Lady Falcon Travelers

my holiday planning and journaling was virtually non existent this year. I had all the right intentions and all the right tools. I even made  a new junk journal to take with me in case the old one would run out.... but it was just to hot to do anything except take a few notes along the way so I could catch up when I was back home.

 

Which is what I did this week in between doing all the holiday laundry and putting away all the camping gear.

It was a bit of a shock to come back from 30+ degrees Celsius to about 20 degrees and rain, but I did get to sit outside with my collected stuff and fill in all the gaps.

Added some pictures...

And of course pretty washi tapes...

I did do some writing while on holiday, but not nearly as much as I am used to.

Nor did I write it all chronologically per day, but rather just wrote what came to mind and tried to remember the day. Also decided to keep a list of the books I was reading and made a note in the diary of start and end date of reading the books.

I had some papers already smashed in there when I made the booklet, so that was nice to work with, setting the tone for the spread.  These were the last pages I wrote while on holiday...the rest I did at home.

As you can see, I apparently wasn't paying much attention, because I used a picture twice. The last one was printed at home with a regular photo printer and the previous one was printed with a mini travel printer.

Added a few ephemera along the way and figured that I was done when the booklet was full.

This was my first time using my regular journal for holiday journaling and apart from the fact that 38 degrees Celsius is not a good temperature to write, I liked it. Although I think I probably would have written more had there been more pages left in the booklet. As it is I stopped because I didn't want to write the rest in a separate booklet. Which is fine really...

So now the booklet is full and I've replaced it with the new junk journal and will continue writing is this one. No smashing of random papers and stuff this time, although I might still do that at some point. For now it's just 5 different types of paper to write on.

Still happy with my Mahogany B6 slim and really enjoying the way it develops a patina. A few scratches on the cover from being dragged around with me, but I think it adds to the charm.

So at the moment I have in here, a 3 month diary, MOTP-WOTP and added notes papers for bullet journaling, a folder with stuff and my junk journaling insert. All kinds of stuff stuck into the pockets, both in the TN and in the inserts. It's chunky, but not too chunky and feels nice to handle. Looking forward to seeing the patina develop even further.

I'm still on a break this week, which is why I'm still not much on the interwebs. I'll be fully back at work come next Monday, but will start to pick up some things, like messages and Facebook, this weekend.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

xoxo Monique

At the start of the year I made a set-up video of my planner at that moment. Now after 4 months into the system I'm still loving the current set-up. Although I did make some changes along the way. One change was the addition of a daily pages planner, which I use mainly for daily doodles and quotes. The other one is the recent addition of an A5 planner to keep track of how I spend my time during the day. Especially with a home based business it's hard to realize some time for Family and personal stuff. I hope with this new time management and time tracking system to be able to get a better grip on where and how I spend my time and in a way, to convince myself that it is ok to take some personal time every now and again. Today I made 2 video's. The first with a flip-through of my weekly and daily planner inserts and my journaling insert and the other with the new A5 work planner and the time tracking insert, which is basically a vertical week on 4 pages insert, with stylized time bar. (Still looking for a name for the system). You can find the flip-through here https://youtu.be/waz-CFLeeXA And the A5 work planner with time-management insert here https://youtu.be/TlCTW2pm_U0 Once I have tested the time-management system I will add it to the available inserts we have available through the shop. For now, after just one week of trying it out, I can say that I'm really happy with how it's working and the division between planning and tracking is really nice. It show exactly how you can plan things for the day and then life happens and in the end something else happened entirely. It also helps me to see that I spend too much time on the job and not enough time with my family, which, of course is a risk you run by owning a home based business. I'm really hoping the system will help me not only to plan better, by identifying the things that interfere with the planning, but also to help me create more time for my family. After all, when you can see that you already put in a 10 hour day, it's easier to say, "ok enough for the day, time to do something else".  Where I might otherwise just have gone on, because I lost track of time... The 2 colors pen also help identify the personal time and the work time. For now I do it all with Frixion pens, but who knows I might become confident enough in the future to switch back to fountain pens, I already have the brown and orange ink for it... I'm pretty happy with the current lay-out. It's nice and clean, it has a visual representation of the day, with the larger stripes on the midday section and has a practical bar to the right side to track the actual time spent. The left side, the planning side is smaller, since I think I can manage the planning with key words, whereas I probably need more room to the right, tracking side, for any notes or larger descriptions of the things that have passed. Hope you enjoyed watching the video's with me rambling about planners. Please let me know what you think in the comments, or maybe when you think of a catchy name for the tracking system. Have a lovely week, xoxo Monique

In my last blogpost I referred to my suitcase with Traveler's Notebook inserts.... This suitcase belonged to an aunt of my mother and she took it with her on every trip she took. She loved Traveling. However the suitcase is now not very practical anymore and I wouldn't want it to get damaged from traveling. With that in mind and my collection of Traveler's Notebook inserts and other journals that I've been keeping and collecting over the years, I thought it very fitting that they should stay in the suitcase.   So here it is, a short but picture heavy post. These are by no means all the inserts and journals I have, some live on shelves others in drawers and I have quite a few Traveler's keeping inserts as well But here we are, a few booklets in a suitcase from somewhere in the 1950-60s It's been around a bit and so have some of the inserts in it. I do like the look of this colorful chaos The suitcase is mostly closed to keep the booklets from gathering dust. But I sometimes open it to look through it Mostly for no reason at all. Maybe just browse through a few, get a feel of the paper. Remember some things and some people. And gather ideas that got lost in time, buried under layer upon layer of days going into months going into years.... I wish I could keep every memory alive all the time, but I can't and that's OK. I have my suitcase and every now and again I can take a little peek at them. I would love to know what you use to keep your notebooks, let me know in the comments =) Have a great week. xx Monique    

It's been rather a busy few weeks these past weeks. To relax a little I like to work in my art journal. At the moment I have 2 art-journal Travelers. One is Regular size and the other is A5. Today I want to share with you my oldest TN in use. It looks lovely, marked with all things life has thrown at it. Still as strong as ever. It's the same saddle leather I usually use, maybe even a little thinner. Its lovely brown glow does not come from any dye, well apart from the acrylic and ink add-on's....It's just oiled veg tan leather... It has been in constant use for over 2 years. First as my husbands work TN, but from the moment he switched to A5 I claimed this one as mine. I made a few more like this back then, "oil dyed" and with the closure coming from the back in stead of the spine....wonder what they look like by now. As you can see the art journal TN cover has the tannery stamp with the size of the hide and as luck would have it...it spells Joy! And a joy it is working in this one! I'm definitely still very happy with it, even after these 2 years have gone by. As you can see, my original bookmark has now almost completely shredded. Wonder what happened to it. However this gave me a reason to add 2 extra bookmarks with beads and now it all looks happy again. I use it as an art-journal and currently also have 1 full journaling insert in there, because I'm not ready to retire that one to "the suitcase" yet... I will probably do that once the new insert is almost full... Don't worry, photo's of "the Suitcase" will follow in one of the coming posts...=) Around the Art-journal I have a little folder, with some extra bits and some freezer paper to put between wet pages, to stop them from sticking. My art journal insert is nearly full... just a few backgrounds to dabble with left and a few empty pages.... almost time for a new one.... probably a junk journal again because I like the haphazardly way those inserts are made and the fact that all pages are different. I love making those inserts and have made quite a few over the past years. Also make for a great way to use up all those drop sheets used to protect the table top from getting covered in ink and paint. Although I like having a little paint on my table... Anyway, I'm ready again to tackle the rest of the year. Do you currently have an art-journal? I would love to see yours. Have a wonderful week, xx Monique  

Last year I made several Traveler's Notebooks using a masking technique. I knew the technique very well from my art journaling and since I hadn't seen anyone use this on leather I thought I would give it a go. My goal was to get a lighter lettering (or other) onto the notebook. Up to then I had only been able to get darker images into the leather using stamps. The masking would allow me to keep parts lighter (like this). The masking technique worked fabulous and I bought a silhouette portrait to explore the possibilities of this further. Somehow live got in the way, with my job, combined with the Etsy Shop and family life... the machine just sat there gathering dust.... (so sad) However now that I've quit my job to make TN's full time and my sister in law's birthday (a huge star trek fan) was coming up, I forced myself to MAKE IT SO ... I did some tests on my black TN and in my diary and after I received the approval of my family, I went ahead and made the turquoise "live Long and Prosper" TN for her. This time i wasn't after the light lettering on dark, because I wanted to be able to sprinkle stars around the Enterprise However the technique and the stencil made by the silhouette, allows for both. I just happened to like this way The Vulcan lettering I found online and I made a tiny effort to be able to read it.... But I have to admit... I failed horribly! But it looks cool, even if you can't read it. Made a few inserts for her to get her started. Making the notebook, nice and chunky from the get-go. She has 3 bookmarks in there The notebook cover is the Large Moleskine Cahier size (LMC) and so is the quotes booklet inside... Star trek quotes of course... The booklet is available in the Lady Falcon Traveler's Notebook Facebook group. We will soon reach a 1000 members and a give-away will follow =) Join us if you like to be eligible for the give-away..... It's a great group with great people! Who knows maybe the give-away will be one like this... Not sure yet, but I love how it turned out! My husband liked the template with the Enterprise so much...I decided to add the smaller test mask to his XL Passport wallet.. I do believe he's happy with it. Now on to do some more experimenting with my silhouette, now that I have overcome my fear of the machine...time to make some stickers and templates and wotnot. I hope you enjoyed this. Have a wonderful week. xx Monique If you like to see more Traveler's Notebooks and or inserts you can follow me here: Facebook Group: Lady Falcon Traveler's Notebooks Facebook page: Morgan Le Fae's Trinkets IG: LadyFalconTN Flickr: Traveler's Notebooks Etsy: MorganLeFaesTrinkets

A year has passed since I made my first leather Traveler's Notebook and I've been using this sytem now for well over a year.

I've been making my own diaries and inserts right from the start and have adapted the system to suit my needs. I've used several different lay-outs and setups through-out this period, but I think I have now found a setup that works exactly how I like it.


I have 4 RS TN's for different purposes, one for work, one for art journaling, one for my Etsy store and one personal journal and diary/agenda. I also have a Fieldnotes sized TN for lists and keeping track of online orders and a small Passport sized one that I use as a wallet.

At first I used a setup with a MOTP, a WOTP and a daily diary with a chronodex adaptation to fit a 24 hr day. As time progressed and I was slowly overcoming the symptoms of my burn-out, I found I didn't need a full daily page to keep track of what I was doing. I did however want to keep at least a page per week.

 ___Warning, picture heavy post___

 I didn't like how everything was in seperate booklets and wanted to contain it all into one. So I designed a diary that would do all that, the MOTP, the weekly and a page per week for tasks and stuff.


 This month I tried this setup out after having tested it for my work diary.


Here's the MOTP, which is followed by the weekly pages.

I felt the boxes were to dark, so for the new template I made the boxes thinner/lighter...but I'll have to wait till the new year comes around to use the new template...no sense wasting a perfectly good diary, right?


The first week I kept fairly simpel. Used a fountain pen with pink ink, bought originally for my daughter, but I think I'm going to keep it =)


Now I'm pretty sure these pictures are not very interesting for anyone who isn't interrested in diaries and planning and such.


Still, I thought I'd add them, just to give the complete picture ;-)


And who knows you might like this setup, in which case these pictures may give you an impression about how this can be used.


Now we've come to the next month and a few things are already entered in there, among other things, my 22nd wedding anniversary ;-)


As you can see, the monthly pages go before the weekly.

To keep the weeks from splitting I decided to place the monthly pages in front of the week where the thursday was in the new month. Like the way we decide wether the first day of the new year is also in the first week of the new year...


When I feel I don't have enough space or, like in this case, I want something I can move to another page/week, I use tip-ins with washi.


At the end of the booklet I pasted a list with tried and tested menu ideas...in case we run out of things to think of for dinner.


to the right I pasted a list with dutch holidays.

I mark those on the last pages as well, since these are yearly overviews.


In this TN I also have a Midori zipper pouch.


A home made file folder with pen-loops.


A Midori card file.


And a journaling booklet.


Which will be full tonight...


I won't show pictures of the journaling booklet in this blogpost, since this one is picture heavy enough as it is.


I like decorating my booklets, but I'm not prone to using any one style...


I just use whatever I feel like.


Or even whatever I bump into at the time on my desk...


There's a little elephant, an oister I bought from a friend's shop and the remaining wings of a fairy I got in a swap last year...honestly, it was a fairy. It broke off, but as a reminder of the kindness of the person who sent it, I keep the wings on there ;-)

I hope you liked my boring diary pages anyhow and I wish you a lovely week.

Since the beginning of this year (march 2014) I've been involved in a project where people from all around the world share snippets of their life in a Traveler's Notebook. For a brief period of time they will host one of the projects Traveler's Notebooks and capture their every day lives into the notebooks, with whatever medium they feel comfortable with. Be it writing, drawing, painting, photography or a combination of any of the above, anything goes. A facebook group has been created for the group and many joined for the first trip around the world. Since there are so many people in the group, several subgroups have been cerated and each group has its own Traveler's Notebook. I made 2 Traveler's Notebooks and inserts as a contribution to the project and coordinate both groups these travel within. These traveler's have departed for the USA on april 14th 2014 for their first stop and continued their journey around the world from there on. Some of the pictures of these travelers have been shared on Flickr and on Facebook. I will try and get more pictures gathered there. There are also pictures on Instagram (#TravelingDori). Last week one of the traveler's came home after its first trip around the world and I was at awe. Its so wonderful to see all the contributions in the book, all those pieces of life from all around the world. To read about them, see their photo's and feel their art and heart. So I made a little video, yesterday evening, which doesn't do it justice at all, but will give a little impression of the Traveler. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/v/Yyluxez5j08?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata[/embed] I named him Mîr Ardhon (Treasure World) derived from Tolkien's Elvish: LEND MÎR OS ARDHON journey ◈ *lend S. [lˈɛnd] (lenn- S.) n. journey ← lenn-mbas PM/404, X/ND1 treasure ◈ mîr S., N. [mˈiːr] n. jewel, precious thing, treasure ◇ Ety/373, LotR/E, S/434, PM/348, LB/354, RGEO/73 around ◈ os- N. [ɔs] pref. about, around ◇ Ety/379 world ◈ ardhon S. [ˈɑrðɔn] n. augm. of ardh, 1. Geog. great region, province ○ 2. by ext., world ← Calenardhon S/386, PM/348 ◈ gardh S. [gˈɑrð] n. 1. Geog. bounded or defined region ○ 2. by ext., world ◇ WJ/402 He's huge compared to my daily TN.   I'm barely able to hold him with one hand =) It's a pleasure to flick trhough all these wonderful colorful pages. The first notebook is now filled completely. The second one has still room to play. The Junk journal insert I made has room to play as well. And so does the last notebook. Ready for another trip around the world in round 2 of this awesome project. This week it's my turn to add to the colorful and lively pages. Looking forward to that. Round 2 of the project will be open to new members, so if you're interested check out the group on facebook. I hope you enjoyed this and I wish you a wonderful weekend.