the planner craze

On and off over the years I've always had some sort of planner, mostly paper but lately more electronic in nature. I found that a paper planner kept me sane when I was working full time and going to school full time. I had deadlines and assignments to meet and a life to lead all at the same time. Fast forward thru the last few years where this stay at home wife and mother has managed okay using just her memory and iPhone calendar. Now that my daughter has gone back to school and is gone all day I've been craving a more structured day. I want to get more stuff done in the hours she is at school so I can be more available when she gets home.

When Studio Calico announced the Agenda class that I wrote about here, it really put my desire to be more efficient with my time in the forefront of my mind. While this class isn't about time management it is about using a planner to be more organized so it will still help me a lot.

I looked thru my old planners that I had saved and decided they just weren't going to fit my lifestyle these days. I spent some time online looking for the perfect one and by perfect I mean gold.  Enter this beauty from Kikki.k all the way from Australia along with the accessories shown here.

I haven't had a ton of time to really sit down and customize it but I have printed out a calendar and some inserts from Miss Tiina at her etsy shop, her 2014 planner inserts are on clearance so if you are starting now like me its a good option to play around with her printables for the rest of the year to see if they work for you.  So far they are working great for me.  I am also using a few planner sheets that I have purchased from Marcy Penner which are more specific to scrapbooking projects and blogging.

I decided the other day that I needed to add some sort of personalization to the front of my planner and went with a Project Life® style to jazz it up.  I used this page protector that I found at Staples awhile back, its not online anymore but you might find it in stores. It hangs over a bit on the right side but still clears the edge when closed so I'm okay with it. I just needed to punch new holes and it worked great.

I added some photos and lots of gold bits to personalize it up. The Let's Do This and the Gold Icon card were from the Studio Calico Pretty Little Paper Pad that was a sneak night exclusive this past March, the gold embellishments come from the Heidi Swapp for Project Life Foil Mini Kit and the two gold vellum papers that I used are from Studio Calico; the stars from Brighton Pier, the gold punchinella was from the Lemonlush line. 

I even did the back side just so I could add in some more photos. It was a lot of fun personalizing the planner and I really feel like its mine now and that makes me happy.

I will add that ever since I got my gold planner someone (Simone) was very jealous and said more than once that she wished she had one of her own just like mine. I told her I had an old planner that she could have and when I mentioned it was purple she was thrilled.  She has been carrying this thing around ever since I gave it to her and has even taken it to school with her. I guess I need to sign her up for the Studio Calico Agenda class too!

Take care and I'll see you soon,