What do you get when you combine a Brit, two Chicagoans, and an Englishman residing in France?

A Filofax Meet-up! Seriously, I’m still totally baffled at how, in just over a year, I have met so many incredible people all over the world because of my decision to buy a Filofax. But let me get back to this post title, for which I’ll have to rewind about 24 hours.

Just after 5 p.m. on Thursday, my phone rang. Looking down, I saw the weirdest phone number that I have ever seen. At first I thought it was some robot-telemarketer call but then I realized… don’t they have different phone numbers in Europe? Duh.

“Hello?” I answered.

“‘Ello, this is Alison!” replied the English accent on the other end of the line. I gotta say, I’m a sucker for British accents, even on a girl.

You see, Alison, myself, and Sandra decided to hold our own mini meetup when we found out Alison would be in Chicago for business. But due to a overly talkative and not on time host, she was running late and called to let me know. Shortly after, Sandra tweeted to say that she was sitting in the terrible traffic of the Stevenson Expressway. I wasn’t too worried- I work right down the street from the restaurant we decided on so I just got a few more things done at the office!

As I was walking down the street, Steve (King of Philofaxy) tweeted and asked Sandra where she was at on the highway. He then proceeded, from France mind you, to provide Sandra with traffic updates until she arrived. It was quite strange to hear him talking about 55 and Harlem Avenue!

Despite a few delays, we all made it and were finally able to toast to a fun night.

Here’s where the post will get picture heavy. We managed to keep the Filos safely tucked away until after dinner, but each brought some goodies to share, which we couldn’t hold off on handing out right away!

I gave Sandra and Alison each a pocket that fits into a personal Filo, some fun stickers, and a few homemade cards. In return, I got all you see above: a whole mess of stickers, a passport sized notebook, panda highlighters, and a few tabs and erasers!

Soon after we finished eating, the Filos emerged!

We all actually use Maldens as our primary Filos (not necessarily a surprise) so we made our own Malden stack…

We had my personal crimson, Sandra’s personal and pocket black Maldens, and Alison’s pocket grey- the grey was so pretty! It also wasn’t until this meet up that I realized how fat my Malden has become. Oops.

Sandra also brought her beautiful aqua A5 Chameleon which she is trying to move into full time. Alison and I had quite a bit of fun perusing all of her different inserts.

Another quick little table shot… in the background you can see Sandra’s personal brown Amazona, which is empty at the moment but beautiful nonetheless!

Then we did the obligatory Filo stack. No where near the official meet ups, but not too shabby either!

In fact, they were almost taller than the bottle of wine we drank!

From bottom to top we have: A5 aqua Chameleon, personal raspberry Chameleon, personal crimson Malden, personal black Malden, personal brown Amazona, pocket black Malden and pocket grey Malden.

And again from the other side…

People probably thought we were crazy, but we actually didn’t get too many odd looks! Then again, who could think these lovely ladies were crazy?

It was such a fun night- I am still so happy that this community has brought so many people together. Who ever would have thought I’d be getting phone calls from the UK and directions from someone in France?