Review | Busy B DAY A PAGE DIARY 2017

I love a diary but I'm incredible fickle about my choices and have been known to chop and change between types and methods throughout the year depending on where my life is at. Currently, whilst 'unemployed' I no longer have the Outlook diary in the office which I can view at a glance five days a week and no need to carry my Louis Vuitton Personal Organiser around because I now have the Ban.do weekly diary to hand during some point of the day.

I'm finding the Ban.do Diary currently suits my needs as I keep track of what is becoming a far busier lifestyle during my 'sabbatical' but I have managed to find a way that works for me perfectly - and I may well share with you in due course.

Something I am conscious of is returning to the corporate world and wanting to maintain my diary at home and my blog requirements. That is where the Busy B Day A Page Diary 2017* comes in. The Ban.do is perfect for keeping track of appointments, notes and reminders but what about my plans for the day when I need more space than a few lines to plot my day?

Currently whilst finding my 'working from home' routine I'm using a regular notebook simply to write down my tasks for the day whether blog or home related and only yesterday I was writing the dates for the forthcoming week to add future tasks that are coming up which isn't ideal and a day to a page diary would do just the job.

When I return to work and I'm reliant on scheduling posts and some might say being more in front of my blog planning the Busy B Day a Page Diary 2017 will be perfect for this and I wish I could start using it now - in fact as I write this post I remember my 2016 diary that has been untouched and will start using that for the remainder of the year. 

I'm sure stationery lovers are already familiar with Busy B as they have some wonderful products to keep you organised whilst aesthetically pleasing. The Day a Page Diary I have compliments my marble Ban.do planner and is A5 in size so sits nicely atop it and create one of those areas of your desk that you could almost consider Pinterest worthy. 

It's not a diary I would want to carry around in my bag on a daily basis as with most day a page diaries it is weighty but not overly so, compare it to one of your more heavier books you're reading. The cover is soft, similar to your Moleskine notebook which ensures there is no added weight but has a sturdiness I'm not concerned about becoming too damaged. It's cream colour I'm sure would suffer some battering over time but I'm not too worried about that for now.

Its internal design is very simple, a day a page and that's that. The pages are lined which is a thumbs up for me and my preference and there's enough space for me to cover my tasks for the day whether simply 'share post on social media' to reminding me of products to follow up on. I can easily make notes about products I'm currently testing and other such musings on the pages.

Another thumbs up from me in addition to lined pages is that Saturday and Sunday are also included as full days to pages. So often diaries limit the space for weekends which would drive me crazy. When I was working full time it would be the weekends when I would have to run most of my errands, particularly blog tasks so its great to see that I can carry on as normal without limited space.

In short for me I will be using this less of a typical diary and more of a dated note or list book - which I guess is what a diary is! I'm sure there will be some days left blank and I'm keen to investigate some stamps or stickers for repetitive daily tasks that will be time saving in the future and if I'm so inclined I can pretty the pages with some washi tape if the mood strikes me.

Diaries are very personal things depending on your lifestyle and requirements but I'm Busy B will have one for you.

What diary method do you use?

*this post contains press samples and/or affiliate links

My Handbag Collection Louis Vuitton Eclipse

Apologies in advance for what will appear to be my jumping on the current trend for bloggers sharing their designer handbag collections and unboxing of new purchases but I've had in mind to share my collection for some time and there are some long term readers who have been requesting this for some time. Yes Candypop I'm looking at you!

It seems the done thing is to offer disclaimers and various justification for such expensive purchases but I hope you don't mind I'm not going to do that and instead assume you all know me well enough by now to know this isn't designed to show off. I also hope the stories behind how they came to be in my collection will be somewhat interesting for you as I'm afraid rarely much thought is given to their purchase other than for aesthetic reasons!

Moving on. The first bag that came into my collection is the now discontinued Louis Vuitton Eclipse but before I discuss the bag itself I must take you back to explain why a Louis Vuitton bag was so coveted. As a child I had a friend whose mum owned a shop in our local high street. This was not just any shop, it was of course the 80s, Dynasty era and the shop she owned was a treasure trove of costume jewelry that sparkled. Who remembers those diamante spider brooches? Yes these were stocked in abundance.

For a young impressionable girl this mum was rather unique in both having her own business and also a rather special handbag I admired. It was a Dior print such as this and somewhere I'd aligned it with Louis Vuitton and so that became the brand I lusted for. The bag I wanted was the Alma which is rather a mature bag for a young girl to desire and I can even remember receiving a plain black version from Marks and Spencer for my birthday as it was the closest I could get to owning such a thing. I remember very clearly walking along holding the M&S 'dupe' as we could call it now and pretending it was the Louis Vuitton Alma. It was almost like I was practicing for the day it would be mine.

Fast forward a few more years and my love for Louis Vuitton had not changed but things were rather different then in that designer handbags, certainly not in the circles I mixed in, were not things girls in their early twenties were using or justified buying, so it seemed. Of course you'd spot older girls in clubs and bars using Louis Vuitton make up bags as clutches that were obviously all they could afford or had been pinched from their mums but it wasn't like today when I sit on a train and see all manner of designer labels of varying price ranges, adorning women of all ages.

One night my friends and I were in our local nightspot and discussing our love of Louis Vuitton I said I would marry any man that brought me a handbag from there. A gentleman in our group brazenly responded he would buy one. And many months later he did. Did I marry him? Sadly not although we were engaged for a brief time but the romance with my Louis Vuitton bag lasted longer so don't feel sorry for me.

I'm unsure why I picked the Louis Vuitton Eclipse over the once favoured Alma but I would suspect it was that it was similar in style, even today I usual lean towards top handled bags, but with a difference. And boy did I love that bag although I haven't used it for years. The photos for today's post were taken when visiting my brother and his family and my mum, who now has 'custody' of the bag, was accompanied by it.

The biggest downside for this bag is it's so structured and round that it doesn't allow for filling with all the daily essentials, particularly those of us that like to carry a book or similar size/shaped items which is why I have others in my collection which take preference. As a regular user of London Underground I tend to like a bag that I can zip for safety reasons. The other issue I often contend with, and why I like Louis Vuitton for it's repeated pattern is that I'm left handed meaning that to have the zip 'my side' often the design of the bag would be hidden or I'm exposing the zip to wandering hands I can't see behind me.

At the time this bag was about £300, oh to be able to find Louis Vuitton for that price now and it has since been discontinued which does make me enjoy it a little more. Perhaps it's time to remove it from my mum's clutches and give it another whirl.