2014 Updates!

It has been a busy year so far! We've moved states for my DH's job, we bought and sold a house, went on a 10 day vacation and so on!!  Yet I had time to keep up on my planner but I didn't get a chance to post here or in the FB planner groups. 

I used the same type of book as last year, XL moleskine cahier. The front is scrapbook paper, modge podge and washi tape. 

I bought these two layouts on etsy and alternated them each month because I liked them so much and couldn't decide. This is the first time I've ever put in a year's worth of monthly pages. 

Created this layout on the computer and glued it in.

To fit the 12 months and 52 weeks in this book I had to have some 2-weeks on one page layouts. 

This is a layout I've used before and created in publisher and photoshop.

I tore this out of a 2$ planner from Barnes and Noble that was on clearance. 

I can't remember where I got this layout, maybe from a planner group, I wish I could remember who to credit.  I should start making a note on each page if I use someone's layout. 

The second page is also from a planner group I think. 

This week I decide to try and blend a weekly planner with bullet journaling. The little card has my "key" for the bullet journal. 

Thanks for catching up with me!

JetPens Giveaway for your DIY Planner!!

I was really excited to receive a couple of cute items from JetPens that I could review and then in turn to offer to one of you as part of a giveaway, sponsored by the fabulous JetPens!

The items JetPens sent to me are  the multi-color Maurman Loose Leaf Mini Sheets and the cute post-it like Kuretake Echizen Washi Adhesive Memo Notes.

I had a lot of different ideas on how I wanted to use these loose leaf sheets and I want to share two different ideas.  

First, I took seven individual sheets and lightly glued each of them together, using the Kuretake Craft Glue Pen.  Then I glued just the very edge of the loose leaf sheets to the page in my planner.  

This picture shows a good representation of the color of each note.  They are a muted blue, pink and yellow without being too pastel. 

 

This design hinges having a quality paper, due to the fact that I have to be able to fold the pages back and any bleed through would mar each subsequent day. With that criteria in mind, I wasn't disappointed. 

 

I didn't experience any bleed through with using everything from sharpie pens, Marvy LePens, Pilot Juice Pens, some scrap-booking pens and Uni-Ball Signos.  Since this planner is built on a Moleskine base, it is easy to compare the paper performance.  The Moleskine paper isn't even a match for the loose leaf paper, since these pens routinely show/bleed through. You can see on these folded back pages, nothing has really shown through and definitely didn't bleed through.  I think that fountain pen users would be happy with these if it wasn't an extremely wet ink, but I didn't test it on this layout.

 

You can also see the Washi Memo Note in action here.  It is definitely a more textured paper and not as smooth or slick as the loose leaf paper.  The sticky part on back is sufficient as well, I just held it down with some washi tape because I have about 50 rolls and I need use it!  Ink performed well on these and the pencil theme is perfect for all of us office supply fanatics.

I also hole punched down the side of the page in a few spots, to make it look like it was held on by the ties rather than the glue.  The ties are just a bit of washi tape folded on itself and tied in a simple knot. The knots have held fine all week, no extra glue was required.

The second way I used the loose leaf paper was truly as a loose leaf sheet.  I had some pockets that I glued into this week's layout and they were the perfect size to hold a few sheets.  I think for next year's planner I will incorporate one or two of these pockets into the planner design so I always have a few extra sheets at my disposal.  I find that there are quite a few times where I need to make a quick note to give to someone else or put in my pocket, and this way I won't hae to rip any pages out of the back of my planner.

I am excited to give you a chance to win both of the items I reviewed directly from JetPens.  All you have to do is visit the official entry page.  Keep in mind you must be a subscriber to the JetPens newsletter and if you aren't, you will have a chance to subscribe on the bottom right of the entry page.  And why wouldn't you want to be a subscriber?  JetPens is awesome and you will find supplies on there that you will absolutely have to have! 

The contest will close at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, November 5th and I'll announce the winner shortly after and your itemswill be sent to you directly from JetPens. 

Don't forget to enter for your chance to win!

September Layouts

I wanted to share the last two week's worth of layouts.  I posted this first picture when it was just a blank page, but I wanted to share what it looked like when I was done with it.  I clearly need more to do, so that my weeks are more decorated!

 

There are several things I like about this week....first being the chevron washi tape.  I think it is adorable.  Second, I love the little post it note that is half graph paper half notebook paper.  I wish I had full size sheets in a notebook with that layout--it would make for a great DIY planner background.  I am also really having fun with this weekly layout.  I need to mess around with it a bit more to try and find a way to make the weekend larger and the weekdays smaller.  I rarely have stuff to do during the week except for work and I have a completely different work planner system.

Just as a side note, every pen I used on these layouts were from JetPens and are a mix of Sakura Gelly Rolls and Marvy LePens.

Stay tuned, as I will have a giveaway posted tomorrow and my post will cover all the cute stuff I bought in Chicago!   I also have one more giveaway waiting in the wings from one of my favorite retailers...so keep an eye out for that.

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.

Must Buy!

I have discovered a product I absolutely have to have for designing my DIY planner. 

I found this over at www.fallindesign.com.  According to the description, this stamp can be used to make your own phrases and it includes numbers and some punctuation.  I can easily think of at least 50 ways to use this. I think it is interesting that it say this is volume 2, I wonder what vol. 1 was or if it ever existed?

The only thing I don't love about it, is the fact the font is Times New Roman.  If anyone knows of any similar products, please share the link!!

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!