OLD ENGLISH COMPANY - COMPETITION & WISHLIST**

Hello everyone! Long time no post, I know. These past few months have been really busy - specifically at work and I have found myself unable to find the time to be able to write posts and I've kind of been lacking the motivation as a result as well. 

However, blogging has been a passion of mine for almost 5 years now so I'm not going to give it up anytime soon! We all have those dry spells in whatever we do and I think I've just been experiencing one of them but I'm back and ready to write again!

I've always been a fan of organising and planning, sometimes a little too much so. I can't really function at full capacity without a list of things I need to do and I've always got to have a diary and notebook close by. So when Old English Company contacted me and asked me if I'd like to write about their competition, I thought it would be a perfect piece of content for my blog. In this post, I'm going to tell you all about their competition and share with you some of my wishlist items from their website! Enjoy.

ABOUT OLD ENGLISH COMPANY

Old English Company are a English brand specialising in stationery and giftware items. Their focus is on creating, simple yet beautiful hand crafted designs with thoughtful messages that resonate with their customers.

The company create an abundance of different items such as planners, wall art, greeting cards and enamel pins. You can purchase their products on their website (they deliver worldwide) and they can also be found retailing in shops such as Paperchase, Waterstones and Urban Outfitters!

KEEPING ORGANISED WITH BAN.DO

I'm a sucker for organisation. I love planning and above all, I just love lists. Perhaps it's my tendency to worry that is so influential on my need to plan things but all I know is that I don't really feel like me if I'm not able to organise what I'm doing. One of the things I love that helps to keep me in check is my Ban.do diary. I first got a diary from Ban.do in 2016 when I spotted the one that my beautiful friend Tanith of ThingsTanithDid was using in University one day. She had shown me through hers and other than how beautiful it was to look at, I loved how it was laid out and organised and knew I wanted one. I swiftly went on to ASOS where I knew Ban.do organisers were sold and I bought myself the same one. I used my diary throughout 2016 and I absolutely loved it so I knew I'd want one for 2017 which is why I asked for one for Christmas! I was lucky enough to get one so in today's post I thought I'd show you through it and tell you why I like it so much.

Both the 2016 and 2017 versions of the diary are pretty much the same in terms of what they include internally. The only key differences that the 2017 version has is the size and layout of these sections. For starters, the 2017 diary is much wider and contains fewer pages. This does mean that the diary is a little bit on the bigger side so it isn't going to necessarily fit in a bag as easily as the narrower 2016 one did. I don't mind this too much however as I find it fits easily into near enough all the bags that I use including my current one. The diary also has a beautiful floral design just as last years did except this one is designed using more muted, pastel colours which I really love.

Inside of the diary there's a handy pocket for documents containing a cute little slip which details the diary's "Secret Code" - symbols that are scattered around the pages of the diary and which are encoded messages that you can decode in your spare time. The diary also has within in two full pages of adorable little stickers - I especially love this little novelty addition to the diary as it allows you to really personalise it.

As you enter the actual pages of the diary itself, you firstly find a layout of the year showing you all the days of each month from January 2017 on to December 2018. Then, there's also a page allowing you to write down some notes or "Reasons to Party" for each month of 2017 as well as a neat little list of the nation holidays of the year too.

As we get into the pages for every month, each section is divided with a handy side tab meaning you can easily flick between months to find a specific date or page. The first page of each month shows you a layout of each day of the said month giving you room to write down a small note or two. Whilst the 2016 Ban.do diary also had a section for each day of each week of every month, the 2017 version has downsized on this and decided to simply divide each bit of its pages into weekly sections. I like this change as when I finished University in particular, I didn't feel that I needed room for each day of the week for note taking and so that left a lot of blank space in my diary. Having sections for each week of the month rather than each day for me means i'm more likely to utilise all of the space in the diary - there is also a small notes section provided on each month page for any extra things that you may need to jot down too!

As well as novel little additions like the secret code on certain pages of the diary, there's also motivational sayings and messages of encouragement too. I think this is a lovely addition to the diary and it's nice to be able read a comforting and feel good message now and then! Finally, at the very end of the diary there's a super large section of pages for notes - always handy as you never know when you may need to write something down.

Overall, I think this is an awesome diary - from it's layout to its design, I'm really impressed with how it's been produced and I know I'll definitely get a lot of use out of it just as I did with last years. Organisation is something that is important for me and having such a useful, handy diary like this one means that planning is so much easier. If you're on the look out for a good planner, I'd certainly recommend this one!

As mentioned above, you can get Ban.do diaries from ASOS as well as from retails such as John Lewis and Selfridges.