Personal Domino pen loop fix – (Dom)

As another decade draws to a close, I am reminded at how lax I am with my blogging efforts. So a little re-introduction about my world. Running a home business, organising life and probably failing as my work is priority, trying to re-kickstart my creative endeavours have not afforded much more than the usual run of the mill everyday life, which I am sure most of you find boring. I have not done much by way of creating anything for my Filofax apart from use the same layouts. I know you probably want to just read about one thing when you come across this blog and that is probably the frustration with a lot of blogs – you read something thinking there will be more of the same topic, only to find it has gone off-topic.

What I have done is located my pocket Domino (“my Dom”) – I nearly had a heart attack at the thought of having thrown it out. So let’s talk about Dom.

Back around 2005, when I was working for larger accounting firms, I thought it would be a great idea to be organised manually. Most of everything was organised through my Outlook calendar and the thought of having another separate online calendar had not crossed my mind. After all, I spent most of my waking hours at work, and there wasn’t much else going on at the time outside of work. I am digressing, I know.

So enter the Dom. 14 years later, he’s a little bit worse for wear around the pen loops, with the suede having come apart and started flaking something chronic. I was inspired by Kent from Oz’s 2013 video on how to make a basic pen loop. He hasn’t posted in awhile but his videos on YouTube channel are more active than his blog.

My next step was to make it. Easy peasy. Here you find my stuff against the backdrop of my Finn as I made a pen loop for that too.

Double sided tape and card stock – I used some old dividers which I was in the process of recycling, but good to know that I could up-cycle it instead
I used double sided tape instead of staples because I could get a closer fit. To be honest, you could use what you have on hand. Tape over the sides even. Whatever works best for you.
I stuck these pen loops on to another cardstock with the 3 holes punched out and taped it down. Not sophisticated and slightly raw looking, but it works!

Not all of my pens are the same size and to make my life easier, I labelled the pen that went in the loops. The last thing I wanted was for my Liliput to fall out in transit.
Yikes, flaky! One of the most daunting things is trying to work out what to do with the flaky bit sticking out but I had to bite the bullet and tell myself that this section is no longer functional and we need to seal it back up. So snip snip it went. Literally ..

Dom now comes with me to client meetings – where I would like something small and compact for note taking, yet does the job. I used to bring Finn with me, but he was a bit too clunky to carry about so he can sit on my desk nice and comfy. The hard leather exterior on the outside of Dom means that he is less likely to get scratched and scuffed in my handbag, which let’s face it – there’s bound to be something like keys that will go to town on the surface.

To you, Dom. You are a true workhorse.