Making a Transparent Dashboard!

(Halloween Planner charms are from Kawaii Studios)

This October I'm definitely making the most of everything Halloween-ey!

I had some adorable die cuts to use from the Halloween Witch Hazel set which you can get on Mrs Brimbles' shop here.
I wanted to try something a little different with them in my planner, this is something I've been wanting to do for a while, but I've just not had the chance to. This is a transparent dashboard! 

You could use it on it's own, or change the card behind it whenever you feel like.

It may seem quite simple to make, and it is. But I'm going to show you the best techniques I found to go about it.

So I started off by laying things out on the cardboard dashboard to get an idea of how I wanted the transparent dashboard to look. Once I'd figured out where I wanted the die cuts, I put a laminating sheet underneath and marked out where the cardboard dashboard was. Then I marked out where the absolute limit I could put die cuts was, so I would avoid putting them over the holes. I marked these in pencil, so I could rub the marks off after it was all laminated and done.

I then put a dab of glue on the back of each die cut and arranged them inside the laminating pouch. This made sure that they all stayed put, it made it a lot less of a faff I can assure you. I can't stress enough that you only need a dab! It's just to hold it in place whilst you are arranging things, the laminator will permanently secure them later on, you want to avoid lumps and bumps of glue on the back.

As you can see above, this is what it looked like once I'd finished arranging the die cuts. There is enough space down the left hand side for the holes to go (don't worry I made sure the white skull went between the two sets of holes!). Before I laminated it I also added a few silver start stickers in some of the gaps, as you will see in the next photo.

Once it was laminated I cut it down using the pencil marks I made on the sheet originally, as a guide, and punched the holes.
That's it! That's all there is to it. I'm hoping to make some more of these transparent dashboards with different themes. I love how they look and love that I can swap out the backgrounds whenever I want.

I hope this has given you some ideas for your planner this October!

Make sure you check out Anna's shop for more Halloween goodies, I'm honestly in love with the Die Cuts.. They are just a must have, you get a lot in a pack too!

Click here to take a look at all the Autumnal/Halloween items Anna has available.

Are you decorating your planner this October? What planner are you using? I'd love to know, so let me know in the comments!

- Daisy X

New to Planning? Here's Some Planner Lingo for You!

(My Yellow A5 Finsbury - Yellow Finsburys are one of the sort after Unicorns of many Planners.)

Unicorns
In the planner world, Unicorns do exist!! Only they don't have four legs, and a horn. Instead the term 'unicorn' or 'unicorn planner' is that one, or two, or more planners that are very hard to come by, usually it's a discontinued style or colour. Though some peoples Unicorn's may be a planner that is current, but they don't quite have the funds to buy it, so instead they search the internet for photos of this planner that has hold of their heart, to try and fill that space until the time comes where they can purchase it!
(We've all internet stalked a certain planner right?)

(Just a few of my many planners, I own a variety of colours)

Moving in and out
When Planners talk about moving in and out, they don't mean houses. 

A lot of Planners tend to move in and out of their planner every season, picking one which suits the weather and atmosphere of the season. This might be a Gold planner around Christmas, or a bright pink one in the Summer, if you've been bitten by the planner bug the chances are you know this moving urge when the weather changes! Of course moving doesn't just happen each season, many of us I'm sure shuffle in and out of planners throughout the year. But after following a lot of planner Instagram accounts for the past year or so, I've noticed that there tends to be a theme when the season changes.

(One of my planners which has a pretty gappy ring!)

Gappy Rings

In the planner community we all know that gappy rings are not good!
Ring anxiety is a common thing with many Planners. It's a much less stressful process if you are purchasing in a shop, you can check the rings (although your true planner addict traits become public when you have a pile of planners you've gone through to check which one has the best rings, but hey, that's okay because you'll go home with peace of mind!). 

But ordering online is a whole other story. If you've been hoarding collecting planners for a while, you will have gone through the heartbreaking process of receiving a planner you bought online, opening it up, and seeing a big 'ole gap in the rings. This just isn't cool, and yes it is incredibly disheartening, sometimes there's a little part of you that feels sorry for the planner for not being good enough for your ring standards. But that soon passes when you remember how much money you paid for it, and the fact that your other half thinks you paid half as much as you did (because what they don't know won't hurt them).

Well that's covered the main ones!

One last one which I may have confused you with in this blogpost, is Planners and planners.
A person who plans is called a Planner.
A Planner who plans, uses planners.
You may come across a group of Planners, or a pile of planners.

Planners are both people and objects, I tend to use a capital letter when I'm talking about the person who plans, and a small letter for when I'm talking about the actual object/item that is a planner.

Or did I just confuse you even more? Either way, I'm sure you will get the hang of it!

- Daisy X

* I want to make it clear that these are things I've picked up from being in this community for a couple of years now! These aren't 'official' things, it's just lingo that is very well known and used a lot on a day to day basis in the planning community. 

How I'm using my Fluoro Pink Patent Compact Filofax.

I finally figured out how I am going to use this little beauty! Since I am still in the process of figuring out my planning system (It's almost been a year now, so if you are a newbie planner and feel like your system isn't working, don't worry, there's usually a lot of trial and error but you will eventually get there!). I feel closer now than I have ever been before. But there's still days, sometimes weeks that I just don't pick up a planner.

The planners I pick up on a daily basis are my two work planners. That's my pink textured Kikki-k which I use for all my shops info and plans, then my Paperchase Paint Splodges one which is all my youtube and projects.

I decided to use this as a minimal planner.

The issues I have with both my shops and projects/youtube planners, is the to-do list situation and actually getting goals set, and prioritising what needs to get done ASAP. I always find myself last minute having to get things done, because I've forgotten it needs to be done by a certain date. These things are usually written down in both of my work planners, but I just forget to look.

This is why I thought, having this little compact with just my important lists in, might actually work for me.

This is the first time I've made and used labelled tabs, I'm used to using my circle tabs.

But I wanted this planner to be straight forward and simple to use.

There are four tabs in it, Bullet, To-do's, Moving and Misc.

I feel like it's important to have a Misc tab in any planner. There's always stuff which, when you are out and about you need to quickly jot down, you don't want to sit there and figure out which tab to put it in, you just need it down and safe. Or if you need something temporarily in your planner, say you are going to a doctors appointment and need to bring some information, you can just pop it in the misc tab and then take it out when you get home.

This is why my Misc tab usually has blank paper of all kinds (coloured/lined/grid etc.) and also a top opening pocket/a homemade file, too keep notes or little things in.

I decided to keep the dividers themselves blank, I made them out of thin white card. As you saw in the previous photo, I have a Yellow patterned dashboard at the front.

Figuring out a colour scheme for this planner was always going to be tricky, so instead of choosing multiple pieces of patterned card, and possibly not liking it a few days later. I kept it simple and stuck to black and white!

I really like it, it isn't as distracting and I feel like that is something which is important in this planner, in order for me to get things done.

As far as the inserts I will be adding to this planner go, again I will be keeping things simple (again). I cut and punched a load of plain white paper, I will also be adding some gridded paper to it as well (I've been really into writing on gridded paper recently!).

This is one of the pages from my 'Moving' tab. Obviously moving is extremely stressful, it's something that will be happening in the very near future for me, it's also the first time I will have moved out by myself. So add my daily anxiety, to moving anxiety, I know for sure I'm going to be super exhausted. Which is why I'm trying to jot down the little things that I might be too fuzzy headed to remember when we do move out.

The Bullet section is the Planner is where I hope to try out bullet journaling. It's something I've wanted to try for a while now, I've just not gotten round to giving it a go.

I know there's a specific way to do it, but I'm going to adapt it to how my brain works, and probably tweak some things along the way.

For now I'm going to jot down to-dos in the to-do section, whenever one pops into my head. Then I will expand them in the Bullet section. Working out deadlines, planning etc. Especially for video filming, writing 'film a video' in my to-do's section is all fine and dandy, but some videos need some planning done for them to be created successfully. I also want to have somewhere I can jot down thoughts in an orderly manner. For example, films I want to see, something I want to try making/eating, just the little thoughts that are triggered each day by TV adverts or something someone says!

Anyways, I hope this has maybe given you some ideas on how to use a compact planner, or any sized planner you may want to start using!

Let me know below if you have any questions!

- Daisy X

Fluoro Pink Patent Compact Filofax!

Get your sunglasses out!

I wanted to make this blogpost so I can share some photos of my new Fluoro Pink Patent Compact Filofax, in natural lighting. These photos are raw, taken in daylight, and I haven't edited them at all on my laptop. I'm hoping it give as realistic match to the actual colour as possible.

(In comparison with the Fluoro Pink Original A5 Filofax)

The YouTube video I uploaded, taking a look at the Filofax:

Of course the colour seems to be different in every photo I take, and also it looks different in the video compared to the photos. I have tried so hard to think of the best way to describe it. The best way I can think is, you know that neon pink face paint people wear that kinda glows in ultraviolet light? It's kinda like that, it's so bright it almost feels like it glows haha.

It's bright, very bright. So keep that in mind if you choose to buy it. It will ALWAYS be brighter than it is in photos!

- Daisy X