TIP TUESDAY: How I Wash My Make-Up Brushes

Hey guys! A super duper short post from me today. And it's about washing your make-up brushes. How often do you wash them? What do you use? When I first got into make-up, I had to do my research on a lot of things, including washing make-up brushes. There were a lot of methods but I chose a method that was simple, quick & effective.

First, I add some baby shampoo to a bowl of hot water. Then I get my least-used brushes and swirl them into the water to 'dissolve' the shampoo. Then I slowly add my other brushes, swirling them in. Finally, I add my make-up sponge. Hehe...please excuse how dirty it is... I really need a new one. Moving on. I soak all my brushes in there for a while & my sponge tends to float so I try to smother it to keep it down with my other brushes.

And that's it! Really simple, huh? It's just the drying time that takes a while so I do my make up before washing them. I usually leave it near a window with the sun beaming in. About 10-15 minutes later, I turn each brush around to dry the other side as well. If I'm bothered, I keep turning them ever 15 minutes or so. They do get dry by the night (if I wash them early in the morning), but to be safe, 24+ hours is usually the best.

As for how often, I try to wash them every Sunday morning but sometimes I get lazy. For you experts or non-experts-with-great-advice out there, do you think once a week is enough? Is my method even right? I would love any advice & any other products that are great.

Also, an update on the puppy situation. I've been meaning to post more but I've been a little busy planning for the puppy... My mom is insisting on getting me a puppy for my 21st birthday so it seems this is actually going to happen! I'm so nervous yet excited at the same time. I'm seriously in crazy dog lady mode at the moment & Kalen's getting really excited as well. We sort of feel like parents getting ready for a baby.....................

Too soon? Oh well, we both love kids.

Anywho, I'm planning on doing some posts about my whole getting-a-puppy-process so hopefully a lot more blog posts coming your way sooooooon (we're going to see a few Cavoodles next week :D)

So much for a short post. Until next time!

Love Always,
Anna Banana ♡

TIP TUESDAY: How To Organise Your Planner

As promised, today's post is about how to stay organised in your planner. I thought I'd whip out my much-neglected Lilly Pulitzer Agenda & set up a few fake pages. I know, I know, faking pages is cheating, but I didn't have any uni things going on at the moment & I thought that planners would be most effective to help with school work and whatnot, so you understand, right? :-)

First off, these are my planner essentials. Washi tape, stickers, post-it notes, coloured markers & highlighters. A lot of planners have pockets for you to keep your bits & bobs so stickers fit nicely in there, as well as notes from school or important receipts & papers from work. The Marvy Uchida Le Pens are nice & thin, fitting nicely into my pencil case, as well as the Stabilo highlighters. I'm the kind of person who LOVES to use colour for anything & everything. In my opinion, they're great for colour-coding your subjects or allocating various things to different colours. The Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto pens are also great for those with limited pencil case space :-)

Monthly calendars often have space on the side for To Do lists. Sometimes I like to put my colour-coding system there to remind me which colours are for what. And this way, you can change them up each month if things happen to change (different subjects, extra curricular activities, etc). Washi tape is also great for highlighting/blocking out holidays or special dates.

While I'm doing my homework, if there are questions I want to ask teachers about, I write them all on a post-it note & stick them in my planner to ask at school. Post-it's are great because you can just stick them anywhere & throw them away once you're done with them (or keep them to make your pages pretty & colourful :D)

If you're not a colourful pen user, you can use highlighters to add a little bit of colour while helping you still colour code. I did this before & liked it quite a bit. It kept things simple yet colourful & organised without being too over-the-top. And some highlighters could bleed through the page or be too neon-y so sometimes I like to go back to the good old coloured pencils.

As you can see here, I assigned my subjects different colours so that anything I had to do for that particular class can be written in that colour throughout my pages. ☑︎ Check boxes are also a great way for you to keep track of what you need to do. And let's face it, that feeling you get when you tick things off is oh-so-satisfying. I tend to use check boxes for things I need to do & stars or bullet points for reminders or meetings, etc.

And your planner doesn't have to be strictly for work or school. I like to almost use it as a journal in some way, recounting things I did that day. For example, date night got a special little sticky note :D And I like to go all out for birthdays & holidays as well.

Having a planner can be really fun. I remember getting my first Filofax and being so excited to use it whenever I could. And that actually distracted me from my studies quite a bit, having the opposite effect a planner should have. Not to mention, I spent my days on Instagram & Pinterest, stalking amazing photos of planners and getting inspiration. So I think there needs to be a balance. Balance is so important in everyday life, and I guess once you get over the initial hype, you really do start to use it effectively & get the most out of it.

I hope this somewhat helped you to get an idea of how you might want to set up your planner & stay organised. I'd love to hear your thoughts & tips on how to organise your planner so please leave them down below.

Love Always,
Anna Banana ♡

TIP TUESDAY: Keyboard Makeover

Hello everyone! Can you guess what time it is? That's right! It's time for another Tip Tuesday! Today, we're going to be giving our keyboard a little makeover. As you may have noticed, I have a desktop iMac & also a MacBook Pro. I'm pretty sure most keyboards have similar key 'widths' so this would work for pretty much all keyboards. You've probably all seen these fancy keyboard stickers but ain't nobody got money for that (haha I don't even know how much they are). But doing it at home means I can customise them however I want.

Here is what the standard, 'naked' keyboard looks like. And all you need are a pair of scissors & any washi tape you have lying around to spice up our otherwise boring keyboard. And let's face it, we've got a lot lying around. I noticed that the washi tape was a tiny bit 'wider' than the keys but it still worked & looks nice nonetheless.

As you probably guessed, you just pick any key & decorate away. It's a pretty self-explanatory thing so I wasn't even sure if it was worth doing this 'tutorial' but I just felt like it. Oh, and be sure to take the batteries out or unplug your keyboard or else you'll be typing some crazy, crazy stuff.

I didn't want to do all my keys because I thought you wouldn't be able to see through them, but as you can see in the picture above, you can sort of see through just enough. I also pressed Caps Lock to show you the little green light. That's the amazing thing about washi tape. It's thin & sheer enough to be both cute & convenient. On top of that, if you ever want to get rid of your decorations or dress it up with different washi tape, it doesn't leave a sticky layer on your keys that most tapes would. Seriously, I love washi tape!

So, a pretty record-breaking short post from me today. I hope this was fun & let me know if you try them! :-) Also, I'd love some feedback on these Tip Tuesday segments. Was this 'good enough'? Do you want more elaborate tips/tutorials? Or will smaller little things like this be good as well?

Love Always,
Anna Banana ♡

TIP TUESDAY: Erasable Lists

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Tip Tuesday! To be honest, I'm not sure how long I can make this a weekly thing so sometimes it might be every 2 weeks or possibly even a Tip Thursday, but hopefully that's okay with you.

Today we're going to be making erasable lists for Filofaxes. And really, it doesn't only have to be for ring-bound planners. I think it you cut the holes out properly, you'd be able to put them in spiral-bound planners & notebooks as well. So, here is what you will need: a laminator, Filofax To-Do list, spare pieces of paper, hole puncher (single punchers are quite convenient), scissors, permanent marker & nail polish remover.

I often find it annoying when I'm laminating something small & have so much scraps left over. So I thought, how about cutting them up to put in my Filofax? With one A4 laminating pouch, I was able to get a personal-sized Filofax to-do sheet, a square blue piece of paper and make a 'flyleaf' in the personal-size and a smaller size.

I always found myself throwing away heaps of post-it notes with grocery lists on them so I thought laminating a to-do sheet would be convenient. Every week I can rub it off and start a new list. And this not only applies to grocery lists but to-do lists, wish lists, etc.

As you'd expect, you write on them with permanent marker as whiteboard markers often transfer onto the opposite page & can get rubbed off easily. I use nail polish remover to get rid of it later on but you can use whatever works for you of course. 

And of course, you can use the leftover laminated pieces to create a transparent flyleaf so that you can write on top of your actual weekly pages & still be able to see through them. Or you can also use them to 'pencil in' dates that aren't completely confirmed & always just erase them afterwards. I love how versatile these transparent sheets so please let me know any other uses for them if you come up with them!

I also cut from the edge to the middle of the holes on the side so that I can snap the laminated pages into place without constantly torturing my Filofax rings (sort of like the Filofax rulers). I love this idea so much! It's so handy to just move into different parts of my Filofax - the front, monthly, weekly, anywhere!

Finally, you can cut your sheets into different shapes. As you can see above, I cut a top tab to use as a weekly page marker, but you can also use them as side tabs, etc.

I hope you found this idea helpful & I'd love to see your pics of them if you decide to try them. I remember a while back, I even made a pocket out of laminated coloured paper. So as always, let me know how it goes!

Love Always,
Anna Banana ♡

TIP TUESDAY: How To Print Double-Sided on Filofax Paper

Here is the long awaited 'tutorial' on how to print double-sided on Filofax paper. In case you're wondering about the photo, it's really not relevant to the post. I was just looking through my images & liked it so there is is.

Step 1: Page Setup

If you got to Print, you're able to go to Page Setup and the Manage Custom Sizes to adjust the paper size. Since I print quite often on Filofax paper, I made a custom Filofax page with the dimensions of the Personal size Filofax paper (17.2 x 9.5 cm). You can also make this appear on your list of paper sizes by clicking the little + sign.

Step 2: Adjust Printer Paper Size

Here is what my usual paper tray in my printer looks like. As you can see, the width & height are so that they will fit A4 sheets of paper. What I do is, I place a sheet of Filofax paper in it and use the adjusters so that it will snugly fit personal sized sheets.

Above: A4 - Below: Personal Sized Filofax Paper 

Step 3: Printing on the RIGHT/FRONT Side

                                            LEFT                                                                         RIGHT

I labeled the sides of my Filofax so that you know  which side I'm talking about when I say Left & Right side.

Now, you may all know that there are 2 sides of Filofax sheets (duh, Annie). But what I mean by this is that I like to think of the side with the Filofax writing in between the 6 holes the 'Top/Front' side. And so all my pages will have this text showing on the right side of my Filofax (green circle).

Let's take the monthly pages, for example. The Thursday/Friday - Sunday part is on the right. So, let's print that side now. Since I want the Filofax logo in the middle to appear on that page, I put it face up on my paper tray. Then here is where the magic happens. Flip it. That's right, you heard me. Flip it.

I oriented the picture so it looks how it would look if you were to be pushing the paper tray into the printer (blue arrow). You may be able to feintly see the Filofax logo (green circle). That is the key. If you want something printed on that page, it must be facing down. So, in goes the paper and remember to click print on only the second half of the month (Thu/Fri-Sun).

This is what your newly printed page should look like. As you can see, the Filofax logo is up front & centre :D (green circle). This is a minor detail which you can of course choose not to do, but I find that it makes everything in your Filofax line up nicely.

Step 4: Printing on the LEFT/BACK Side

Now we're going to print the first half of the next month on the back of this page that we just printed. Since the other side of this paper is blank, that is where we want to print it (haha, obviously). So, if I taught you anything today, it's that it must be facing down. So this is how we're going to push the paper tray in.

And if all worked out, you should have successfully printed double-sided! Here are 2 pictures of exactly the same sheet of paper, just side by side.

I reeeeeally hope that this was as helpful as I wanted it to be. I understand that this is definitely a learning process. I still mess up quite a bit but hey, it's all good fun...isn't it? And once you start print out a whole year's worth of inserts, it'll come to you naturally.

Unfortunately I can't help those who want to print on A4 sheets & cut them to size. I've only ever printed my inserts on blank FIlofax paper & I can definitely say it's very convenient.

I hope this helped & I'd love to hear if it worked out for you!

Love Always,

Anna Banana ♡

ORGANISATIONAL TIP TUESDAY!

Happy Tuesday! You may be wondering what this 'Tip Tuesday' is but I went shopping for new bed sheets today & when I was putting some stuff away, just sort of stumbled upon a cute little organisational thing. It may seem dead obvious but I just thought I might snap a few pictures because, hey, I was so excited.

This is one of the quilt cover sets I got at Adairs from the brand Mercer + Reid. I just loved the colour combination & it's such a nice, lightweight yet warm quilt, perfect for the Spring time. As soon as we fitted set it all up, it instantly lit up my whole room giving it a whole new feel. The other set I got was from the Home Republic brand that has a bit of yellow and some darker, brighter blue triangles that I think will be perfect for Summer.

I was quite surprised at how expensive quilt covers & bed sheets were but I guess there's a good reason for it. The quality of these are amazing & definitely worth it. Oh, and I would highly recommend the Adairs membership. It's about $20 for a 2-year membership but you can save so much. My Home Republic one, it would have been $180, but with the sale that's going on right now, it's $100, and on top of that, the Linen Lovers Membership gives you a 5% discount so only $95. Same goes for the Mercer + Reid one pictured above. RRP is $230, the sale makes it $130, and my membership makes it $123. It's not a lot, but when you're buying as much as we did, it all adds up. Not to mention how adorable the membership card is. Seriously. Swoon.

Unfortunately, the quilt cover you see in the picture does not include the pillowcases so that's a few extra dollars. But I reckon this will last quite a few years & I've got others to switch occasionally so I'm set for a long time now.

Now, that's enough rambling. How about we actually get into the organising tips, huh? When I bought the quilts and the cases and all that jazz, they came in awesome plastic cases. So, being the organised freak that I am, I whipped out my DYMO labeller & got to printing some unnecessary but cute labels.

I don't know if you have the same problem, but we have a lot of bits & bobs and can never find the right plastic for things. So this time, I made sure to label EVERYTHING! I think they look quite nice. And what makes this even neater is that all the smalled ones fit nicely into the big one that the quilt came in. It was like playing tetris in real life &  I was so excited about it all. You get me, don't you?

So now, all I need to store in the cupboard is this neat little package. I'm thinking of reorganising our entire linen cupboard & using this 'system' to not only keep it neater & more organised, but to save space.

Let me know what you think & I'd love to hear your ideas as well. I looooove organising anything & everything so tips & advice are much appreciated. I'll try and make this 'Tip Tuesday' a more regular thing but I may lack the creativity for it to happen every week. But I'll try. And who knows, there might be a 'Tip Thursday' or something like that as well?

Love Always,

Anna Banana ♡