Matt & Nat Handbag and Wallet Reveal

My 23rd birthday coming up soon.  I have incredible parents.  These two things combined have resulted in my being gifted the gorgeous Matt & Nat Parabole bag and Chubby wallet! *cue swooning*

Matt & Nat is a Canadian company based in Montreal and all of their products are vegan.  I recently discovered them, and have been drooling over their "leather" goods ever since!  Their motto, “Live beautifully”, and commitment to sustainable and eco-friendly products really resonates with me, and I love their promise never to use leather or any other animal-based materials in their designs!  Their products are made from materials like recycled nylons, cardboard, rubber, cork, and bicycle tires and their linnings are 100% recycled plastic bottles.  How cool is that?  I am so glad to be supporting a local Canadian company so in line with my values!

Parabole in Black, The Vintage Collection

The Parabole bag is a thing of beauty.  Not too big, not too small.  Removable crossbody strap.  Minimalist and classic design.  Comes in 5 timeless colours.  I wouldn't surprise myself if I had it in every colour by my 24th birthday (in my dreams, anyway).  The perfect day to day bag that can easily transition to night!  I love bags that aren't so upscale that they can't be worn to the grocery store and aren't so casual that they can't be carried to a nice dinner.  This bag really checks off all the boxes and darn is it beautiful!

Chubby in Black, The Loom Collection

Practical and pretty in a little package, the Chubby wallet has everything I need.  Roomy change pocket, 2 bill compartments, 7 card slots, compact shape and minimalist design.  Sign me up!  It also comes in loads of colours.  (I just love black and its versatility.  Sue me!)

Related Blog Post: Birthday Wishlist: Vegan Edition

As you can see, I am over the moon with my gifts!  Expect more birthday-themed posts coming your way in the next couple of weeks.  (I really love birthdays!)  Matt & Nat is definitely a brand I will be watching, and lusting after.  Why don't you give their site a look and see if anything tickles your fancy?

Until next  time...

What's your favourite vegan handbag brand?  Let me know in the comments below!

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Disclaimer:  I was NOT paid by Matt & Nat to spew love all around.  I am actually this excited about my gifts!

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7 Ways Pinterest is the Best Wedding Planning Tool on the Internet!

Wedding planning is much harder than I thought.  MUCH.  Let me clarify:  I never expected it to be easy.  But MAN is there a lot to do!  I was never someone who spent much time thinking about my wedding, and by extension, wedding planning.  I hadn't dreamt of my dress, picked out a location, or imagined the reception.  Until I joined Pinterest, that is.  After a few months resisting the urge to create a wedding board and letting all of the beautiful pictures float away, un-pinned, into the abyss, never to be retrieved... I gave in.  How could I not?  For the first time in my life I was thinking about what my possible-eventual-hypothetical wedding might be like, and it was REALLY fun.  But I didn't have a fiancé, or even a serious boyfriend, so I tried to keep the crazy pinning lust to a minimum.  Because who wants to date a girl with 3,000 pins on her wedding board?

Fast forward a couple years, and here I am:  engaged to be married to the love of my life, Jason, and utterly dumbfounded by the wedding planning process.  But wait, what's that I hear in the distance?  Is that fanfare?  Am I being saved by a knight in white, super-shiny, armour?  Why yes I am, and this time it's not my fiancé.  (Don't tell him I said that.)  It's Pinterest! 

1. Inspiration is guaranteed with all of the gorgeous wedding-related pins.  It's so easy to make a mood board for your wedding with all of the elements you're looking for to keep on on track throughout the whole process!
2. Organization is easy and tailor made to you!  Make multiple boards for different aspects of your wedding like the dress or the ceremony so that you always know where to find what you're looking for.
3. Sharing the planning with your bridesmaids (or mom!) who are out of town is easy with group boards, where all of your friends and family can collaborate with you to make your day perfect!  
4. Saving money is made easier by all of the fantastic wedding DIYs and budget tips at your fingertips!  Be sure to pin things you can make yourself to save $ on the bottom line of your big day.
5. Remembering all of the little things isn't so hard with checklists, timelines, and questions to ask your vendors all in handy graphics!
6. Keeping Track of vendors you'd like to look into is simple; just pin a photo from their website and you're good to go!
7. Having fun is the best part!  Inject some fun into the often stressful wedding planning process and get lost for minutes (*cough* hours) in the happy land of pinning.  You'll relax AND get stuff done all at once!  Look through your board with your fiancé and watch his or her eyes light up when an image sparks their imagination for your special day is almost as magical as having a unicorn as your post-ceremony transportation.

Related Blog Post: How Much Wedding Can You Afford?  Choosing the Big Number for your Big Day

So there you have it, the 7 ways that Pinterest is saving my wedding-planning butt!  I hope you utilize Pinterest to its full potential during your wedding planning process and that its calming, trance-like, effect helps you to relax after a long day of budgetting, dress shopping, and flower arrangements.  Be sure to check out my wedding boards on Pinterest for some wedding-pinning inspiration!

Until next time, I'm off to pin centrepieces!

Do you use Pinterest in your wedding planning?  How do you use it most?
Not planning a wedding?  What's your number 1 favourite thing to pin on Pinterest?
 

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(I am not being paid to talk about how awesome I think Pinterest is.  I just actually think it's this awesome.)

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Should You Get Rid Of All Your Leather Now That You're Vegan?

"What should a vegan do with all of their leather, wool, silk, and down products?"

If you asked 100 vegans you would hear 100 different opinions, but I believe there is no right or wrong answer to this question.  This is not, unfortunately, a black and white issue.  Ridding your life of animal products for good can be a long process or even impossible in today's world.  The way they are used in just about everything, whether or not they need to be, makes transitioning to a fully vegan lifestyle a struggle.  Do you drive a car or take the bus?  Do you own a computer? Do you watch movies on film?  You're using animal products.  In today's world, the prevalence of objects containing animal products is staggering.  So what should you do?

Two Sides of the Vegan Coin

From my observations there seem to be two different kinds of ethical vegan:  those who believe animals should never be thought of in terms of the objects they can be made into ("Purity" Vegans), and those who don't believe animals should be made to suffer, but think that animals treated with love and respect may be used to create objects for human use when they die, whether of natural causes or by a compassionate human hand ("Impact" Vegans)*.  Purity Vegans are the ones you meet who would have disposed of all items containing animal bi-products immediately upon deciding to go vegan, without debate.  They are also the ones who are (usually) more likely to judge other vegans for wearing or using items containing animal products.  Impact Vegans, who tend to believe that contributing to further animal suffering is the real issue, may wear and use these products until they wear out and even purchase new goods containing animal products, as long as they are second hand.  

So which kind of vegan is right?  

I can't give you a definitive answer.  Personally, I sit somewhere in the middle.  I believe that ethical veganism is about witholding your consumer dollars from the numerous industries that exploit and torture sentient beings. Under this definition, what you do with previously purchased items isn't the most important issue at hand.  There is definitely a big part of me that is uncomfortable with wearing shoes made of leather or a coat with down filling, but the majority of that uneasiness comes from the knowledge that the animals suffered horribly to make these garments possible, not from the fact that they were used to create garments in the first place.  Humans have been using skins and all other animal bi-products from a hunt for various purposes for thousands of years, and I don't see anything particularly wrong with that.  It is the nature of life for one being to kill another and use it to sustain its life.  What I have a problem with is the way that we, as a culture, now treat animals as commodoties and materials and not living beings.  That we give them no respect and brutalize them for our own benefit.  This is why, while I am wholeheartedly against buying new items containing animal bi-products if I can at all avoid it, I am not 100% against using products that were previously owned, whether I was the original buyer or not.  These products have already been consumed and done their damage.  Continuing to use them does not feed into the consumer/animal suffering loop.

Let's Look at an Example

Let's look at a hypothetical argument between a purity (in italics) and an impact vegan.  (I'm going to use leather boots as an example for simplicity's sake).  

Why are you wearing leather boots?  I thought you were vegan?
I am vegan.  I purchased these boots before I knew what animals went through for their production.

But now you know.  How could you still wear them?
Yes, I do.  But in continuing to wear these shoes I'm not causing any additional suffering on top of what I already have.

Yes you are!  You're supporting the leather industry!  
I have supported the leather industry in the past, but I no longer purchase new leather products.  The animals that have died to provide these shoes have already suffered and been killed.  I am not causing them, nor other animals, any harm by continuing to wear these shoes.  Let me explain the normal consumer and animal suffering cycle in the leather industry**: 

But if I wear boots I've already purchased?  No new animal suffering.  Even if I purchase a new-to-me pair of leather boots at a thrift store, there isn't the same impact.  Just say someone donates her old pair of leather dress boots to a thrift shop.

• I drop in and buy them for $30.
• The owner takes that $30 and uses it to pay his/her expenses.

That's it.  No distributor calls a manfacturer who orders more leather, causing an animal to be slaughtered.  When the shelf in the thrift store is empty there isn't the same chain of events as in a regular shop.  The thrift store owner simply waits for more donations or purchases old goods off of patrons to replace the boots I bought.  In this case, I have contributed $0 to animal suffering.

But you're a walking billboard!  People will see you wearing leather and think it's ok or be inspired to buy leather shoes!
There is leather everywhere.  It is so commonly accepted in our culture that no one sees it for what it really is anymore.  My wearing or not wearing leather boots has about as much bearing as a fly landing on someone's leg on their decision whether or not to buy leather over some other material.

But then you're still contributing to a culture with leather everywhere!  You should only wear vegan products.
Ok, say I wear vegan boots instead of leather boots but that they APPEAR to be leather.  How is that any different to someone just passing me on the street?  The vegan boots did not cause suffering, but strangers don't know that.  And if I threw out my old boots to buy new vegan ones I'm disrespecting the sacrifice made by the animal to create them and being wasteful by requiring more ressources to be used up for the sake of my feet, even if they aren't resources that cause suffering to animals.  And what if those vegan boots are made of synthetic materials that are bad for the environment? Or in manufacturing plants that treat their human workers inhumanely?  While animal cruelty is a very important issue in our society that needs to be addressed, it is not the sole issue.

You can't waste something that isn't a resource, and animals and their bodies are not resources.
Perhaps they shouldn't be, but in our culture they are.  And they have been for thousands of years.  I believe that an animal allowed to live a full and hapy life, treated with love and respect, can contribute to the well being of another species after their death without causing an ethical dilemma.  I think of it in similar terms to a human donating organs or their bodies for research and medicine after death.  I realize that an animal can't make the conscious decision to donate the use of their bodies to humans after death, but when they are no longer alive they are no longer in need of their bodies.  It is the way of the natural world to use the resources at our disposal to extend our lives.  The difference between current day humans and every other species is that we intentionally brutalize other beings for our purposes in a way that no other species on earth does.  We choose to ignore the sentience of other living creatures to ease our collective conscience rather than choosing the ethical and compassionate route of treating them with the respect and kindness they deserve.

---

As you can see, this is a very complicated issue. 

So, how do you decide what to do?

I believe that everyone has to make the decision for themselves.  You have to look into your heart and your mind to decide what you're comfortable with and then stick to your decision, no matter what criticism may come your way from vegans and non-vegans alike.  For me that means donating, selling, and giving away the majority of my belongings containing animal products and using the rest until they wear out or I can afford vegan replacements.  I am a 22 year old saving for my wedding and don't have a lot of extra cash sitting around, so this is the best strategy for me.

You can keep any non-vegan products for wearing at home only, until they wear out, so as not to "promote" the use of leather products, if that is something that worries you.  You can sell, donate, or give away every single non-vegan item you own.  You can keep every single item containing animal-products and use them until they fall apart.  You can pick and choose from all four.

My one plea is to please, please, not throw out your products containing animal products that still can be used.  The animals who suffered for their manufacture deserve much more than sitting in a landfill.

And if someone asks you why you're wearing leather boots?  Use it as a conversation starter to talk about banding together to demand more ethical treatment of animals.  Don't get defensive, be open, and watch how disarming it can be!

Until next time...

This is a very complicated issue and I would love to hear your opinion in the comments below!  What did you do with your non-vegan belongings when you made the switch?  How do you feel about wearing animal products, even if they're second hand?

Also, be sure to use the sign up form at the bottom of the page to get updates from me and new blog posts right to your inbox!

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*Thank you Ben Davidow for the awesome terminology of purity/impact vegans!

**Thank you carpevegan.com for the inspiration to make the infographic!  I found your article on thrift store leather very interesting.

How to Use a Bullet Journal to Stay Organized!

I have always enjoyed organization, since a very young age.  I LOVED back to school shopping, not so much for the clothes, but for the trip to Staples where I could buy new notebooks, binders, dividers, pencils, pens, highlighters, scissors, staplers, and so, SO, much more. (Sorry Mom and Dad).  As early as elementary school I used bullet points and headings, highlighted, and colour coded my notes.  Everything in its place, and all that.

All of this early school organization carried on into my adult life in the form of (surprise, surprise) a daily planner.  Over the years my daily planner has taken many forms, but in recently it has been a small pocket notebook with each day's to do list and appointments.  While I like this format, and am now using something relatively similar, I had trouble distinguishing between different types of tasks and items and organizing tasks that didn't get done.  I did some research into how other people organize their daily planners and came across the "bullet journal" approach, which immediately intrigued me.  It was created by Ryder Carroll and is a pretty cool system!  I started my own trial and have absolutely loved it. I wanted to share my variation with all of you in case it works for you as well as it has been working for me!

What is a Bullet Journal?

Basically, a bullet journal is an organizational system that you can use in your to do lists, notebooks or daily planners to speed up the time it takes you to make an entry and find what you're looking for.

Creating a Key

A key is used to remember the symbols you choose to use to make your journal faster to write and easier to read.  I wrote my key on a post-it note so that I could move it from page to page as a reference, but many simply write it on the first page of their notebook.  Some parts of my key I use daily, while others I only use from time to time.  I haven't implemented this system fully into all of my general notebooks, but when I do I'm sure the other symbols will come in quite handy!

The symbols I use the most frequently are:

• the square for my tasks,
• the circle for events,
• and the bullet point for notes.

The signifiers I use the most are:

• the wide star for priority items,
• the thin star for items to be rescheduled,
• the circled "b" for blog tasks,
• and the "c" and "e" symbols for calls and emails. 

The 5 status symbols in the upper right hand corner of my key are as follows:

• an arrow to show that the task was migrated,
• a dashed arrow to show that the task was delegated,
• a line through the symbol to show that the task was cancelled,
• a half filled in symbol to show that the task is in progress,
• and a completely filled in symbol to show that the task was completed.

A Day in the Life of a Bullet Journal

I usually write my daily plan the night before or in the morning over a cup of coffee with my fiancé.  Here is an example of what a day might look like in my bullet journal:

I start by writing the date, and under that start to write in tasks and events I have scheduled for the day.  I also like to write an hour by hour planner to the right of my bullet journal points to have a visual cue of tasks or events by time of day (this is not part of the bullet journal system, just something I like to use!).  As the day progresses I add items as needed and fill them in as they are completed.  When I realize that an item won't be done that day, or decide not to do it until another time, I write in the migrated arrow.  If I'm migrating it to the following day I don't bother to add a date, but if it's being moved further into the future I'll write a little date to the left of the signifier.  If things come up during the day that I want to remember but aren't specifically a task, I'll add them after a bullet point to represent a note.  At the end of the day I'll review the items, filling them in if they were completed and migrating or cancelling them if they weren't, depending on if they are still necessary.

Numbering Pages and Indexing

Another great part of the bullet journal system is numbering pages and creating an index either at the front or the back of your notebook to keep track of important entries you might want to refer to again and again.  I haven't found this necessary in my daily planner (as the entries are chronological and easy to find), but have tried it in my general notebook and found it SO helpful!

Now, some people use their bullet journal for everything; daily planning and otherwise.  The problem with that method for me is that I like to take my daily planner everywhere in my purse, so I like it to be small and portable.  However, when I'm working on planning (my wedding, finances, meals, or blog posts), taking notes, or anything else I may need a paper and pen to do, I like to use a full 8.5x11 page.  Since these preferences aren't compatible, I keep my daily planner and general notebook separate.

Monthly Planning

I love using a calendar to see my month at a glance, and this is where I like to play with colour!  I find that it's easier to write with one pen day to day, as I can easily bring it with me and add things wherever I am without messing with my colour system.  If it made practical sense to carry six coloured pens with me in my purse everywhere I went I would colour-code my daily planning, too, believe me!

Here's the month view in my daily planner:

And a close up of an example week:

I've found in the past couple months of using this planner that six colours is enough to cover the most frequent events that come up in my life.  Red (my favourite colour) is for things that I'm doing alone (going to work, working out), blue is for things my fiancé, Jason, is doing alone, green is for all financial reminders (like paying bills or picking up a cheque), purple is for activities that Jason and I do together (date nights, grocery shopping, weekend trips), pink is for social events with friends, and orange is for everything else (general reminders, important dates, medical appointments, and the like).  I love this method as it keeps me organized AND looks pretty!  What could be better than that?  I write events into my calendar as soon as I hear about them so that I won't forget anything, adding them to my daily tasks once I'm planning that particular day.

You Might Also Like: 5 Steps For Setting Great Goals

So you want to start a bullet journal...

My advice for anyone thinking of implementing the bullet journal system into their life (and I recommend it whole-heartedly!) is to first take a look at the original creator's website.  Once you have a feel for the original system I suggest you check out what different people are doing to get inspired and then throw away anything you don't need and make your own version!  You can add or delete things as you go to find what works best for you, and sooner than you'd think you'll find you have an awesome, tailor-made system that keeps you organized and on track all day long!

For a starting place to check out other examples of bullet journals, take a look at my organization board on Pinterest, where I have tons of organizational tips and tricks:

Follow Plant Based Bride's board Organization Heaven on Pinterest.

I'd also suggest using a journal with dots or a grids over lines, as I feel they lend themselves better to this system.  I really love my May Designs notebook with two-page calendars for every month of the year followed by dotted pages.  They have all kinds of different formats for the interior of your notebook, as well as fun personalized exteriors, so you should really check them out!  (I am not being paid to rave about May Designs, I'm only middle obsessed with them. Just ask my fiancé!)  With all of that said, I hope you give bullet journalling a try and that you get as much out of it as I have so far!

Until next time,

Are you going to start a bullet journal?  Let me know in the comments below!  Alternatively, do you already use this method? I'd love to hear what you think about it and what you do differently!

Also, be sure to use the sign up form at the bottom of the page to get updates from me and new blog posts right to your inbox!

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