My Planner!

Ok, so here's what I finally decided to do for my planner!

I had a lot of fun with this. I combined some ideas from different sites and simplified the process a bit for myself. What I love most about this system is that you can completely customize it for your needs.

First, I found a mini binder on sale at Staples -- I recommend starting with the stores that are least expensive and moving up to find supplies. My usual order of shopping is: Dollar Tree (500+ stickers for $1? Yes please! Some of the teacher stickers work great for this), Walmart, A.C. Moore, Staples, etc.

Our Dollar Tree store had large binders (if you prefer), stickers, post-its, and washi tape!

I ended up finding great deals on some clearance supplies at Staples and got the binder and dividers for $6 altogether. Raid the clearance aisles first!

I don't know about you, but I almost always have post-its (or scrap paper), random stickers, letter-stamps, and sharpies kicking around, so I didn't need to purchase those. I also had a hole-punch -- only a heart-shaped one, but it did the trick.

FREE TEMPLATE PAGES

For my first go at this, I actually measured and cut out some pages to put in my binder and sketched out some weekly and monthly pages, but that takes awhile, so I ended up putting together some quick printable weekly/monthly page templates that you can download in PDF format for free here. The file contains 3 different color options (blue, green, and pink).

TABS

My binder has 3 sections:

• WEEK Tab
  This contains my weekly template where I list my daily to-do tasks, appointments, etc.
• MONTH Tab
  This has my monthly template where I mainly list upcoming appointments, important events, etc.
• IDEAS Tab
  I've made more customized pages for this section, to have a little fun with it, and make crafty pages to inspire my daily sketch ideas and drawings.
• To Add -- ACTIVITIES Tab
  I want to add a page just dedicated to family activities that we want to try, directions to the location, and cost, to better plan our warm-weather adventures (if warm weather ever comes!).

I've been in doodle heaven lately, so this page on the left was one of my first!

WASHI TAPE

I'm finally hooked on washi tape after hearing other crafty bloggers rave about it for years and having no luck with it myself. The rolls I bought always shredded and never peeled off evenly.

I've now experimented with the Scotch brand ($2.99 at Staples) AND a cheap dollar-store brand. Both worked great, but I have to say that the dollar-store brand worked even better than Scotch. When I peeled the tape, it didn't roll back on itself like the Scotch brand, so no carefully unrolling your tape and getting it stuck all over your fingers only to grease it up and have it not stick! Also, it was quite a bit thicker than the Scotch brand, so more durable.

http://www.simplypchee.com

So far, I've only used the washi tape to stick things into my planner -- random scraps of paper to draw on or write notes, like above, under my "Doodle Ideas" paper. But, this crafty blogger mom (simplypchee.com) shared this image which shows what I found to be a really clever use for washi tape on your calendar.

I've had so much fun with this planner and have really put minimal time into setting it up. I hope that you find something similar that works for you if you're in need of a planner. And, feel free to shoot me an email at YourMomIsStrange(at)gmail(dot)com if you think of any questions I didn't answer here.

Happy planning!

For more ideas, see the links in my previous post, here.