Perfect punching for A5s

Well hello there gang!

On Saturday night, my hubby went on a VERY rare night out with some friends.  The next thing I knew, he was falling down the stairs at 2am.  After that, I couldn't get to sleep until after 4am so naturally, on Sunday, I was like a zombie and really didn't fancy doing anything too taxing.  So I decided to have a go at setting up my A5 raspberry Chameleon Filofax.  Well, punching some paper for it anyway.  The 'setting-up' part will come later when I've woken up again...

My A5 raspberry Chameleon

I've had my A5 since about July this year but the school holidays involved lots of entertaining my six year old daughter and once she was back at school, I increased my working days by an extra day.  So all in all, I just haven't had the time (or the inclination really) to get it sorted.  I obviously didn't need an A5 Filofax very much did I!!!  Oh well.  It would be rude not to complete my collection - I have at least one of each size available now!  Which is extremely important as I know with absolute certainty that all you Filofax fans will understand completely.

Anyway, some of you may remember Ray's post here about lined paper that was a good alternative to Filofax paper because it's so much cheaper.  I've been after some for a while now but every time I went to get some, the shelf was empty (another reason I've only just got round to giving my A5 some attention!).  So last week, I popped in to Staples and they actually had some!  I bought two packs of two Eco-Friendly Writing pads (with perforated pages) from Staples at £2 per pack (I would put a link here but it doesn't seem to be available on their website for some strange reason).  So that's 160 pages for £2.  Compare that to Filofax lined A5 paper which is £2.75 for just 25 sheets!!!  Wow - what a saving these Staples pads are!

£2 for 160 sheets from Staples - bargain!

Anyway, I've had a bit of experience with punching these pads before.  My hubby uses an A5 Filofax for work and he made his own very fancy day-per-page time management diary pages (that's another post for me to do...) and he used my punch to punch them, as well as these pads which I bought him on Ray's recommendation.

I use a Rapesco Adjustable Diary Punch 66-P which you can currently buy from Amazon for £10.48.  You can use this punch for mini, pocket and personal sized paper, but as many of you will know, with a bit of 'jiggery-pokery', you can also use it for A5 pages too.

Here comes the jiggery-pokery!

Basically, you pull the punch holes apart as if you were going to use it to punch personal pages.  You hold the paper in your left hand with the margin down the right.  Put the punch at the top and punch the first three holes with the bottom of the punch.  Then move the punch down to the bottom and punch the other three holes using the top of the punch.  Easy right?  Yeah...

It's not difficult to do, but you do need to make sure you're punching the holes in the right place, otherwise they won't fit on your rings properly and that will make you swear very loudly.  Not that I would do that because I'm a lady.  Yes that's right, a lady.

Now I may be preaching to the converted here, but in case you're new to punching A5 Filofax paper, this is what I did...

I took a piece of dark Filofax paper (green in this case) and put it on top of 7 pages of my Staples lined paper (the Rapesco punch can punch no more than 8 pages at a time).  Then I took the plastic bottom off the punch and put the cellophane I took from the pads on the floor to catch all the holes.  When I punched the holes (as described above), I used the hole punch upside down so I could see exactly where I needed to punch the holes.

Green sheet on the top, 7 white ones underneath.

A clearer shot for your inspection!

Here you can see exactly how it works.  You know where to punch because all you should be able to see through the holes of the hole punch is white, instead of green.

So because I used the dark paper as a guide over the top of the white paper, all my holes were punched in exactly the correct place, quickly and easily.

I really need to do a video but hell will freeze over before I do something as horrifying as that!!!  Maybe I could do a demonstration at the Philofaxy North-West meet-up on 1st December???  Let me know if this idea appeals and if so, I'll bring what I need along with me.  It's not rocket science but sometimes a little demonstration can make all the difference!

While at Staples, I also bought a pack of A5 Multiuse 80gm paper (£4 for 500 sheets) for my printer.

A5 printer paper from Staples, £4 for 500 sheets.  Bargain!

My intention is that I'm going to make some of my own templates for my A5 at some point in the near future (I've got plenty of pocket and personal sized templates that I've done myself but nothing for A5).  But that's another post!  I wonder if it'll be 2014 before I get round to making them... ;-)

Lucy x



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Bargain Filofaxes & Filofax diaries - what a savvy shopper!

Hello all!

 

Well I had a most pleasant experience in Staples this morning.

 

Last night, I spent the evening frowning at the fact that my handbag is quite heavy, due to my Finsbury compact.  I blogged about my setup here.  I really really love it; the diary is a great size for me to put all my appointments, reminders and to dos in and I can see it all a week at a time.  It’s not even stuffed to the gills really . . . although it is reasonably full.  But it’s just . . . heavy.  So whilst I definitely don’t have planner fail, I am thinking that I am approaching Filofax Fail!  I’m really gutted.  It’s a shame they don’t make Dominos in a compact size because they are very light.  That would probably solve my problem!  I have seriously considered getting a slimline which could potentially work, but they are all either too expensive or too dull!  There’s no way on this earth I would use a black or brown Filofax.  My only options would be a red Amazona or a damson/magenta Adelphi.  And they’re as rare as hens’ teeth, at a reasonable price anyway!

 

Regardless, I digress.  All this ‘heaviness’ got me thinking about reverting to one of my pocket Filofaxes - not something that I really wanted to do.  I totally loved my aqua Finsbury but it’s a bit battered and faded now, and it's not the lightest one I have.  I also have a violet Domino and a raspberry Chameleon.  The Chameleon is quite light and has smaller rings (15cm I think) so I thought about slimming down my inserts and putting just what I need in there.  I thought what I’d try was using six months’ worth of ‘week per page’ inserts (for appointments and time-specific reminders) together with a month’s worth of dailies as well for my ‘to dos’ and more detailed information.  And I’d also use my pocket templates without dividers – just put them all behind one divider.

 

My next task – to have a good rummage through all my Filofax paraphernalia and find a 2012 ‘week per page’ pocket diary.  FAIL.  Oh dear.  So, after some surfing on t’interweb, I found one here at Staples.  For 42p!!!  Yes, you did read that right.  So in my basket it went, only to discover to my horror that the total price including VAT and delivery came to £5.70!!!  Well stuff that for a game of soldiers.

 

Then I remembered.  A while ago (January I think), I decided to buy a label maker.  It was about £12 (ish) on the Staples website but I didn’t want to pay for delivery when I have a Staples just down the road from me.  So I went to the store only to find the exact same make was over £30!  Needless to say, I queried this and they checked out their website to confirm what I was saying.  I ended up paying the price quoted online and I went home with a very large smile on my face!

 

So, this morning, my cogs were whirring.  I wanted to try a new setup but didn’t want to shell out much money in case I didn’t like it and it didn’t work for me.  I was going to have that diary for 42p, come hell or high water!  Off I trekked to Staples and found the diary in question.  At £3.75!  Blimey they are cheeky.

 

I found a very nice man who could help me and explained my dilemma.  After lots of searching on their website (he clearly didn’t have as much experience as me when it came to searching for Filofax products on the net . ..), he found the product in question at the grand total of 50p.  (Their prices obviously included VAT.)  He looked rather horrified at the low price but checked it out with his manager and said I could have it for 50p!  (I wasn’t going to argue for the sake of 8p . . .)

 

So, I handed my 50p over to the lovely lady at Staples and left with, yet again, a very large smile on my face.

 

The moral of the story?  If you don’t ask, you don’t get.  Or, it pays to ask.  Next time you want to buy something from Staples, check the product out online first and take a printout of it with you when you visit the shop.  You could save yourself some decent wonga!

 

P.S. – While I’m on the subject of Staples, they currently have the London Olympics Filofaxes at rock-bottom prices, starting from a fabulous £5.63!!!  Wow!  Check them out here.

 

If you want one at the price online, take a printout of the item with you in case it’s more expensive in the shop.  I believe that they have to sell it to you at the price quoted online.  It certainly worked for me!






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