Uglee pen

Like many of you I bet, this is my favorite time of year.  I love to go and check out all the new school supplies.  I look at all of the big box retailers of course, but I also consistently check out the college book store for the University of Iowa.  Iowa Book tends to carry some non-traditional items and they also have a good selection of  Clairefontaine items.

This pen is my most recent addition.  The UgLeePen is definitely a much different type of pen then what I tend to use as it has a 1.4mm tip.  I tend to favor the extremely fine point pens versus this type, although I do appreciate a wide point from time to time, if the ink flow is good.  For example, I had a real love for the old Zebra Tapali retractable pen.  (I couldn't find a great link for it, so this link is just meh.) 

I do a lot of writing/note taking for my job and with journaling, so I thought the comfort grip looked promising.  In the second picture here, notice the little shiny specks?  That is a glitter of sorts, so obviously I had to buy it because I'll buy anything if it comes with glitter.

One thing I will say about the grip is that it is really really squishy.  Now as you read this and think oh, so she means it is pretty squishy....go ahead and times that by about 50 and then you may be approaching the true squishy level of this pen. 

Ooooh Sparkles....

Overall, the pen wrote very nicely.  I thought it performed better than an average ballpoint pen, it certainly was smoother.  It might skip a tiny bit on occasion (see the "S" in sometimes) but overall it gives a consistent performance and the ink flows rather well.  I can see myself using this as my go to pen when I want to write with a wide tip or feel like I am experience some sort of hand fatigue due to too much writing. 

I would definitely recommend this pen for those who write a lot and don't mind a wide tip pen.  I think it is a very nice pen for the price.

Mint green!!

For the past year or so I have been in love with all things mint green/seafoam. I've wanted to paint my bathroom this color, my pedicures are often this color and I'm constantly looking for mint green clothes.  

So it is no surprise that I have a bazillion mint green pens. The lamy is filled with Diamine Soft Mint Green ink, so don't let the lime green barrel fool you. 

Interestingly, the ranges of ink color are very broad. And some range from more of an emerald to light limeish, rather than a true mint. 

My favorites are the Pilot Juice and both sharpies. After I took this picture I found about six more pens that fit this color range. Clearly, I'm mint green crazy. 

The journal is from Urban Outfitters. It is a beautiful color and a very nice, soft leather.  The paper is heavier than moleskine for sure. I haven't done a pen test, but I don't anticipate too many problems.  I know some will love the pen/pencil loop. I won't utilize it, but it does add to the aesthetics of the journal.  I picked it up in a store, but it is still available on the website.  I kind of want to buy another one because I love this one so much. 

Must Buy!

I have discovered a product I absolutely have to have for designing my DIY planner. 

I found this over at www.fallindesign.com.  According to the description, this stamp can be used to make your own phrases and it includes numbers and some punctuation.  I can easily think of at least 50 ways to use this. I think it is interesting that it say this is volume 2, I wonder what vol. 1 was or if it ever existed?

The only thing I don't love about it, is the fact the font is Times New Roman.  If anyone knows of any similar products, please share the link!!

Layouts through August!

I am nearly caught up for the year!  These layouts should take us to almost current.  Then I will just try and post one update per week.

One additional note, I had a comment that the pictures are too small.  Since I am loading these from my phone, I can't seem to adjust them, but I am easily able to use ctrl+scroll on my mouse and make these more than large enough to see more details.  If anyone else is having problems, let me know.

On to the layouts....


I love this layout, there is so much space, but I just really don't have too much going on and I lack the time to properly doodle journal my activities. 

This layout is kind of unique.  I honestly can't remember where I found it.  But it does feature one of the mint green pens I have.  I am in love with mint green right now and would use nothing but mint green if it wouldn't be so boring.  Maybe I need to do one week where everything is in mint green and the various shades of that!

This layout comes from an excel sheet I made several years ago.  I made a friend a planner for Christmas with all different weekly layouts, so I just glued this in.  The yellow and white paper I taped in came from an old Kate Spade notepad I had hanging around.

Same with this layout, a glued in sheet from that same planner.

This week just features some tape and stickers!!

Another glued in sheet from that planner.  The strip of little designs around my to-do list are tiny hippos and not really tape a tape at all. It is the Plus Deco Rush Decoration Pen from jetpens.com. Sadly, it is no longer available. 

Overall, this next week is my favorite so far! The dotted paper is a page I tore out of my smash journal.  I know a ton of people love them, but I wasn't able to make it work for me, so I have been cannibalizing pages form it here and there.  So glued the page in and used two different washi tapes down the side to fill in the gap space and I bit more tape on the top and right side, just for something different.  I used stamps for the days of the week and a sticker for the word August.  Obviously, this is per-decoration, but I wanted to show the page in the empty form.  The currently reading sticker is on a label from some Martha Stewart labels I got at Staples on clearance.

In general, I feel like I almost have more fun designing and creating the layouts than I do decorating them each week.  I have been thinking about taking a blank book and just doing a whole self-made, undated, one of kind, DIY planner for 2014.  If I do that, I might try and sell it on etsy or somewhere like that.  There is no way the money would make up for the time and supplies I put into it, but I love the idea of someone using something I have made.

It would definitely be a giant project and very eclectic, so we will see.  Maybe it wouldn't take as long as I imagine it would.  I'm also worried that by the time I am done making it I wouldn't be able to part with it!  Has anyone else hand designed and sold a completely DIY planner?

More DIY Planner Layouts

Ready for more planner page layouts!  

This first page is not designed by me, it is a printed page from Ahhh Design, so I want to be sure to give credit where credit is due.  Obviously nothing too exciting was happening this week, but I just wanted to illustrate how I use glued in things.

Part of this is an Ahh-Design layout as well.  But the ledger type paper is glued in on top of the Ahh Design page and the little brown squares are cut up stickers that I just wrote the date in on.

This is the facing page.... I really am only sharing this because I LOVE the lettering for "currently reading."

More Washi Tape

I've shown this basic layout before, but the green striped tape is new to this design.

For this week, I found one of those, print all types of paper sites and I think this was a layout for comics or something.  So I just drew some lines on it and glued it in.  Normally I put the weekly layout part on the left, but I switched it this week and put my "notes" page on the left.

Since I do a weekly layout, I have not monthly calendars in the front of the planner.  I could do that, I just don't like taking the time to do 12 months of that.  Plus, I don't think I would really use it.  But this summer I had a lot of stuff coming up each weekend, so I glued in some print outs to help me plan for summer.  These are print outs from Ahhh Design.

DIY Planner Update!!

Well after briefly flirting with tumblr, we have officially called it quits.  I am not going to lie, I have no idea what the heck that thing is about.  Plus, I found a blogger app for my phone too, so it works just as well.

So without further preamble, how about some sample planner pages from the 2013 DIY planner!!  Here are a smattering of different layouts.  I'll try to keep the photos pretty big to show the details.

The circles are from my mini-Spirograph set.  I did them on a different sheet of paper and glued them in.  Dates are stamped in, from a set I purchased.  So this is a two page layout for the first week of January.

I have a giant collection of washi tape at this point, so I am trying to include that more and more.  I use it less for planning purposes and more for decoration.

The dates on this page are from a small DIY calendar section I found at Hobby Lobby, same with the "January" sticker.

More Washi Tape....

The calendar grid on this page was made with a clear/cling stamp, it was part of a "Calendar" set.

For this week I used two sheets of a Rhodia 5x5 dot pad and glued them in.

I tend to use the one week on a page format a lot because it is quick and easy to make.

Wow! I didn't realize I had so many different layouts. Sometimes it is small tweaks, like the dot grid paper and sometimes it seems like there are really big changes from week to week.

For the pens I used in this, it ranges from the giant triplus set, stabilo sets, some copic markers, a few sliccis, hi-tec-c, all types of the uni-signos, zebras and various sakura gelly-rolls.  I would say 99% of what I have used in my planner has been purchased from JetPens.

I have a lot more to post, but I didn't want to post too many pictures at one time and I wanted to make sure I wasn't boring you.  So unless tons of people tell me they are tired of these posts I have more planner pics coming!

New tabs!

Check out these unique tabs by Semikolon that I bought at the container store! 

Love them! Now I need a good white ink pen.

Today's Jet Pens Delivery!

Although today was a typical, awful Monday, I did have one great surprise awaiting me at the end of a long day.  My latest shipment from JetPens arrived!  I am in love with anything colored Mint Green right now, hence the three mint inks below.  It is kind of funny just how much variation there is within the ink colors, but more on that another time. 

The three mint pens together... (I do have a holder the Kuratake Refill but the current refill is firmly stuck in there.  Any tips on how to swap them out without damaging the refill or the holder is appreciated.)

Tip of Pilot Super Petit.  I think I will like these pens for journaling, mostly.

I also purchased some fabric tape that was on clearance and a glue pen.  I normally use the glue dots that come in the little plastic thing like white out tape. I am interested to see if this causes rippling on the page.  I have had trouble with liquid glue doing that in the past and then have always thrown it away.

I am excited to try the fabric tape, I plan to use it in my next set of planner pages.

Updates to DIY Planner!

Two surprising things....
1. I have finally taken some updated photos of my DIY planner
2. I have posted the pictures on tumblr
 
I have never used tumblr before and have been trying to figure out exactly how to use it.  It is still a mystery, but I do like how easy it is to post directly from my phone. So far that has been great, but the biggest down side is that I have no idea on how to get the most of out it.  Or how to get people to see what I have posted.

In an effort to not duplicate posting photos, how about I just include a link to tumblr....

School Supply Dance on tumblr!

The planner is still set up with different layouts each week.  This is basically January and February.  I haven't done as much doodling in it as in previous years because I have less time.  But I try to keep it colorful and different each week.

Let me know what you think!