Renaissance Art leather and paper samples

Renaissance Art has a huge variety of types and colors of leathers to choose from for their Moleskine and Custom leather covers.

There is a thicker, more rustic leather that is available in black or brown, and a thinner sleeker leather that comes in loads of colors. All of these are shown below:

Here are The Browns. The colors are, starting top left, Distressed Rustic Brown, Rustic Brown, British Tan. Bottom row at left is Flight Jacket, and bottom right is Molasses (which I reviewed a cover made from, click here to see).

Below are the back sides of these same samples, with the name labels showing.

Here are what I call The Deeps. Top left is Black and top right is Rustic Black, which is thicker.

Bottom row from the left are Twilight Blue, Merlot (which I reviewed in a custom cover here) and Wintergreen.

Below are the backs of these samples with the name labels visible.

Here are what I call The Brights. At the top are Cranberry and Ocean Blue.

Bottom row starting at the left are Rust, Sunflower and Avocado.

Below are the backs:

I didn't know this before, but Ren Art also has a variety of papers used in their leather journals, sketchbooks and photo albums. Below are photos of the paper selection to choose from. At the top left is Frankfurt White, which is 120 gsm. Top right is Zerkall Book white/ smooth which is 145 gsm.

Bottom left is Frankfurt Creme which is 120 gsm, and at the right is Arches Text Wove creme 120 gsm.

All of these papers are designed to take inks well.  I don't use fountain pens, but you can click here to see O-kami's review of these papers with ink tests.

You can buy these samples on the Renaissance Art website to help you decide how to customize your book. The cost of the samples is credited to your account for a future purchase so in the end they don't cost you anything.

Many thanks to Ren Art for sending me these samples to review!

Renaissance Art custom leather cover

Here is my custom-made leather cover from Renaissance Art!  This is the Merlot color, which is a deep purply wine color. It is super-smooth and soft, and I love the character-creases in the leather!

Here is the cover open and empty:

The Renaissance Art logo is embossed on the back:

I had this cover customized to fit my Quo Vadis Trinote planner, and it fits perfectly!

With the ability to customize a cover to fit nearly any size book (up to 9 x 12 inches!), you can get a leather cover for any planner, notebook or book. So if you're not satisfied with the cover on your planner or notebook, click here to check out Renaissance Art's selection of custom leather cover colors and styles, hand made to fit your book!

Just measure your book and enter the dimensions on the ordering page, and Ren Art will hand-make your leather cover to fit your book. Choose from thick or thin leather in a variety of colors and styles.

You can also choose to personalize your leather cover by having your name, initials, website, motivational phrase etc. embossed on the cover. And if you want them to tweak your cover in any way just let them know, they're good at that too.

Many thanks to Renaissance Art for sending me this cover as a sample to review!

Renaissance Art leather Moleskine cover

Here is the Renaissance Art leather Moleskine cover in the gorgeous Molasses color! It is a rich, deep brown that is very handsome and classy-looking.  The leather is so smooth and soft and feels nice in my hands.  And you will notice in the photo, you can use the Moleskine's elastic strap closure with this style of cover!

Below you can see the cover empty and open to see how it works. There is a slit in the right side that allows the elastic strap to come through. You can use the strap on the outside of the cover like I've shown above, or on your pages.

Below you can see what it looks like open with the Moleskine strap coming through:

The Renaissance Art logo is subtly embossed on the back cover:

Here is another view of the rich brown color of the Molasses cover!

Many thanks to Renaissance Art for sending me this awesome cover as a sample to review.  I have to admit my husband nabbed it as soon as I finished taking photos of it! He's now using it on his work Moleskine and loves it.

Renaissance Art has a fantastic variety of colors and leathers for Moleskine covers in both the Pocket and Large sizes. You can choose different types of closures including snap, stud, or wrap, or no closure. And some of the cover styles come with a leather pen loop, in your choice of three different sizes to fit your pen. Solves that pesky problem of how to keep your pen with your Moleskine!

This cover is part of the Rustic Elegance line of covers which comes in 12 colors and is a thin, soft leather. They also have a thicker leather for their Rustic covers, in brown and black.

All of Renaissance Art's products are hand made in the USA.

Click here to check out Renaissance Art's selection of leather Moleskine covers!

Filofax poll result and update

The votes are in! Many thanks to everyone who cast their vote to help me decide which Filofax to use: my personal Deco as my info book with a separate planner, or my A5 Domino as my planner + info book all in one.

The voting results:

Personal Deco Filofax: 27 votes

A5 Domino Filofax: 26 votes

The Deco won by a (surprisingly narrow) margin!

But, you ask, which will I actually use?  Well...

For the past week while the poll was going on, I used my Deco Filofax with self-drawn week + notes pages, and my pocket Moleskine daily diary as my day planner + logbook. I realized that two smaller books fit into my bag more easily than one huge book, so I used the Deco instead of the A5. I tried using the week + notes pages in the hopes that my Deco could be my planner + info book in one.  But not surprisingly, the personal size week + notes was an epic fail, as all my personal size diary page experiments have been for the past few years.

Specifically what did it in was that the pages were too small to write everything I had to do during the week. I tried writing some lower-priority tasks and categorized lists (like blog topics) on separate pages behind my Lists tab. But, as you may know by now, I am Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind so in order to remember my tasks I felt like I had to flip through the pages constantly so that nothing would get forgotten for too long.  As a result, I had too many places to look and couldn't keep on top of my tasks. I spent the week floundering and feeling like I didn't know what needed to be done. Classic Planner Fail.

So I went back to using my self-made planner.

Meanwhile, I still haven't answered your question: which Filofax am I using?

My Deco went everywhere with me all week, in and out of my bag, on my desk, out and about. After just the one week there are several scratches on the cover (*sob*).  I decided to re-assess whether I need to have my Deco with me all the time.  More than half its contents are better off at home. The beautiful leather binder is heavy. And if it were ever lost or stolen I'd be extremely upset.

I realized I'm happier keeping my Deco at home, and what I actually need to keep in my bag at all times is my Medical Filofax, which is a personal Domino in Grape.  In it I have medical summaries for myself and each member of my family. I added Emergency and Insurance information, and updated the addresses and contacts in the A-Z tabbed section, and now it goes everywhere in my bag with me.

The Domino is very light, I don't mind if it gets scratched, and if it ever went missing it wouldn't be a huge loss (just of time to re-compile the information it contains).

So now you are probably wondering how many books I carry around in my bag with me. The answer, crazily, is 4. Here's what they are and why I like to carry so many separate books:

1) The one that lives in my bag constantly is my Moleskine info book, housed in my leather Renaissance Art cover. This is where I capture all Indonesia-related contacts, business cards, information etc.  I've discovered that location-specific information is better off being captured in a bound book where pages can't get lost. Then when I move away from Indonesia I can archive the whole book.

2) My Medical Filofax so I'm prepared for any eventuality. This book is independent of Indonesia, so if we move away next year I don't have to dig through the pages to remove any location-specific information.

3) My daily Moleskine pocket size planner/ logbook. I adore this little planner. I'll write a post specifically about this book soon.

4) My weekly planner.  Currently this is my self-made planner, but this will change soon.

So, my A5 Domino never even made it out of the gate. It's so big I can't even force myself to carry it in my bag. You are probably thinking, it's probably just as big/ heavy as all 4 of these books together. You might be right. But as it turns out, I prefer to have these books separately.

Part of the reason is because I like the permanence of a bound book as my planner and as my info/ reference book. I lose pages too easily when switching them around. So even though it would seem convenient to have my planner, logbook, local info, and medical all in one enormously fat book, I actually prefer the smaller, bound books. The one exception is my Medical Filofax which needs to be a ring binder so I can add to each person's section as needed.

So the only thing yet to settle on is which weekly planner I'll use.  I'm (still!) waiting for my sea shipment to arrive, at which time I will grab my WeekDate planner and start using it. I've been pining for it for weeks now, and am very annoyed with myself for not putting it into my suitcase!  I wonder if I will use it as my all-encompassing planner, or if I will prefer using it for FlyLady Zone work and household routines.

Runner-up as my weekly planner is my Extra-Large Moleskine weekly notebook, which starts in less than two weeks.

The WeekDate has the advantage of folding up super-slim and small, making it easy to carry in my bag (which is significant when I'm already carrying around a library!).

I'm getting happier and happier with my system, and once I get my weekly planner figured out I'll be all set! For awhile anyway. ;)

Renaissance Art pocket Moleskine leather cover

Here is the awesome leather cover I ordered from Renaissance Art:

This is the stud-closure cover for the pocket size Moleskine daily planner (click here for the product page).  I got the personalization, of course, because I love personalization!

Here's the back, check out the cool stitching:

Here it is open, with the convenient pen holder:

The Moleskine cover tucks into the leather cover securely.

The stud-closure cover normally has a pocket in the front but I asked them to tweak it for me to hold the front cover of the Mole instead of having a pocket, and it turned out exactly the way I asked.  Ren Art are great at tweaks, and are super folks with great customer service!

By the time I received this cover, predictably, I was no longer using the pocket daily Moleskine planner.  But, I have a pocket Moleskine notebook that I put into this cover, which is a little roomy in a nice, stuffing-potential way.

The notebook that now lives inside this awesome leather cover is getting lots of action as I fill it up with my lists of what to pack where, what to buy before we move, school application requirements, information, and anything else I need to get down on paper. It's very convenient to have my pen in the loop so I never have to search for a writing instrument when I need to jot down a note or add items to one of my many lists.

Many thanks again to Ren Art for making and customizing this awesome cover, I am looking forward to using it for many years to come! :)

Greg's Renaissance Art leather Moleskine cover

Philofaxy reader Greg (whom we all know and love as gregorym) emailed me recently asking my planner advice.

For a long time he has gone back and forth between Filofax and Franklin Covey ring-bound planner systems.  But he had the realization that he never opens the rings to move any pages around, so what was the point of a ring-bound system?  He wanted to try switching to a bound-book planner and asked for my suggestions.  As we all know, I am always more than happy to provide planner suggestions!!

One of his criteria for a bound planner was that it must have a leather cover, sturdy and substantial, that would look good year after year of daily use.  I offered a few suggestions of planners that have leather cover options.  I also mentioned that he could get a Moleskine planner and have a custom leather cover made for it.  I am extremely happy with my custom leather cover by Renaissance Art, and directed Greg to their website to check out their wide selection of leathers, colors and styles of Moleskine covers.  When he told me he was looking for an Indiana Jones style leather cover, I knew he would love the Rustic Leather covers (which is what he ordered, with customization, in the photo at the top of this post).  It turned out great!

He also found a 2010 daily Moleskine planner still available online, for a great price, so he is able to start his new planner system immediately!

Greg, congratulations on your handsome new Ren Art cover, and good luck with your new daily Moleskine system!  Keep us updated as it progresses!

Don't cry, little Mole!

Just because I'm in love with my Quo Vadis Minister doesn't mean the Moleskine 18 month weekly notebook is a bad planner. Actually, it's an excellent planner.

Here is a photo of the inside (which you can click on to get a better view), just in case you haven't seen one of these yet. The Moleskine layout is very clean and simple, yet there are features that show the high attention to detail. For example, I'm not sure you can see this from my slightly washed-out photo (you can in the enlarged view when you click on it), but the lines that mark the borders of the daily spaces continue straight across the page and merge seamlessly with the lines on the opposite notes page. This not only makes the page spread look great, it's also very useful if you need to continue your schedule or tasks straight over onto the notes page. Lines out of alignment would have looked jarring. It's little things like this that make a Moleskine especially pleasant to use and look at.

The top of the weekly schedule page has a large space for writing whatever you want. Personally I resented this space because I would have rather had more space for the weekends (which have very tiny spaces for Saturday and Sunday), but I know people like this space for making notes or highlighting the week's priorities or goals.

The unobtrusive lines and minimalist typeface contribute to the streamlined appearance. Holidays are not written on the page, but initials of the country having a holiday are noted on the day's space, in the corner where it won't interfere with your writing.

The mostly-blank pages allow for customization and creativity. There is nothing constraining in any way, and even the lines can be written over easily. This is a great planner for people who need open space for their days without time constraints or lines. But people (such as myself) who crave more structure can do that too. As you can see I wrote in the beginning and end dates of the week next to the month, to make it easier to find the correct date while flipping through my book. Also you can see the Filofax stickers I used to indicate important dates. (More on these stickers in a later post!)

The layout of the week on the left page and a lined page on the right works well for a lot of people in various situations. I think this would have been great while I was in school, when I didn't have many scheduled events on any particular day but did have lots of to-dos and assignments to keep track of.

This planner worked fairly well for me when I didn't have too much that I needed to write in any particular day. But when my days were very busy, I found there was just not enough room to write (especially on those tiny weekend days!). I did enjoy having an entire blank page each week, and could use it differently every week if I wanted to. Some weeks the page was full of tasks. Sometimes I had phone numbers, notes, directions, party guest lists, websites and books to check out, or whatever other random thing I needed to write down. It was nice to have a place to capture all of those jottings that might otherwise get lost. I think this is the biggest appeal of the weekly notebook format.

The usual Moleskine features apply: nice paper, sturdy binding, hard cover, elastic strap, back pocket. The corners are rounded and the book is very pleasant to use and hold. The black hard cover planners come with a removable address book, which I find very useful. The front pages include tons of international information (which I appreciate and refer to often). There is a very lame map of international time zones that is not detailed enough to be very helpful. The 18 month planner also has pages to write your class schedules for each semester. I have transformed these into charts to track my financial totals since I don't have a set weekly schedule.

Besides the main weekly notebook there are other calendar formats too: monthly views of the second half of 2009, all of 2010 and 2011 with the days as numbers. Also there are calendars with the months as columns with a line to write each day, 2 months per page, for July-December 2009, all of 2010, AND ALL of 2011. I do a lot of long-range planning so I REALLY appreciated this. Bravo Mole!!

My Mole is the large size. In the past I have used the pocket size, and it is tiny. It really would fit into a pocket, and would be a good choice for a satellite book to a larger desk planner, or for someone who doesn't need much writing space. I chose the 18 month planner because I wanted the weekly notebook with a black hard cover. The 12 month weekly notebook only has a hard cover in red (which I loooooathe. I hate that screaming red! But I must be in the minority because I know it's very popular.), or soft cover in black. So to get the black hard cover I had to go for the 18 month book. Which, interestingly, costs just about the same as the red hard cover 12 month book.

The 18 month book is great obviously for those on an academic schedule, or anybody who needs to start their planner anytime between the beginning of July and end of December.

I had this custom leather cover made for my Mole by Renaissance Art, and they did a great job. They tweaked it for the thickness of the 18 month book, and did the customization exactly how I wanted. The 18 month weekly is the same thickness as the Moleskine sketch book, so I will continue to use this cover on Mole sketchbooks, because the cover is too awesome not to use!

So there you have it, just in case you thought I was dissing the Mole. There's a lot to love about the Moleskine weekly notebook. If you want a planner without constraints and need the flexibility of a notes page every week, then this one is definitely worth checking out!