Lady Falcon Travelers

Last month I didn't feel like overly decorating my diary much. Maybe it's because I've been doing a lot of painting, like the below mermaid.

 

Whatever it is, it left my monthly pages rather bare compared to my usual doodles and stuff.

However I still think it turned out nice. I adore the color of those fall leaves. So I had to glue them in. Not sure though what the best way is to do this. So still looking for tips on that.

At the start of the month we had our 25 year anniversary, so to celebrate that, we had a nice dinner with the kids and they treated us to a movie. We got to pick which one we wanted to see =)

Which obviously had to Blade runner 2049. It was awesome! Beautiful images and magical atmosphere... and of course Harrison Ford...

Painted another mermaid like I painted at the start of the year, but this time I made her in all happy fall colors.

Here they both are. The same but so very different.

I don't even know which one I like best... too hard to choose.

As you can see the decorating in that week was mostly left out, I think I only added some washi at the last moment.

This week I did start out with some decoration, but kept it really plain. I kinda like the way the text starts to get a life of it's own this way.

Still doing my Italian lesson via DuoLingo, although they are all done. I just keep repeating them till I feel I'm able to form a coherent sentence all by myself... but I also started Japanese now, so who knows, I may one day be able to speak Japanese. Although I do think I need an insert just for that, because I just can't remember what sign goes with what.

Recently we got an application by a student for an internship with our company and last week we made it all official and we are now a recognized training company for students learning to be a creative craftsman.

I'm very happy with that. It's always fun to try and teach other people new things and maybe learn a thing or two along the way as well.

This month is going to be NaNoWriMo month, so I'm going to do a lot of writing, probably mostly for my novel. Although I will try and keep you updated about my progress there. Our first intern will start November 13, so all in all it's going to be a very full month and I'm really excited about it.

Signing off for now, have a lovely week,

xoxo Monique

 

Since I decided to join the #onebookjuly challenge, be it in a somewhat adapted format, I've been in my B6 slim planner with all my personal planning and journaling. I've got all my work stuff in my, ever growing, A5 Lady Falcon Business. Making it effectively one book for personal and one book for work.

 

I'm still loving the way this works, although I must admit that my work TN is getting bigger all the time. I keep adding new sections to the notebook. With now 6 inserts in there and a folder with pen-loops, I think maybe it needs some reorganizing.

My Personal B6 slim however is still in it's original format, with a planner insert, a journaling insert and a folder.

and maybe a pocket here and there.

Here they are together, with my July, August, September diary on top. Which is now full and will be filed away.

I like doodling my way through the monthly pages, with here and there some things to remember.

Which in a way is what I also do in the weekly view, with a small list to the right side and keeping track of what we had for dinner. However I did make a change to the new diary this time.

Not directly to the monthly-weekly combination, but to the last pages in the diary. With 3 months in there, there's plenty of room to add a bullet journal in the back. which is what I used to do. Before I started using my A5 for work, this bullet journal section would fill up pretty quickly.

However it turns out that I'm now using my A5 more and more for bullet journaling and my personal bullet journal doesn't really fill up anymore.

I hate having empty pages in my booklets, so I thought I'd try something different. I added some future log pages for 2018 to the file, a dated budget tracking section followed by some extra pages for my bullet journal.

This way I still have room for my personal bullet journal pages, but I can also keep track of our expenses in the same diary and won't need an extra TN for that... You can find the file for this B6 slim diary in my Free Files folder. You can find the current link for that here.

Still making a mess as you can see, but I'm guessing that won't change, that's just me sitting on the couch chillin' and fussin' around with my planner. I doubt that I will ever plan or think out my lay-outs beforehand. I'm having too much fun doing it like this.

I did try another new thing with the current planner, fixed side tabs. Since I now have 3 extra sections in the planner, I thought it was nice to have tabs to the side, so I can flip to them quickly. I like how it looks, but I'm still a bit on the fence about them sticking out the way they do. We'll see how they fare.

As you can see, my work planner has all kinds of tabs sticking out as well. Those however are removable tabs and constantly get moved to the current page. They are quite plain, but they do the job and get me where I need to go fast.

I did make a note to do a blogpost on my work TN's setup with the timetracking insert and bullet journal and all work related stuff, however there won't be many pretty pictures, because that is pure and straightforward tracking, list-keeping and lots of fast writing, lol.

I also made the timetracking insert for a smaller size though, personal size, just to see if that was possible. I made it available as a freebee. If you would like to try it out these last 3 months of the year, feel free to download the file and please do let me know what you think of it.

So there we have it, another month has passed, we had a winner last week for the Instagram Fall Setup photo contest, our Fall Special is still running and we're all on track with our orders, I might even have time to join NaNoWriMo this coming November... who knows... I may need a new TN for that though... ;-)

Hope you're having a great time as well.

xoxo Monique

 

The first half of last month we were on holiday, so I didn't get round to taking any before pics. Besides, not a lot of planning was done during the holiday. Which really is not a problem, since I use my personal planner more as a kind of memory keeper. With snippets of every day stuff. Which is sometimes hard, because when you work from home and work all day every day and your idea of a holiday is to snuggle up somewhere with a book, there's not a lot to tell.

 However I do try to keep up with it and think of something to add every day, because I like the way it looks and feels. I doodle my way through the monthly pages, like you see in the above image. Although this time I also felt like adding some pictures. I'm quite happy with how that turned out.

I usually start my weekly's with transferring any tasks that haven't been checked  off from last weeks to-do list to their appropriate places and then decorate a little.

Not too much mind you, because I want to leave room to add things as the week progresses.

The above week was done on holiday and since I brought out the mini printer I was able to add some pics right then and there.

I also like to add what we ate each day. Not for memory keeping purposes, at least not for the long run, but so that when we have to decide what to eat each day, I can look back in my diary. That way I know that, no we can't have pizza today, we had pizza 3 days ago... Because I forget, I do, my brain just doesn't have the room to store that information.

I also like to mark which movie's or TV series we watched or what books I'm reading. Although I only read a lot on holiday. When I'm back home I only get to read about 10' or so before bed, so one 800 page book takes me about 2 months to finish. But I do keep track of them.

I have a list/ miscellaneous insert in my Regular size TN, but haven't got one in my B6 slim and I find I am missing it a bit, so maybe I should go and take out my trusty Red Dragon again... If only to keep my lists.

I also started learning the Italian language with an app called Duolingo and am keeping track of that. I find that when I'm trying to create new habits it works great to just have a place to remind me to do it everyday (or however often you like to do it, or not do it ;-) ). Just one tiny little check-box is all it takes. After a while I don't need the check boxes anymore, it will have become a part of my daily routine. At which point I can just leave them out.

Anyway, there you have it, my last months planner  pages. Not a lot to tell, but still they all got filled in the end, adding one little bit every day.

Maybe you too, like me feel like there's not much to tell everyday... Just keep in mind that you're the only one that judges what should and shouldn't go in your planner, or journal for that matter. It doesn't matter how big or small the events or thoughts are. You fill the pages for you and by adding one little bit at a time it'll fill up in no time =)

I hope you enjoyed this and wish you all a lovely week,

xoxo Monique

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

So in keeping with what I promised in my last post I have another update on my planner last month. Still a messy planner, but it gets the job done and it makes me happy to flip through the pages.

Starting off with the finished June monthly spread, filled mostly with doodles, because I don't like empty spaces. Mostly used to keep track of birthdays and as a quick overview for appointments.

Not a lot of appointments though, since I work from home. My weekly's don't have a lot of appointments either and I mostly use them as a place for little reminders of what I did that day.

and a list with things to do on the right side of the page.

Sometimes I doodle or draw something. Mostly because I like the look of that and I find it relaxing to do.

Often I prep my pages at the start of the week, but not always. As you can see in the above photo and since I make and post the photo's on Monday evening to the Lady Falcon Traveler's Notebooks group , I had to take a pic of a almost completely empty WOTP spread this week.

Back on track the next week and started my decorations nice and early on Sunday evening.

June is always a month with a lot of Birthdays, my own being one of them, but my most favorite is my son's birthday, my (not so) little blond Teddy bear.  This year there were even more festivities, because he also graduated and will be off to University next year to study Math and Physics, but for now he has off from school and is helping us a little with the shop.

For this month I've switched notebooks, because I decided to take part in the #onebookjuly challenge, after something a lady in one of the Facebook groups said about it not having any rules and that it could also be one book per purpose...so that's what I did, but that'll be for another post.

Going from at least 5 planning and journaling Notebooks, to just the 2 you see on the right. Quite happy with how it's working out so far.

Have a lovely weekend,

xoxo Monique

I have this list with things I want to blog about, but really not a lot of time to write lengthy blogs. Running a small business can be quite time consuming and your work is really never done. Working 10-12 hour days every day with all the worries that go with owning a small business, which is really a story for a blogpost all on it's own, writing a blogpost is not something that has the highest priority.

However I decided that a post doesn't have to be a 1000 words. A few words and a few pics can make a nice post as well. So that's what I'm going to try.

In my Facebook group I post something every day. I have figured out that having a # hashtag with a subject in it, works for me to keep me on track and help me with the content for the posts.

On Monday's I make posts with #MyPlannerMonday, which is basically just a post with my last week and my next week views. Nothing fancy, just my messy planner pages. With once a month my monthly pages.

 

Somehow I feel that alone would not make for a great blogpost, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

That's why I thought, it would be nice to do an overview blogpost with all the before and after pics of the last month. So here goes,  the last month was May...

Apparently I didn't like what I did at first, so the final pages don't have any stamping on.

As you can see my planner is a hot mess of to-do's and other stuff mixed in together.

Especially since I work from home, I really don't have many things planned that require me to plan them in my weekly.

I still like using a weekly, since sometimes there are things that have a specific date and time attached.

Next to this I also use a bullet journal as an adapted Getting Things Done system and that is working great. Even though the list seems really long at times. I can see I'm still getting things done and can cross them off my list.

Yet another thing to cross off my list and on to the next one.

Have a great week everyone,

xoxo Monique

 

 

During last month's workshop I made an A5 notebook cover, which I'm now using as my work planner. Yesterday we had another workshop and since I prefer to show, not tell, what the steps are to make a Notebook cover, I made another notebook. This time I decided to go for a size I didn't have yet, A B6 Slim. So now I have all the sizes, A5 and smaller, except B6 ISO. The notebooks I have lined up here, are not all notebooks I have... And not all of them in this line-up are in use at the moment. The notebook in the pic below is is the B6 Slim in Mahogany from yesterday's workshop. I do tend to keep the notebooks I make during workshops. Since I'm mostly focused on what's going on around me, talking a lot, keeping my eyes on what the participants are doing and whether I should aid in any way and not so much thinking about the notebook I'm making.  As proven by the above picture, where I wasn't paying attention an thoughtlessly placed my cover onto a wet cloth for quite some time, while I was chatting away and explaining things to the group. So it now has these watermarks on the back of the cover. Which, really, I don't mind that much. I even think they are quite pretty and inspired me use this cover as a watercolor and sketch book. Another problem solved, because while I do like to have all the notebook sizes (and all the colors), it's not possible to use them all at once. From left to right in the above pic, there are

• A5 work planner
• Large Moleskine Cahier (LMC) daily journal and doodle book
• Regular size (RS) Little Red Dragon, personal planner
• B6 Slim, Mahogany, watercolor and sketch book
• Personal size (PS), custom red, currently not in use
• A6, natural color, daily quick sketches and quotes
• Fieldnotes/Pocket size (FN), Black Raven, for keeping track of online orders (which I've moved into my workplanner only last week)
• Passport size (PP), painted lady, with my passport
• A7 litlle black wallet, with cards and coins (still need to replace the cinnamon wallet insert to a black one, because I'm silly that way and like to match colors)

The only one I'm missing now, size wise is a B6 (ISO) one, but I figure with a new workshop coming up in October, I think I can wait till then, ... unless of course I find a reason why I really do need another notebook before then. Do you have more than one notebook/planner in use at once and if so does each have a different purpose? Let me know in the comments below =) If you are interested in following a workshop, you can always ask for information through the workshop page There are 2 different types of workshops and the one in October will be hand sewing pockets onto the leather like the one we did yesterday. This is how we started out... And this is what we ended up with...   We also have plans to do a planner meet-up in the coming months. This will be an informal meet-up with all notebook and planner enthusiasts, just to talk planners and notebooks and journaling and wot-not, just for fun and to show off all your pretty notebooks. More about this will be coming here in the following weeks. I hope you all have a lovely Sunday xoxo Monique

I get that question a lot: How many inserts does your Traveler's Notebook hold. Specially when talking about a Regular sized Traveler. I always feel a little lost with this question, because I know there is no straight forward answer. It all depends on the thickness of the inserts. That's why I thought I would write a blog post about it and try to show you what I mean. I do have a standard respons, because generally speaking this is what it comes down to. However it all depends on the inserts. I Usually say, my Regular Size (RS) cover allows for 3-4 inserts, that's booklets, folders and such and my XL RS, being 20 mm wider, will allow for 6-8 inserts. However, like I said, it all depends on the inserts, not all inserts are the same. You have your folders, plastic zipper pouches, leather wallet inserts and booklets. Now most things are fairly straight forward and it is clear that a folder will get thicker when you put stuff in it and so does a zipper pouch. A leather insert has a thickness of it's own and mostly that seems to be clear. It's the booklets that cause the confusion. Not all booklets are equal...there's even a difference between a booklet that hasn't been written in and one that is full. This is something you should take into account when looking for inserts. Also my inserts, the Falcon Files, are about 60 pages. Looking around on Etsy and elsewhere, I have found most inserts are about 40 pages. Fieldnotes booklets are 48 pages. Midori inserts and Moleskine cahiers have about the same number of pages as my Falcon Files. This all makes it difficult to compare. So I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to give you a real life example. My own Regular size Traveler. This is my Little red Dragon, my journaling TN at the end of December 2015 and all inserts are full. I have a leather wallet insert, A Midori Plastic zipper pouch, with stuff, A journaling insert, the Arrows dot-grid free Falcon File printable, this one is completely full, A folder with pen-loops, decorated as time passed and with stuff...stickers, bills etc. My miscellaneous booklet, been with me since march 2015, half full, And to show that it really is a wallet that wraps around the inserts, here's the back, with bits and bobs in it. I'm counting 5 inserts in this Traveler. making it rather full, but I still feel it is doable. I've got no inserts sticking out at the end and I can still hold it with one hand. Any more however would not do. Not with these inserts and not when they are full. As you can see in the below picture, a full insert can get rather bigger. This isn't even an insert with lots of photo's and ephemera added in. In the picture below you can see 2 new unwritten inserts. Both have the same amount of pages and both are new, however the middle one is made with Tomoe River Paper. The Tomoe River paper is thinner, making for a thinner booklet. Now since I want to start using the Little Red Dragon as a planner again and keep the personal size as a wallet plus bullet journal, I made 3 new inserts all from Tomoe River paper and added them to the Traveler. Measuring again, these three new inserts replacing the 2 previous inserts now give me a 5 cm high stack...1 cm less then it was before. Now I know with use this will grow again, but for now I'm fine with this. Below you see the new inserts I added. I have to blame Janet for the angels, but I'm pretty chuffed with these covers. The first insert is a modern style MOTP-WOTP combination diary, which is 72 pages. The second is a dot-grid journaling insert, with 60 pages. Followed by the Miscellaneous insert for this year, 64 pages. With birthdays, a Password Tracker conversion tables, a menu planner and an index listing in the back I hope you see what I mean, when I say, there is no simple answer to that simple question. I can say 3-4 inserts, like most do and yes, that would be true....depending on the inserts...and depending on how you plan to use them. I know I will probably be best off with 2 booklets max, or perhaps now, with the Tomoe River paper, 3 max...however those are 5-6 inserts and not 2-3.   I hope you found this informative. Have a wonderful weekend and a fabulous 2016! 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

Á while back I discovered you can paint Leather Travelers Notebooks with acrylic paint, my all time favorite medium. Regular Acrylic paint will work, however special acrylics for leather are better and give a much nicer result.

Since then I have made quite a few Traveler's notebooks that were painted, among which are my painted lady and some nebula's. I tend to show some of the TN's I make in my facebook group, Lady Falcon Traveler's Notebooks and on my instagram, @LadyFalconTN, but somehow seem to forget to post them here...

So without further ado, here's my latest Weir Tree TN. It's an A6 Traveler's Notebook and it has one, larger/older , brother, or sister, in the world =)


These are hand painted and since the leather doesn't take kindly to pencil, I can't sketch it out before hand.


As you can see in the next picture, it's a rough sketch with paint, after which the rest gets painted, slowly building layer after layer.


 I love working like this,


Feeling my way to the final stage.


Trying to capture the light and how it bounces off the tree.


The stars in the sky are an extra challenge =) and usually leave me all starry looking as well.


Here it is next to my own A6 Traveler's Notebook.


And the insert I made to go with it.


I always leave the inside with just the leather dye/stain, because this way I can brush the inside to make it nice and soft and suede like.


Positively pettable =)


The last few pics are from the previous Weir Tree, which is an XL Regular Size, a bit larger.
I would love to see both next to each other someday =)

I hope you enjoyed watching this and I wish you a wonderful weekend.
xx Monique

IG: LadyFalconTN
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Morgan Le Fae's Trinkets

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.