the Large planner which does. I'm sure you could get it to lay flat with some training.

I also was a little disappointed by the size of the rings. It feels much smaller than my Filofax Pocket Malden, which I mentioned above.
As soon as I received the planner, I moved right in. I'm the kind of person who likes to stuff my Filofax very full, and I just can't do that with this Kikki.K planner. I had to remove quite a lot of my inserts in order to fit everything inside.
I think this may work better as a wallet, rather than an everyday planner. However, I will try it out and see how it goes.

I thought I'd also mention why I purchased the Small size.
If you follow me on Instagram, or have read my last few blog posts, you will know that I am now using a Pocket {or Small in Kikki.K terms} size planner as my everyday planner.
I was using an A5 {or Large} size for a couple of weeks near the end of July and start of August, before realising that it wasn't working for me, which is when I decided to try out Pocket size.
I had thought I'd use my Large Kikki.K Lilac planner as my Blog/Etsy planner. Well, that didn't happen. I barely touched it since I started using a Pocket size.
I have decided to sell my Large planner, as I don't see myself using it again and didn't want to have it laying around, unused. {It is on hold for someone at the moment.} It is such a beautiful planner, but Large the size isn't great for me right now. This is why I have purchased the Small size!

I hope this post was helpful for you to see how the Small Lilac Time Planner from Kikki.K looks and what I think about it.
I'll hopefully bring you an update on it here soon, if not you'll definitely know by looking at my Instagram account.

Thanks for reading. ♥

Call For Suggestions/Requests

Hi friends! I hope your week is going well so far.
I wanted to ask you a question today.

What would you like to see from my blog/me?

I'm kind of out of ideas, and unsure what people want to see from my blog.
I love writing, and taking photos, so blogging is something that I really enjoy, I'm just not very inspired at the moment.

I would really, really love to hear any requests/suggestions for posts that you have. You can request literally anything! Life, nails, planners, anything!

Please fill out this form to request! :)

Please feel free to follow me on Twitter {probably the easiest way to contact me!}, Instagram, Facebook & YouTube.
And you can also email me! I would love to chat with you. You can send me your suggestions there also.

Thanks for reading. ♥

Our Wedding. ♥

I know this has taken me way longer than it should have to get this post up. Buuuut here it is, finally.
Today I get to share with you, a bit of the best day of my life.

I can't show you all of the photos, because there are so many, but there are still a lot of photos in this post!

Thank you so much Rachael {Rachael Elizabeth Photography} for capturing our wedding day. We absolutely love our photos so much. You did such an amazing job! ♥

Here we go...

Before the Wedding

The Ceremony

Before the Reception

 Reception

And then my hubby surprised me with some songs. ♥