The Organizeaholic

Happy New Year! I was in the US for the holidays, and between presents, family, and other assorted activities, there was no time for blogging! Also, I’ll be sharing some exciting news in an upcoming blog post. But for the time being, an intro to what was supposed to be my 2017 setup…

My new planner for 2017 was going to be a gorgeous Kate Spade Cameron Street agenda in black (http://www.katespade.co.uk/eur/desk+stationery/cameron-street-agenda/invt/pwru5091-603). I’ve always liked the looks of the Kate Spade planners, but was never able to find them in the outlets close to me. When they started being sold in the normal stores and online, I bought one (in late October, when they were on sale) as a Christmas present for myself.

Since they were significantly cheaper on the US website, I bought it there and had it sent to my parents’ house, so I didn’t actually get to see the planner until Christmas, when I arrived. I opened the box the moment I got to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve – it was beautiful! The black leather makes for a really elegant planner, and I love the interior pinstripe pattern. The inserts were nice quality – both design and paper. There are a ton of credit card slots, making a combined wallet/planner totally feasible. And I love the zip-around design! But, there was one thing that wasn’t quite right.

To my disappointment, when I opened the planner and flipped through the pages, I saw that the rings were gappy! Nothing terrible, but enough to catch the pages a bit. The ring quality in general was not good, and the gaps looked like they might get worse. After going back and forth about it for a day, I decided to bring the planner to my local brick and mortar Kate Spade store to see if they could do anything about it.

When I brought the planner in, the employees were all incredibly nice. They agreed with me immediately and 100% that the planner was not in the shape it should be, and took it back no questions asked, even though I had bought it in October. Since they didn’t have any in stock in that particular store, they ordered one from another store and had it shipped to my house. However, all three employees were skeptical that the new planner would be any better – they noted that it might be a manufacturing problem.

A few days later, the new planner showed up on my doorstep. I opened the box hesitantly, with my mother, father, sister, and boyfriend all looking on…

…unfortunately, the new planner had the same ring gap. Indeed, on the new planner, the zipper also seemed to be a tad sticky. I thought about it for a day, because I was quite disappointed – I really wanted to like the planner, and the ring gap wasn’t that big. In the end, though, I decided to return it: I just can’t justify spending nearly $200 on a planner that’s not perfect, and this most definitely wasn’t.

The store took the planner back without any problem and refunded my money, so props to Kate Spade on their customer service. However, it’s disappointing that a planner of this caliber (or at least, this price) would use cheap rings, and I’m hoping they’ll change that in the future.

In the meantime, I’m still in my lovely Malden (and loving it just as much as ever!). After the Kate Spade disappointment, I spent some time tooling around on the Van der Spek website, flirting with the idea of a custom planner. I don’t think I’ll do that anytime soon, but my current obsession is with A6 planners…sooner or later I’m going to buy a VdS Touch Me in their A6 size to give it a try…something new will be fun! If you have any of the new Touch Mes, what are your thoughts? Leave your opinions in the comments!

I’ll be back soon with more 2017 updates!

Organizedly yours,

L.