So I have two planners this year. One is a daily-style planner that I'm using for my work-related things, such as blogging schedules, blogging tasks, my freelance job tasks, freelance job's deadline, etc. While the other one is a cute pocket planner which I'm gonna be using for my monthly schedule + appointments as well as my daily tasks such as my exercise routine and my to-do notes.

At first I was still not sure and just mixed everything into each planner (so that's why in the photos below you're gonna see my blogging stuffs on my pocket planner instead of my appointments), but as time goes by I started to grasp the idea and plans on how I want to use my two planners. 

I'm using the black one as my Work Planner and the cute little one as my Pocket Planner / Scheduler. PS: I got the cute planner from my favorite store TM Bookstore (for less than IDR 50k), and the black one is custom-made at Gramedia book store.

Now, let's move on to the weekly spread decor. 

I love decorating my planners because I find it really comforting and relaxing for me. Decorating my planners and journal is very therapeutic for me so it helps me cope with stress and anxiety problem :)

I know we're already entering March but I want to show you how I decorate my planners, starting from January. I hope this could give you some inspirations on how to beautify your plain planner / journals. 

This is just for sharing because my decor is not super pretty or cute (;p) but I always got inspired by watching other people's planner decor that I saw in youtube and other blogs so I thought I'm gonna share mine too and I hope it inspires you somehow :)

Daily / Work Planner :

Week 1 

(tema: Gold)

Note: Saya bikin planner ini custom-made di Gramedia, dan saya pilih halaman weekly instead of daily atau monthly page, karena saya memang lebih prefer weekly page. Yang saya suka adalah: setiap halaman weekly page ini kolom harian-nya lumayan besar jadi enak untuk di dekor. Di bagian bawah halaman juga ada kalender kecil sehingga memudahkan untuk mencocokkan jadwal. Yang tidak saya suka adalah: kertas nya lumayan tipis, jadi kadang suka tembus ke belakang halaman kalau saya pakai pulpen / spidol tebal. Jadi harus pilih pulpen atau spidol dengan tinta tipis kalau nggak mau tembus ke belakang.

 Week 2

(tema: Pink Garden)

Using crayons to draw some flowers :)

Week 3

(tema: Purple)

  

Week 4

(tema: Chocolate Cake)

Another item to decorate or to line your pages other than washi tape is a deco tape. Sama kaya tape/isolasi biasa tapi ada decoration pattern nya, just like what I'm using above. 

Keep in mind that a deco tape is just like a regular tape so you have to make sure where you want to  position it, because if you get it wrong then it's a pain-in-the-a** to remove or repositioned them without ruining the paper (>_<).

Week 5

(tema: Pink)

 To line the pages I'm using ribbon instead of washi tape. This pink polka-dot ribbon is from Ikea. I was also trying another type of decorating which is "stamping". Here I used cute little stamp from a cheapo stamp set I found at TM Bookstore.

My Scheduler / Monthly Planner :

NOTE: Saya suka planner ini karena halamannya sudah ada desain bergambar-nya, jadi kalau kamu nggak punya waktu untuk hias-hias planner tapi tetep pengen punya planner yang nggak polos dan beda dari yang lain kamu bisa pilih yang seperti ini. Waktu itu saya beli planner ini di TM bookstore (please google the location), alasannya karena size-nya yang bisa masuk tas tapi juga nggak terlalu kecil, jadi halamannya masih agak leluasa untuk di dekor. Plus, planner ini juga punya monthly page view seperti diatas, yang memudahkan saya untuk keep track on my schedules and appointments more easily. Yang nggak saya suka mungkin karena nggak pake ring jadi nggak bisa nambahin journaling card atau hiasan lain. Dan karena nggak pake ring jadi kalau dibuka nggak bisa posisi datar total. Biasanya saya pakai bantuan paper clip biar bisa datar total kalau lagi mau nge-dekor ;)

Week 1

(tema: Yellow)

Week 2

(tema: Romantic Lace)

 I really love the lace tape that I used for this spread. I got a set of 5 lace tape from ebay and I love them all! :D

Week 3

(tema: Pink)

Another lace tape, this one is pink butterfly. Isnt' it pretty?

Week 4

(tema:  Pale Green)

 When decorating a planner it's so easy to over-decorate (>_<)

Week 5

(tema: Clothes-Line alias Jemuran ;p)

 I really love love this clothes-line stickers that I found in TM Bookstore. This sticker is probably one of my most favorite stationery items for the month of January!

I will post my February page spread soon so please subscribe to my blog if you want to see it :)

Also, don't forget to add my instagram @yurikristia where I posted my planner and stationery obsession along with my beauty and fashion related posts :)

Thank you for reading this! 

Stationery Haul : Part 2 & Part 3 (TM Bookstore)

If you follow me on my Instagram (id: yurikristia) then you must have noticed that I am currently obsessing with stationery, planner stuffs, etc. I have been a planner addict since high school and all through my college years. I've been using planners all through those years and my planner is always been full of colorful decoration. You can ask my friends about this, they usually would borrow my planner during class just to read through my planner. Apparently they think my colorful planner is more entertaining compared to the lecture (>o<)

So anyway, after college I started my 9 to 5 job and during those years I never have the time to wrtie in my planner again because life just gets in the way. I had a stressful job back then and I just simply don't have time for anything else, so my planner obsession was shut down immediately.

But now that I don't work 9 to 5 anymore I can finally have the time for planner, stationery, journal decor, etc again! I am so happy to have rekindled my love for stationery again because decorating planner / journal is something that I enjoyed very very much. It's very therapeutic for me, and I need it to de-stress myself. It's a very good stress-buster for me (^_^)

So to start off my new Stationery/Planner series in this blog, here are the first two big hauls that I did back in late December / early January when I first started to rekindle with my stationery / planner obsession:

Haul #1 :

This is gonna be a new series here on my blog. In this Stationery series you will see the places that I'd like to get all my stationery stock from. In Us and European countries they have Kikki.K, Target, Hema, etc to look for cute stationery items, while here in Jakarta - Indonesia we have Gramedia book store, Scoop, and TM bookstore, etc.

My favorite is TM Bookstore. The closest TM book store from my area (southern Jakarta) are in Poins Lebak Bulus and Depok Town Square. I prefer TM than Gramedia because TM seems to have more variety of stationery compared to Gramed, and the prices are slightly cheaper too. I always found some cute things from TM and they changed up their goods routinely so it seems that there's always something new every time I went to that store.

In this first haul, I went to TM and got myself some beginners stuffs such as glue tape, colorful pens, sticky notes, colorful stickers, etc...

These TOP Penciltic pen comes in various colors of the rainbow. They are so cheap (Gramed sells them for IDR 4000/5000 each (50 cents) - if I'm not mistaken, while TM sells them for 3000 each ;p). 

Although I do like the colorful packaging but these pens seep through the pages (alias tembus ke belakang kertas) even on thicker paper, so these are actually not my favorite ones to use.

The glue tape is my first one though.. I learned about this glue tape from foreign youtubers. I thought it's very practical to use and I don't have to smear my fingers with glue as usual, so I was glad to have found this in TM bookstore. The shape is similar to a correction tape but this one contains glue instead of correction ink. It is a "Must-have" for newbie scrapbooker!

I also bought some sticky notes and stickers. The stickers are glittery and very festive, while the mini folded sticky note set is my most favorite purchase from this first haul. 

The sticky note set is from Echi and they have a few variant but I chose this purple one instead. It's small but when you open it up it holds 5 different sticky notes inside it. And the best part is this was on discount too! :)

I like it because it's small enough you can put it inside your bag incase you need something to write on, or incase you need to leave a message to someone. I usually have something small like this in my stationery pouch that I bring with me inside my bag :)

Unfortunately I didn't find any washi tape in TM bookstore because I think they don't sell it yet, but I do find these cute deco tape with really cheap price, only about a dollar (sekitar seribuan rupiah aja satunya ;p). There were only three patterns left at the rack so I grab each one of them. These decorative tape would be great for gift wrapping especially if you use plain / colored gift wrap paper.

Last but not least, these are the alphabet stickers that are on top of my "To-Buy" list. I love using alphabet stickers to mark a page or to put up the "month" in a page by spelling them out with these alphabet stickers. I usually also use alphabet stickers to mark the day or the month in my diary/journal book.

Alphabet stickers are not that easy to find, so when I found one I usually buy them in two :) I like this one that I found in TM because they are small but colorful so I can mix n match the colors. These are also very cheap, only IDR 3000 per sheet (around 30 cents).

Haul #2 :

After my successful first haul from TM bookstore I decided to come back the very next day for my second haul ;p

Surprisingly on the second day I got there I found out that they have put up new stickers, new sticky notes, and a couple of new notebooks on their rack! This is why I love TM bookstore, they seems to rotate their products routinely. There's always something new every time I go there :)

In this round I got myself another Penciltic pen in blue, a regular red marker because I'm out of red marker, and a new set of stamp! 

Stamps are new to me because I never use stamps in my decorating process before, so I think I'll try the newbie stamp first. This was cheap and was also on discount :)

Noticing some new note books on the rack I picked up two of them. The left floral one has different designs on each page so I think it would be very useful to decorate my journal and/or to write some notes or letter to someone (because I'm thinking of doing some International penpals soon).

The right one has a very pretty design. With vintage pale green and vintage style sketch at the center with a touch of french language at the front which makes it even more beautiful. I will use this as my new diary/journal book because it has blank pages which is perfect as a decoration background.

One of my best purchase from this lot is this super adorable Hello Kitty set! Isn't she pretty? I love red color so this set obviously called my name from the rack :) This set was also on discount and I think it was about IDR 24000 which is about $2.5 - it includes 4 HK pencils, 1 HK pen, 1 eraser, 1 sharpener, and a cute HK shaped note!

I think it was a steal considering that this is authentic Sanrio products because it has the brand name and registered Sanrio trademark behind the package ;p

I got one more sticker from the rack which is this large Rilakkuma sticker pad. I'm not really a fan of Rilakkuma but this is so cheap and comes with lots of small stickers which I will need to decorate my planner pages. So on to the shopping cart it is! :)

One more thing I got from this second haul is a new monthly planner! I was contemplating buying this one because I already have a planner that I custom-made in Gramedia a while ago, but I decided to buy this one anyway so I can use two planners at the same time. Another reason is because this planner is so freaking cute! Just look at the different designs in all the pages!! *I'm in love*

-------------------------------

Well I think that's all from my second haul at TM bookstore and here is a full photo of all the goodies that I got from both of my hauls:

I think these would suffice for a while :)

One more thing, I also received my sticker order that I won from ebay at the same time of doing this purchase. It was a cute cat stickers with 6 different sticker sheets that I can use to decorate my daily planner pages:

So that's it for now.. 

I'm gonna post my planner page spread on the next post so if you love stationery and planner decorating please subscribe to this blog and also subscribe to my Instagram (id: yurikristia) !

See you later, alligator!

Winners Board!

Thank you for those who join my giveaway!

The winner of the Rebel Queen book by Michelle Moran + A Pair of Indian Bracelet is :

 The winner has been emailed.

This is a fast giveaway so if I don't receive any response until tomorrow February 16th I will have to announce another winner.

Achtung!

For those of you who don't win, Michelle Moran is offering a signed bookplate for FREE!

Click this link to go and get your signed bookplate:

http://www.michellemoran.com/books/rebelqueen/bookplate.html

 

 

 

Many thanks for Michelle Moran who has provided this opportunity!

 

 

XOXO,

Giveaway : Rebel Queen Book by Michelle Moran + A Pair of Indian Bangles

Hi lovelies, I haven't posted a giveaway here for a while so here's one for you!  (^_^)

Incase you don't know, I like reading :) I love reading anything from a good book, literature, biography, even wikipedia and blogs! I don't really enjoy newspaper though because I hate reading criminal reports, etc - it makes me paranoid (*cringe*).

Anyway, for those of you who also love to read or knows someone that would like a good book, you can join this giveaway that's brought to you by Michelle Moran, a fabulous renown writer. I have one of her books, Cleopatra's Daughter (and did a giveaway on that book too!) a long time ago, and I enjoyed reading it. She specializes in writing about historical female character - and all her books have amazing titles and beautiful book covers worth to be showcased in your coffee table or bookcase (^_^).

 

(photo taken from Michelle's website)

Michelle's new book is "Rebel Queen".
It tells a breathtaking story of Queen Lakshmi, India’s Joan of Arc - who against all odds defied the mighty British invasion to defend her beloved kingdom. Michelle spent a long time in India to do some research for this book so you will find lots of details from interesting places and historical background in India that relates to this book. That's  how serious Michelle is ... and I always appreciate a thorough historical details in a book (because I love history as well).

Q: Along similar lines, what was the research process like for Rebel Queen?
A: With each of my novels, the research always begins in the country where the novel takes place. In this case, it was India. Because I married an Indian man, the research for this novel was considerably easier than it would have been without someone to translate Hindi documents for me or take me on a tour of various sites within India. As with each novel, the research involved a lot of traveling and reading, which for me is one of the best parts about writing historical fiction.

Now on to the GIVEAWAY !

I am collaborating with Michelle Moran in this giveaway, and Michelle has very kindly offered a Free Hardcover copy of Rebel Queen as well as a pair of bangles originally from India!

 Please note that the bangles she sent will be in random motifs so this picture below is just an example of the bangles:

To enter the giveaway is super easy, you just have to follow these steps below on the raffle copter.

The only mandatory entry is follow my blog. Once you follow my blog you can have extra entries by following the extra steps below.

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is open for International and will end on February 15th, 2015.

Winner will be chosen by online random generator.

If the winner does not respond within 48hrs then I will have to choose another winner and will announce it again in my blog.

 

Good luck to everyone! ^__^

Bonne Chance!

Home-Living: Yankee Candle - Home Sweet Home & Paradise Spice Review

I love scented candles because I basically love fragrances. 

Places to buy candles if you live in Jakarta : Ace Hardware for Yankee candles and a few other brands, Bath & Body Works, and Informa (for a range of different brands of candles). 

A long time ago I bought these three candles from Ace Hardware including a set of candle holders for my votive candles. I bought two Yankee Candles in Home Sweet Home and Paradise Spice (both in the votive size), and also a Colonial Candle in Winter Woods.

I also bought a set of votive candle holders with "city" designs on the front that looks like this :

I really like the candle holders because it matches my living room theme which is grey and black :) I also picked up the Home Sweet Home and Paradise Spice specifically for my kitchen because I need something to get rid of the smell when I'm cooking, and to keep my kitchen smells fresh all the time. 

The colonial candle is my first time trying it. I picked the Winter Woods scent because woodsy notes are my favorite and because hubby loves it too when he sniffed it at the store.

I will write an in-depth review of the Colonial Winter Woods candle on another post, meanwhile I will write the review for both the Yankee candles in this post :)

First up, the Home Sweet Home candle. 

I have high hopes for Yankee candles but this one just didn't make it to my "Recommendation" list. I bought a few of Yankee candles in votive size before, and most of them are a success. But this one just doesn't smells strong at all. 

I mean, this hardly has no scent trail whatsoever, even if I burned it for hours. The scent is too weak even for a small room. Even when I'm sitting next to it I wouldn't be able to smell it except for a very very faint trail of scent. Maybe it needs a bigger size of this candle to fragrance a small room.

According to the website, the Home Sweet Home scent describes as: A heartwarming blend of cinnamon, baking spices, and a hint of freshly poured tea. 

When it's not lit, you can actually smell the scent of cinnamon mixed with spices when you sniff the candle. That's why I bought it, when I sniffed it at the store I thought it's a nice scent for my kitchen. But it turns out that when the candle is lit, the scent throw is not as strong as when it's not lit. I don't think I would buy this one again or maybe I would buy a bigger version of this scent instead.

Now on to Paradise Spice. 

The website describes this scent as: An exotic island treasure; perfectly ripe banana and creamy vanilla, unexpectedly spiced with prized cinnamon and cloves. 

My thought when I sniffed the candle is: cinnamon meets vanilla ! I like cinnamon and vanilla scent so this candle fits my category, and that's why I bought it at the first place. I prefer this type of scents for kitchen or dining room area because I think cinnamon-based candle is perfect for dining/kitchen area.

Unlike the Home Sweet Home candle, this one has an "OK" scent throw. I can smell light trail of scents from this candle when lit up for a few hours. Although it doesn't fall into the "strong scent" category but this is alright for a smaller room. 

The website says that it's better if you use a candle holder that fits the candle entirely or a holder that hugs the candle, so you will receive a better scent throw. But I don't have one of those, and the "city" candle holder that I'm using is a little bit bigger than the candle as you can see from the photo above.

A little tips for lighting votive candles:

1. If you use a holder that's a little bit bigger than the votive (like mine above), pour a tiny little bit of water inside the holder before you put the votive and lit them. This way, it would be  easier to "pop" the candle once you finished burning it.
2. Sometimes you find it hard to detach the candle out of your holder especially when your candle melts around and fills the gap between the candle and the holder. What I usually do is put it in the freezer for a couple of hours and then all you have to do is just give it a good "pop" / push from the bottom of the holder upside down, and the candle should "pop" easily.

What's your favorite candle right now?

Happy Reading!