Undercover UK 2013 recycled leather daily diary

I liked my 2012 diary from Undercover UK so much (see my review here) that I ordered one up for 2013 too. This is their Recycled Leather Diary, day to view.

This time I ordered early so I could choose exactly which color I wanted from the multitude they have available, before they sold out. I went with Aubergine, and it is gorgeous!

There are so many features I love in this diary. Annual overview pages:

 Monthly calendars:

 An open format on the day pages with holidays printed:

 Notes pages:

 Address pages:

 And an attached elastic closure strap. "Handmade in England, Recycled Leather" is printed on the back.

I expect this will be the daily diary I use for 2013. It's the perfect size, in my opinion: 12 by 17 cm which is smaller than A5 but larger than A6/ pocket. This year I've been struggling with the small size of the daily pages in my pocket Moleskine daily diary, so I think I will appreciate the larger pages for next year.

Undercover UK Recycled leather daily diary

I've had my eye on this planner for a couple of years and finally took the plunge!

I admit my hesitation was due to worrying about the stiffness of the leather cover. You might remember awhile back I used a similar leather-covered day per page diary that was an utter Fail because the cover was so stiff it could hardly open. But after years of hemming and hawing I decided to just go for it, and I'm so glad I did!

This diary is from Undercover UK (www.undercoveruk.com). This is their day per page diary, in Majorelle Blue. This color is named after the Majorelle Garden in Marrakech for the supersaturated blue color on the walls. To be completely honest I wanted the Cyclamen color but by the time I finally got around to ordering (in April) the only colors they had left were this one and Lime green. I like the cool blue color so I went for it.

This diary measures 12 by 17 cm (approx. 5 by 6 3/4 inches) which is my favorite size for a day per page diary. In my experience, a Pocket size is not big enough for everything I want to write each day, and A5 is too big and heavy to carry everywhere. This size has plenty of writing space but is still light and small enough to go everywhere with me.

This little card came with the book and explains that their recycled leather comes from offcuts from the Italian shoe industry, very interesting!

The leather is not super-smooth and buttery like the Cavallini diary I used before, but that's okay. It has a nice leather feel and the cover is flexible without being floppy.

There is a color-matched elastic closure that is attached to the back of the cover with a bit of suede that's imprinted with the Undercover UK logo, very nice touch:

The website only showed the book open to the daily pages and didn't describe any other contents so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that this diary is packed with loads of great features!

The first page is a Personal Data page, and next is a two-page spread with this year's calendar on the left in a very nice format, and on the right are planning calendars for last year and next year.

Next there are MONTH CALENDARS!!  With holidays printed in the day spaces!!  Hooray!!

These month calendars have a vertical format, meaning the days of the week go down the side of the page rather than across the top, to allow it to fit on the page better. It will take me some practice to get the hang of using a monthly calendar this way but hey I'll take it! Month grid calendars!  Three cheers!

And THEN imagine my delight when I found several pages of international information! There's an excellent list of dialing codes for dialing into AND out of the country, and instructions on how to place a call:

 Next there's weights and measures, with a handy F/C temperature scale (which I refer to often!):

International sizes (which I also find useful) and average temperatures:

Then there is a page listing international holidays. These countries have their holidays printed on the day pages in the book. There are holidays for the UK and US as well as Japan, Russia, France, Germany, Denmark and several others:

Like I said the days have the holidays printed, and there are lines, but that's it. There's no times, there's no formatting, it's completely open to use any way you want. This is great if you want to use it as a journal. Or you could use it differently depending on the day: write in your times on appointment-heavy days, fill it with lists, write little notes, draw a sketch, anything at all.

The paper is a beautiful ivory color, clear and not at all muddy, not too dark, just a very nice color and very pleasant to look at. The paper is smooth and very nice.

The lines are ruled at 6.5 mm (my measurement) which is not too big, not too small, just right!  Below, you can see holidays printed on the days.

At the back of the book there are pages for contacts and a couple of pages for notes:

I didn't take a picture of it but there is a real ribbon placemarker. 

This is a really wonderful diary at a great price! There's a huge variety of cover colors to choose from, and excellent paper.  I really like the open daily format with holidays printed on the day spaces, the international info and the monthly calendars!  This diary is packed with excellent features and I'm so glad I got it!

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!

Monsieur leather notebook

When I opened this handsome notebook, my husband immediately said, "That's mine."  He's normally a Moleskine man so I was a little surprised when he was so adamant about this notebook! Except not really. I should have known he would nab this one because it is Just. That. Cool.

Monsieur Notebooks (http://monsieurnotebook.com/)  are hand bound in India from a single piece of vegetable-tanned leather.  The leather is thick and soft with natural markings on it and has that great leather smell to it.  I'll show you the other great features of this notebook in a sec but first I want to point out the price of these notebooks: In the UK these are priced at 9.99 pounds for the A6 size, 12.99 for A5 and 21.99 for A4!  Those are spectacular prices for real, handmade leather notebooks!

Here is the back of the notebook where you can see more information on the band.

The cover is flexible without being floppy:

Here is the cover without the packaging. The color and texture of the leather are amazing. There is an elastic closure.

On the back cover you can see the only branding is the logo subtly embossed in the bottom right corner.

Inside the front cover there is a place to write your name and any other information you like such as contact information, contents etc.

Inside the front cover is the brand marking:

The pages are lined with 6 mm ruling (same width as Moleskine ruling). The paper is very light ivory, lighter in color than Moleskine paper.  There is a real ribbon placemarker which is color matched to the cover, a very elegant touch.

The entire look of the book is sophisticated and luxurious. And again I just can't get over the price! You get an amazing notebook for the money.

My husband took this to work with him before I could do any ink tests on it, but you can see how it performs with a variety of inks in these excellent reviews by Ms Logica and Notebooktivity.  The paper in this notebook is 90 gsm, thick and smooth.

Starting this month the Monsieur Notebooks collection will include fountain pen friendly notebooks with 100 gsm paper! The notebooks are available in a variety of sizes and papers, portrait and landscape layouts. The leather covers come in this brown color as well as black, green, pink, turquoise, navy blue and red.  Click here for more information on the selection available.

Monsieur Notebooks are available at PaperNation.co.uk and you can also click here to see more retailers. There are stockists throughout the UK and Ireland, and even in Hungary!

Many thanks to Monsieur Notebooks for sending me this excellent notebook to review. From my impressions and my husband's immediate reaction, I'll say you have a winner here!

Experiment revisited: Large Moleskine Day Per Page

I know what you're thinking: "How many times is she going to try (and fail) with a day per page planner?"  Well, follow me here and see what I'm thinking:

Back in December I tried using my large Moleskine day per page as my planner. I was extremely inspired by other people's usage methods of it, and even my husband suggested I use it (which you can read about here). Predictably, it failed rather quickly, which day per page planners tend to do for me because I have a hard time planning ahead effectively seeing only one day per page.

Then in January (in this post) I lamented the fact that I haven't kept a journal in a long time, but when I was doing my large day-per-page experiment I captured memories that otherwise would have slipped away. In that post I wondered if I should use the large daily as my planner and journal combined. But at the time I was gearing up for my big move from Scotland to Indonesia, and I needed a big weekly planner to get me through my move.  Now, nine months later and looking back at my question in January, the answer is: I wish I'd used the large daily as my planner and journal combined. If I had, I would have captured so many more memories.

As I wrote in my Consistency is Key post, I've finally realized it matters less whether I have a perfect capturing system. What matters is that things get captured. In an ideal world, I would have time each day to sit and write in my journal. But that requires me to get and open my journal and sit down to write in it. In reality, it's my planner that's in my hands throughout the day so if something's going to get written, it will be in there.

I went back through some of my old posts including Past vs. Future, Planner Permanence and Planning Tool/ Record of Events and noticed the theme. I'm craving the permanence of having a record of my life in a bound book. Since I can't seem to get myself to journal despite my desire to do so, I'm going to do a combined planner/ journal in my large daily Mole.  Plus my ever-wise husband has a great point: combining planning/ recording and journaling in one book will create a very complete record of my life at the time.

I was also inspired by this post on the Quo Vadis blog, scroll down to #6 where she talks about how she uses her Textagenda (day per page academic-year) as a combined planner and journal.  Also I looked back through my Textagenda from last year, and even though I didn't use it for very long the combination of planning and journaling it contains is now priceless.

I hear you: how will I plan ahead with my day per page planner? I have a couple of strategies.  In the front of the Moleskine there are monthly planners, and in the Large size planners the day spaces in the monthly calendars are big enough to write in a fair amount of detail. I also use my WeekDate Wall calendar on the fridge so my family can see it. Because it has weekly recurring events visible all the time, I can picture my week easily.

I'm using my beautiful brushed leather Success Choice cover on my large daily Moleskine, which fits easily with room to spare. Some people have asked me how I'm protecting the leather of this cover and the answer is, I'm not. In fact just today I got something sticky on it and so now there's a mark. I try not to worry about it, it just adds character and the fact is it's bound to get marks on it because my life is messy! The Success Choice cover has a fabric ribbon placemarker, so I use it to mark the current month and the Moleskine's ribbon placemarker to mark today, for easy access between my monthly and daily views.

Because I'm using my daily planner as my journal too, I use it to capture ideas, thoughts, quotes and other random things. One thing I am committed to doing is writing at the bottom of the page at least one positive thing each day. It will help me see the good in each day, which will be an especially useful exercise on those really aggravating days!  And it will be a great record of things I enjoy in my life.

I already have the 2012 large Moleskine day per page planner, so at the end of this year I can continue straight into it. 

So, please wish me luck in this new experiment! I hope it will be permanent!

The Success Choice leather cover

Here is my new brushed leather cover for my Woman's Success Planner!

The color is listed as "sunrise yellow" but don't expect a bright artificial yellow, it is a natural yellow-tan. These photos are are pretty good representation of the color, on my computer at least! Click here to read the meaning of the logo.

Click here for the cover's product page for more specific information.

Below is the cover open and empty so you can easily see the interior layout.  (Click on the photo to enlarge.)  The left cover flap has an opening where you can tuck in papers.  Below that is a slot for cards.  There is a ribbon placemarker sewn into the top of the cover to conveniently find your page.

On the right side there is a slot at the top where a slim jotter pad could slide in, a vertical slot to slip in your checkbook, and below that another card slot. There is a pen loop that is not elasticated, so slimmer pens can clip on with their clip.  The closure tab slides into a loop in the front cover. I love to play with the closure flap, it is soft like a puppy's ear!

Here is the back of the cover. At the bottom you can see the logo Rustico, Made in the USA.  All Success Choice products are made in the USA.

Below you can see how the cover of the Woman's Success Planner (click here for my review with lots of photos) fits easily into the front cover flap:

And the back cover flap:

The cover is designed to also fit the Address Book (click here for my review and lots of photos of this not-just-an-address-book!).

I didn't take a photo of it, but you can actually fit two of the quarterly planners into the cover at once (along with the address book), so you can plan 6 months at a time. I'll be doing this in the last week of the quarter so I can plan ahead to the next week and month.

Below you can see a size comparison with my personal size Filofax: it's only slightly larger:

And definitely slimmer, even with the address book in it too.

Here is the front of the cover containing my Woman's Success Planner and Address Book, with my pen of choice in the pen loop. (That's a Sakura Micron 05 dark blue for you pen lovers.)

I love the cheery yellow color and the soft feel of the brushed leather. It makes me want to hold it all the time! Pamela, the creator of Success Choice planners, uses this exact cover herself, and she says the brushed leather gets softer over the years.  When I first put the cover on my planner I thought to myself, "Just when I thought I couldn't love my Success Choice planner any more, now I do!"

I am a big believer in the idea that things we use every day should be as pleasant to use as possible. This cover is so soft and beautiful (and has that nice leather smell) that it really adds to the enjoyment of using my planner, especially since I handle my planner so often throughout the day.

I did some experiments with this cover to see what else would fit in it. It will accommodate any planner or notebook that is 8 1/2 inches tall, of various widths or thicknesses. It fits on my large Moleskine day per page planner easily, so there's plenty of room for any of the large Moleskine planners or notebooks. It also fits on my wider Medium size Leuchtturm notebooks, and my Uncalendar Half Size planner.  Iiiiiiinnnnteresting....

I ordered this cover from The Success Choice, click here for the product page. The covers are currently on sale for 25% off, and US shipping is included in the price.  The covers also come in black, carmel brown, chocolate brown and cranberry, click here to see all the Success Choice leather covers.