Category: hauls

Brimbles, brimbles sticker club, hauls, sticker kit

November Brimbles Sticker Club: ‘Not a Creature Was Stirring’

ms.paperlover

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It’s Brimbles Sticker Club Time! (and check out the cute new postcard!)

This month’s Club is called ‘Not a Creature was Stirring’, and is a Christmas themed kit featuring lots of cute little Christmas mice.

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Let’s look at the each sheet in detail…

First is the decorative sheet, featuring the mice themselves. As always, the sticker club is created with Anna’s original artwork, and the decorative sheet often showcases her talent the best.

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The mice are called Winston, Cecil, Frankie, Gordon & Horatio. I’ll admit I don’t know yet which one is which, but I can tell you that Cecil is the one with the wrapped gift in his paws, and Winston is the one with the candy cane.

I think my favourite is the little guy who is wrapped up all snug and warm – I feel you little guy, I’m feeling the cold already and it’s still October! I’m also fond of the mouse with his Christmas lights all in a tangle, as I sympathise strongly with  his plight. Every year you wrap up the lights nicely before they go into storage, and then every year when you bring them out again they are in impossible knots – how does this happen? It’s like headphone/ear bud wires but 100x times worse! As such, I very much appreciate his worried little face!

Anyhoo, here are some close ups of the mice:

Ok next is the washi sheet, which has four wider strips, and three slim strips in co-coordinating colours.  I’m particularly loving that holly, it’s such a lovely green colour. Also the mini Winstons of course, so cute!

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Sheet three is the functional sheet, in classic Christmas red and green.

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Although I always love and use the functional stickers, my favourite part of this sheet is the little phrase at the bottom:

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I just love the way the font makes it look like it’s been made with a label maker!

The last sheet is the one that mixes both decorative and functional planning. There’s four ‘full boxes’ – the ‘making a list’ one is a great idea! There’s three ‘half boxes’, then beautiful holly wreath, which you could use in a purely decorative way, or write something in the middle of it to highlight that task or event.

(there’s also a sneak peek of my Christmas planner  set up in this photo too! A video and corresponding blog post on this is coming soon!)

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As ever are the functional headers, with six blank ones that you could add your own heading to, or just use to fill up some space. And last is the handful of Christmas words and phrases – useful for both planning and journalling!

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And there we have it! If you haven’t got yours yet you can buy the November Sticker club here, or get next month’s here.

Thanks so much for reading, and remember to keep an eye out for my Design Team blog post either here or on the Brimbles Blog to see what I get up to with these stickers!

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Grace ❤

@ms.paperlover

Brimbles, brimbles sticker club, hauls, sticker kit

Brimbles Sticker Club – September Garden

ms.paperlover

Just a quick post today to share some pictures of this month’s Brimbles Sticker Club. This month is called ‘September Garden’ and is filled with beautiful florals in lovely, muted, autumnal colours.

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First is the decorative sheet:

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Just so very pretty! I love floral decorative stickers. I have to admit black florals aren’t something I’ve ever thought about much but these really are gorgeous. Just as an FYI, the stems on these florals can be a bit tricky and delicate so it’s a good idea to use tweezers on those!

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Then the washi sheet:

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Washi strips are so versatile so I love getting them in the sticker club. You can use the whole strip, cut it up for various purposes – I’ve even fussy cut the images on them before for more decorative stickers!

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Then the planner (or planner-esque) sheet:

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With six full boxes, three of which have space to write on if you wanted to, or just keep them with the simple decoration. Then three half boxes, with just a coloured border so you could write inside them to highlight important events. Then the headers; the blank ones are always my favourite as I like to write in my own headers. Also black stickers this month means I get to write in white pen, yay!

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Lastly is the functional sheet.

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There are more icons on here than usual, which is super helpful as I certainly use more than one laundry or shopping icon a week!

My favourite addition to the sheet this month are those three little off centre circles, they’re so unusual and funky!

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So there’s the September Brimbles Sticker Club! The colours of this kit really scream Autumn, but in such a unique way, rather than the traditional brown and orange palette. It especially reminds me of that transition  between summer and Autumn when the nights draw in and the temperature starts to drop (or as in the case of today, has rained for the past 36 hours!).

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So look out for my planner and/or journal and other crafty projects with this month’s kit. My design team post will be up here and on the Brimbles blog next week.

As ever, you can find this month’s sticker club here, and next month’s here.

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Grace ❤

@ms.paperlover

hauls, planners, reviews, unboxings

The Busy Days Planner from Boxclever Press

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The lovely people over at Boxclever Press got in contact with me recently, asking if I’d like to trial some of their stationery items, as they thought their stuff would be my kind of thing (spoiler alert, they were right!).

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A large and very heavy box arrived at my door a few days later, and oh my goodness! They sent me the incredible Platinum set, which includes sticker books, washi, spare inserts, spare rings, a hole punch, and of course, the planner! To see everything they sent check out my unboxing and review video, because in this blog post I’ll be focusing on the main item, the Busy Days Planner.

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Let’s start with the specifics – including the discs and plastic cover, the planner measures 9 x 9 3/4″ (roughly 23 x 25 cm). The pages inside measure 7 1/2 x 9 1/4″ (roughly 19 x 23.5 cm). This is an 18-month planner, so it’s fairly bulky and heavy. For me it would definitely be a desk planner rather than one to carry around. Admittedly it doesn’t weigh as much as my one of my filled kikki.K large planners, but I don’t carry those around either!

If you were used to carrying around a similar disc planner (you know the one I mean 😉 ) or an A5 ringbound this would be no different. And of course, thanks to the disc system, you can add or remove pages as you want to, so if you wanted you could make it as light or as heavy as you wanted!

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Let’s talk about what is inside. The first few pages have some normal stuff such as personal information, year at a glance, etc., But there’s also some really nice additions to that such as in the picture above, where you can set out your plans and goals for the year.

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Each month is tabbed with a different colour, and at the beginning of the month are the above pages for filling out both practical and ‘normal’ planner things such as birthdays and other events for the month, but also some fun pages for filling out dreams and hopes for the month. In the first photo you can also see the last page of each month, where you have space to write down what happened or what you achieved.

One of my favourite parts of these pages is the little addition between the ‘special days’ and ‘birthdays’ boxes, where something to do with the month has been highlighted for you:

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After that we have the month on two pages:

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And the week on two pages:

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Because Boxclever press is a British company they feature UK dates and holidays on the monthly pages. They have other dates and holidays in there as well, but it’s particularly nice to see UK dates in a planner!

I’m a big fan of the horizontal week on two pages layout too. It’s not too different to be complicated when transitioning from another planner, but it’s still a bit different from the norm!

As you may have noticed by this point, the pages are all printed with colours and graphics. Each month has it’s own theme, and these do not repeat in the next year; so September 2017 is different to September 2018. I love these themes. They’re not too much to be overwhelming, but they’re very pretty. If you like decorating it would be easy to follow the theme and do your own thing, or cover up the graphics if you wanted to.

There are various other inserts at the beginning and end of the year:

 

Plus a folder in which you could add stickers or documents, and they’ve provided a couple of sheets of stickers to get you started!

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The last thing I want to talk about is the quality of the paper, which is just amazing. It’s thick without being too heavy and feels lovely to the touch. I tried out various pens so see if any bled through or showed through on the other side of the page…

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And none of them did! (You may be able to see a slight smudge on the LAMY pen test, but that was done by my hand!).

The punch that comes in the Platinum set I tried out on both multiple papers and something that was laminated – and it had zero problems with those and the holes are clean. The punch is also not as heavy as it looks!

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Final thoughts? I think this is a great desk or home planner. Personally I wouldn’t carry it around but I suppose if I were used to carrying around an A5 it wouldn’t be a problem. The paper quality is brilliant, and I love the style of all the inserts – particularly all those pretty graphics. My main criticism is that I’m not over keen on the thick plastic cover. Though I appreciate it protects the pages I think it should have the name of the planner written smaller, perhaps just in one corner so that it wasn’t so bold and obvious. If I were using this planner I’d replace the plastic front cover with something pretty that I’d laminated – though I’d still keep the back page; as I said, I do appreciate how much it protects the pages!

So there we go! If you’re interested in the Busy Days Planner then take a look over at their website. There are various options on starter sets from just the Busy Days Planner on its own or all the way up to the Platinum Set. And postage is free over £7, woo!

Thanks for reading, and remember to check out my video unboxing and review of the Busy Days Platinum set to see the washi and sticker books 🙂

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Grace ❤

@ms.paperlover

Brimbles, hauls, unboxings

Brimbles Box – June 2017 – and some news!

ms.paperlover

Hello Paper Lovers! So, my first blog post (sort of) is a last. The last Brimbles Box that is.

I’ll talk more about that at the end of this post; for now, let’s look at what was inside this box.

The first items I pulled out, as ever, were the 12×12 papers. This box had two double sided papers, and one cut apart. Here are the double sided:

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I just love the blue watercolour on these, it’s absolutely stunning. I’ve almost always had trouble deciding which sides of the papers to use with the Brimbles Box, and even though there’s two provided so you don’t have to decide, I still struggle! I think the white side with the waves would be perfect for a sea themed scrapbook page. The blue side with the white dots would make a lovely cover for a travellers’ notebook insert, but also a great sea-themed birthday card. Ahhhhh decisions decisions.

Next is the cut apart:

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My goodness I love this. The mix of the watercolour, the images of the mermaid and jellyfish, and the photos of the shoreline and the lighthouse are just so up my street. So much so I may have to purchase another from the Brimbles store while they’re still in stock!

Next is the postcard and sticky notes

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The sticky notes I’ll use these in my journal mostly, or to decorate happy mail. The larger one with the purple watercolour would look really nice on the front of an envelope with the recipient’s address written on it. Sticky notes like this I tend to think of as ‘partially pre-glued ephemera’; and I’m pretty sure I’ll be fussy cutting that mermaid out a fair few times. She’s too pretty to hide out in the black hole that is my sticky note drawer.

It may take me a while to use that postcard, however. Not because I don’t like it, quite the opposite actually. It’s just too pretty and it’s the last one and I just need to hoard it for a while before I’m emotionally ready to use it (stationery is very serious, people).

Ok, what’s next….ooh stickers, yay!

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Mermaid stickers, woop woop.

Ok first is the ‘planner’ stickers. For me these stickers sheets are darn well near perfect to decorate my personal size inserts. I love the little arrows so much, always have. They’re so handy for pointing out and drawing attention to the reeeeaaally important stuff you have to get done that week.

The decorative stickers are just…drool.

Mermaids are my favourite fantasy creature. Well, other than dragons, and Tolkien’s Dwarves, and dæmons from His Dark Materials…

Ok, Mermaids are one of my top five fantasy creatures. But they also mean the sea and I LOVE the sea. So yes, point being. These stickers are lush.

I’ve been a fan of Anna’s artwork since forever, but that mermaid (and the little crab dude!) is one of my favourite things she’s ever done. I think it’s the way Anna painted the hair and tails that is just so very beautiful. (Fun fact, I had blue hair for a time when I was way cooler than I am now).

Anyhoo, time for the last two items…

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The ephemera matches the stickers, and is as equally beautiful (note to self: must not hoard, must use!)

Then we have the ‘mermaid treats’ bag. Which is very, very pretty. I am just loving the turquoise sparkly mermaid. I will not be using it for stationery or craft related reasons, however (sorry). I’ve decided to be hilariously ironic and use the bag for my ‘on the go’ pill case (because it says ‘treat’, geddit?!). I take a lot of tablets, and I have to have a supply in my handbag for when I’m out and about. I’ve been using the current ‘meds bag’ (a very cute cat pencil case) for a few months now, so I figure I’m allowed to change it up. Plus, did I mention the turquoise glitter? Of course I need to see that every day!

So there we are, the June, and the very last, Brimbles Box. It certainly went out with a bang!

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Though I completely understand Anna’s reasons, I’m still a little sad that it’s over. I got my first box in November 2015, so for over 18 months I’ve had the beautiful contents of a Brimbles Box to play with.

HOWEVER

The monthly sticker club is still running, woohoo. So you’ll still be able to get pretty stickers made from Anna’s original art work plus other matching stickers. YAYS.

Oh, also, yours truly is on the Sticker Club Design Team.

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YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY

 

Here’s a link to some info about the Monthly Sticker Club. I highly suggest you go check it out if you haven’t already… there are glorious and wonderful things in the works.

 

So you’ll be seeing my monthly blog posts for the design team both on Anna’s blog and here. Whether I change or edit them slightly for my own blog remains to be seen, we’ll see how it goes.

 

So for now, a fond farewell to the Brimbles Box. And a big HELLOOOOOO to the Sticker Club (which yes, has already been running for a few months but you get the point).

For now my dears, thanks so much for reading. As my blog is shiny and new I’d super appreciate it if you could follow me by clicking the appropriate buttons that are in the sidebar, or subscribing by email, or via bloglovin’ (also in sidebar).