DIY Planner Layouts: Now with DIY Washi-Tape.

I have a few more pages of layouts.  This will bring my layouts to current and even show a blank layout for this week.

I glued in a sheet that I printed from http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ then stuck in a piece of scrap paper from a previous project.  I did some minimal decorating with a stamp and a small doodle.

I tried something completely new this week.  I painted the right side of the page with hot pink acrylic paint.  I did glue two pages together to ensure the page would be sturdy enough to handle the paint since this is a Moleskine and it doesn't always behave well. The paint worked amazingly well.  I was actually surprised.  I used a white Sakura Gelly Roll pen and it wrote just fine over the acrylic paint.  The top border is a fabric sticker, cut to size.  I did have to go over the word "August" about 5 times for it to show up well enough.  On the paint, the pens tended to bleed.  The pen that worked the best was fine point sharpies and the Sakura.

Due to my current love of all types of mint green, I wanted to just keep this week super simple.  I only used mint green-ish inks and black ink.  Specifically black Sharpie pen, Copic Multiliner in turquoise, and the Uni-ball Signo Angelic pen in green.  I also tried a different layout on this week. This is new to the planner, I haven't used this layout before and I like it a lot.

I also want to point out this washi tape....I made it!  I bought a roll of green masking tape and using a rubber stamp and Staz-On black ink pad, I created my own custom tape.  I just used the stamp all willy-nilly.  I wasn't trying to keep the pattern perfect, just pretty.  Has anyone else made their own washi-tape?  If so, I'd love to hear about what ink works the best for you.  Staz-On ink seemed to work the best out of what I had.

This is the mostly finished and undecorated layout for this week.  Again, this is a totally new layout.  The majority of the tape is some cheap stuff I found in a dollar bin at Walgreens.  It isn't paper tape it is more slick than regular washi tape. 

Since I usually only have a few layouts worked out ahead of time, one of the main things I find lacking is the ability to plan several months ahead.  I have no idea why I just don't add calendars since I am the one making this thing....but I never have.  So again, like for summer I put in a few printables from Ahh-Design for planning out the upcoming fall and winter.

Layouts through August!

I am nearly caught up for the year!  These layouts should take us to almost current.  Then I will just try and post one update per week.

One additional note, I had a comment that the pictures are too small.  Since I am loading these from my phone, I can't seem to adjust them, but I am easily able to use ctrl+scroll on my mouse and make these more than large enough to see more details.  If anyone else is having problems, let me know.

On to the layouts....


I love this layout, there is so much space, but I just really don't have too much going on and I lack the time to properly doodle journal my activities. 

This layout is kind of unique.  I honestly can't remember where I found it.  But it does feature one of the mint green pens I have.  I am in love with mint green right now and would use nothing but mint green if it wouldn't be so boring.  Maybe I need to do one week where everything is in mint green and the various shades of that!

This layout comes from an excel sheet I made several years ago.  I made a friend a planner for Christmas with all different weekly layouts, so I just glued this in.  The yellow and white paper I taped in came from an old Kate Spade notepad I had hanging around.

Same with this layout, a glued in sheet from that same planner.

This week just features some tape and stickers!!

Another glued in sheet from that planner.  The strip of little designs around my to-do list are tiny hippos and not really tape a tape at all. It is the Plus Deco Rush Decoration Pen from jetpens.com. Sadly, it is no longer available. 

Overall, this next week is my favorite so far! The dotted paper is a page I tore out of my smash journal.  I know a ton of people love them, but I wasn't able to make it work for me, so I have been cannibalizing pages form it here and there.  So glued the page in and used two different washi tapes down the side to fill in the gap space and I bit more tape on the top and right side, just for something different.  I used stamps for the days of the week and a sticker for the word August.  Obviously, this is per-decoration, but I wanted to show the page in the empty form.  The currently reading sticker is on a label from some Martha Stewart labels I got at Staples on clearance.

In general, I feel like I almost have more fun designing and creating the layouts than I do decorating them each week.  I have been thinking about taking a blank book and just doing a whole self-made, undated, one of kind, DIY planner for 2014.  If I do that, I might try and sell it on etsy or somewhere like that.  There is no way the money would make up for the time and supplies I put into it, but I love the idea of someone using something I have made.

It would definitely be a giant project and very eclectic, so we will see.  Maybe it wouldn't take as long as I imagine it would.  I'm also worried that by the time I am done making it I wouldn't be able to part with it!  Has anyone else hand designed and sold a completely DIY planner?

More DIY Planner Layouts

Ready for more planner page layouts!  

This first page is not designed by me, it is a printed page from Ahhh Design, so I want to be sure to give credit where credit is due.  Obviously nothing too exciting was happening this week, but I just wanted to illustrate how I use glued in things.

Part of this is an Ahh-Design layout as well.  But the ledger type paper is glued in on top of the Ahh Design page and the little brown squares are cut up stickers that I just wrote the date in on.

This is the facing page.... I really am only sharing this because I LOVE the lettering for "currently reading."

More Washi Tape

I've shown this basic layout before, but the green striped tape is new to this design.

For this week, I found one of those, print all types of paper sites and I think this was a layout for comics or something.  So I just drew some lines on it and glued it in.  Normally I put the weekly layout part on the left, but I switched it this week and put my "notes" page on the left.

Since I do a weekly layout, I have not monthly calendars in the front of the planner.  I could do that, I just don't like taking the time to do 12 months of that.  Plus, I don't think I would really use it.  But this summer I had a lot of stuff coming up each weekend, so I glued in some print outs to help me plan for summer.  These are print outs from Ahhh Design.

DIY Planner Update!!

Well after briefly flirting with tumblr, we have officially called it quits.  I am not going to lie, I have no idea what the heck that thing is about.  Plus, I found a blogger app for my phone too, so it works just as well.

So without further preamble, how about some sample planner pages from the 2013 DIY planner!!  Here are a smattering of different layouts.  I'll try to keep the photos pretty big to show the details.

The circles are from my mini-Spirograph set.  I did them on a different sheet of paper and glued them in.  Dates are stamped in, from a set I purchased.  So this is a two page layout for the first week of January.

I have a giant collection of washi tape at this point, so I am trying to include that more and more.  I use it less for planning purposes and more for decoration.

The dates on this page are from a small DIY calendar section I found at Hobby Lobby, same with the "January" sticker.

More Washi Tape....

The calendar grid on this page was made with a clear/cling stamp, it was part of a "Calendar" set.

For this week I used two sheets of a Rhodia 5x5 dot pad and glued them in.

I tend to use the one week on a page format a lot because it is quick and easy to make.

Wow! I didn't realize I had so many different layouts. Sometimes it is small tweaks, like the dot grid paper and sometimes it seems like there are really big changes from week to week.

For the pens I used in this, it ranges from the giant triplus set, stabilo sets, some copic markers, a few sliccis, hi-tec-c, all types of the uni-signos, zebras and various sakura gelly-rolls.  I would say 99% of what I have used in my planner has been purchased from JetPens.

I have a lot more to post, but I didn't want to post too many pictures at one time and I wanted to make sure I wasn't boring you.  So unless tons of people tell me they are tired of these posts I have more planner pics coming!

Pens From Europe!

Stockholm, Sweden

In July, my husband and I went on a cruise that left from Stockholm and traveled to several European countries. We had an extra day on either end of the trip in Stockholm so I had a chance to do quite a bit of browsing for both office supplies and everything else.I took this opportunity to purchase a lot of pens and paper in Stockholm and Visby, Sweden.  I have always loved the idea of buying the supplies that "the locals" use so this was my chance!   

We saw a lot of amazing things on the trip, but Stockholm was one of my favorite places. To quote my husband, "Three truths I have learned about Stockholm: 1) Stockholm is an IKEA the size of a city. 2) Every store is apparently a TARDIS, from the street they look like a small storefront, but hold more stuff than a Wal-Mart. 3) There are only about twenty different stores in Stockholm, they just repeat every few blocks.

One store that I only came across once in my travels, was a department store called Ahlens. This is where picked up the Muji markers above and the unknown short makers in the photo.  The pen test is for the white markers.  I think the real winners in the maker set are the  purples, there are a lot of very subtle shade differences that make each color unique.  If there was a tag with these markers, it was long gone by the time I took the pictures, so I am not sure what brand they are.  There is a tiny tag inside the zippered pouch they came in, but it says made in China, so that isn't much of a clue. (The Muji pens below also came from Ahlens.)

In Visby, I stopped into a bookstore and they had a large stationery section.  I picked up several of the pens in the following pictures from there.  I think my favorite one has to be the retro looking, retractable, teal BIC pen.  I also like the orange BIC pens because they are fine point and they aren't sold much, if at all, in my area. 

 

The pen above the Faber-Castell pens is a "b.n.t/office pen." I do not know much about this pen, and a quick google search didn't shed any light on it for me either, so I am not sure if it is sold in the US or not.  But it seems to be very similar to a Pilot G2 pen, only in ballpoint.  Surprisingly, I do not have a G2, otherwise I would compare them side by side to be certain that they are as similar as I think they are.

I know I have a few more pens hanging around that got adsorbed into my pen drawer at work so they weren't available for review.  I also have around 10 notebooks that I picked up in Sweden, but I'll save all that paper for a following post!

If there is anything you want to see a better of picture of or would like more details about, just leave a comment and I'd be happy too oblige!

So it has been a year since my last update....

Well it has officially been a year since my last post.  So it probably goes without saying that it has been a crazy time for me.  Last year, I was excited to have more time to post due to a job change and then last November my job chose that moment to explode.  When it finally calmed down towards spring, I took another job within my company and that one is currently still exploding.  But I did manage to finish my graduate degree which freed up some time, so I am just left with work to take up my time.  Throughout the craziness of the year though, one thing has remained constant---I still LOVE pens and paper.

I have managed to continue to collect items throughout the year.  I have a bunch of new things actually, including a nice assortment of pens/paper I purchased when my husband and I traveled to Sweden and some other European countries this summer.  So barring any uptick in crazy-town stuff at work, I have quite a few things to share!

One of my favorite purchases from the last year, is this file cabinet for pens.  Who doesn't need one of these?

Pen File Cabinet!!

I picked this up from The Container Store.  I purchased it in-store when I happened to be near one, but I assume they sell it online as well.  I did have to look at several to make sure there were no scratches or dents so that is one good reason to pick it up locally, if there is a Container Store near you.

This cabinet feels very solid, sturdy and it is metal, just like a regular file cabinet, only smaller.  The plastic inserts are sold separately and help to divide up the drawers.  They aren't necessary, but I wanted them so I could sort my pens.  The inserts had two size choices, one deeper and one that was shallow.  I purchased a mix, but ultimately ordered replacements for the shallow inserts.  They just didn't hold enough pens.  I have left the bottom drawer without an insert for now, it is just a catch all drawer.  This cabinet  holds all of the pens I have from JetPens and the like that I have at home and I rotate items between this and my desk at work. Right now I have around 300 pens in this cabinet and I think I could fit at least 150 more without a problem.

As you can see from my photo, I also have a small cardboard type drawer organizer on top of the metal cabinet.  This is pretty much only for mass market pens and markers. Just to compare the two, I think the cabinet makes for much better organization than the cardboard drawer simply due to how much it holds and the fact that the drawers are more shallow than the cardboard, you can actually see what you have. 

Keep in mind, this metal cabinet is not small, it takes up quite a bit of real estate on my craft desk.  Even though it is large, I would love to pick up one or two more in the same color as what I purchased.  I figure I could easily fill them up with additional JetPen items over time.  For example, I just purchased all 18 colors of the Uni Mitsubishi Pure Color Double Sided pens. They will probably take up about half of the depth of one the compartments of the plastic dividers.  That is another reason I love the dividers as I tend to buy all the colors of a pen, so it is great to be able to store them all in one spot together.

Does anyone else use a cabinet like this or have other innovative ways to store your pens?

Dialogue Journal and Rolling Writer

It is coming up on my favorite time of year, school supply season! I have already started browsing the displays cropping up at the mass market stores, but I also love college bookstores. I decided to beat the rush of students and visited a nearby college bookstore yesterday. I came came across this Dialogue Notebook by PaperLuxe and the Pentel Rolling Writer pen. This book has a soft flexible purple cover with attached elastic band. I couldn't get the book to open flat, but I think it will be more likely once it broken in. The pages are lined on the front and blank on the back. This was actually the selling point for me and I how I use journals. I like to make collages in them and a blank page would be great for that. Or I could use this book as a DIY planner and a mix of lined and blank pages would be perfect.

My main complaint is the layout of the lined pages, that the spacing on the lines is wide like a Rhodia, I prefer a ruling similar to a Moleskine. There is also a lot of wasted space at the top and bottom of the page and there is a logo, which I typically do not like. (You may need to click on the picture to see the lines they are kind of faint.)

The paper performs as expected. I did a quick test with several pens.



All showed through on the back but they didn't bleed through to the next page. I would recommend this book as more of an art journal rather than a writing journal, but you would have to be aware of the medium being used to avoid bleed through.

I also want to talk about the Pentel Rolling Writer (the first example in my pen test above). The package lists this pen as a .8 however, it is liquid ink pen that is very bold. I have come across this pen a few times, usually in offices where I have worked and immediately appropriated them as my own. I rarely see these in stores and when I do, I buy one.

I even have several dried up ones in my pen box. I love the pen but if I could nitpick one thing, it is that the width of the line varies greatly as you can see from the pen test above. The package says it is because of the writing pressure that is applied. I feel like it more about the angle of how the pen is held. That being said, I still enjoy this pen and like to use it for journaling.

Does anyone else use this pen? I rarely see them in circulation so I am not sure how popular they are.

Pensational News!

Welcome to School Supply Dance!

I am excited to start doing a pen and paper blog as I am an addict! I have a lot to learn about the whole blogging thing but as long as I can have my future readers put up with me, I have tons of great pens from www.jetpens.com to review. I also have a serious paper habit, whether journals, mead 5 star or memo pads, so I feel like I have a lot to say on the paper front as well. It might take me some time to find my voice, but I am ready to start. My first review will be coming soon!