How I found Planner Peace

Hey Ladies and Gents, so I am all over social media and in the various groups for Planners I hear us saying we're striving, looking, trying to figure out if we've in fact found Planner Nirvana.

So let me share my thoughts on the What, When, Why and How did I get there.  

***DISCLAIMER- I am not a paid spokesman***

When- I started paper planning in high school backing in the early '83 after going to Franklin Covey with my Aunt. I used that planner which was an hourly layout for I know the next 8-10 yrs.  By this time technology was moving us to use devices and I went digital. Although I used this method I still managed to forget, not receive alerts and I began writing things down here and there. In October 2011 my daughters, my Aunt and two of my cousins were in a near fatal car accident. 

Why- Because they were in another city and I had so much happening I found a Planner in Target because I now had to keep up with everything for 3 households at once.

What-  I discovered how much I missed writing my life down. It was so much easier to answer questions about what happened, who had what appointment, when to refill meds, therapy, how are they doing and also what's going on with church and the rest of my family.

How- I decided that I wanted to upgrade so I got the one on the R- Melvedy Designs on Etsy.  Once I got this planner it was to small and wasn't formatted to my liking so I gave it to my daughter who loved it.  After about 100+ YouTube videos I ended up buying the Erin Condren Life Planner and I have to say I loved it so much.

 This is the month-at-glance for June 2015 with enough room for several entries per day. 

 Here is how I use my Planner I'm not really big on going all out with decorations I'm more focused on functionality than anything else.  Please don't get me wrong I love a pretty planner

but I need it to work for me as a functional Planner especially with Dr. appts, therapy, tests, specialist and home and church life.

 As you can see from the photos above I have tried to figure out how to better work my Planner.  What do I want to track in it?  Will it be for everything like Appts., Meal Planning, Water Intake, online purchasing, when I mailed out packages, cleaning schedule for my house, church events, family events......the lists could go on and on and on!!

As I became more affiliated with FB and IG planner groups and people I learn I could take my ECLP out of the wire binding I got this Daytimer Binder and I went ahead and tore out my pages and put them inside I even made some dividers. I thought this was my peaceful place.....naw it didn't meet my real expectation.  BUT..............

Then I saw this pretty Kikki-K Binder and knew this was the right Binder for me and when she arrived this was the beginning of my Planner Nirvana

As you can see this is so beautiful and What I loved also was the additional pockets and pen loop.  I am beginning to be pleased with my Planner I'm figuring out what works for me and for the first time I know there's enough room to expand/decrease at anytime. 

As I look forward to 2016 I was really debating what Planner do I stay with ECLP or use a Printable, create my own inserts.  My concerns were; will the paper quality be the same, what is the Price Point; so back to YouTube I went and began to see MAMBI's the Happy Planner and based on the reviews and a with a bit of prompting from my Planner buddy Shirlene, I decided to go and touch it . 

Well I made my way to Michaels and as you can see I got my Happy Planner along with a few extra items to sweeten the deal. 

Here's my Month of December 2015 layout and really I love them.  This is by far a great Planner with the quality of a $50+ Planner for half the price.  The Happy Planner drew me in because it lives up to the implication that you will be happy using their planner. 

Here is a weekly layout without much writing but I love this Planner so much and feel that this is the best for having you keep record of things you don't always think about.  In the version I have at the beginning of each month there are prompts of what your focus is for that month, Birthdays, what are you Grateful for and Important Dates

here you have a week layout which to me is great there is a Thoughts Column to the Left which I use mine for To-Do and To Call, I love the boxes which are labeled Morning, Afternoon and Night.  I love this because there is a bit more room than the ECLP.  The paper quality is the same as the ECLP. 

What has brought me to Planner Nirvana isn't what type of Planner I have, what fluff(Stickers, Washi Tape, PL Journaling Cards)  I can use weekly.  Planner Nirvana for me is finding what works for your life no matter what that entails.  I'm happy and can't wait to find my Happy Planner for next year.  MAMBI hats off to you for creating a product that offers more than just writing down dates and times. If you don't believe me or are still looking and not sure.....why don't you come on over to MAMBI and see for yourself.

 Until next time Be Encouraged and Be Creative.

Enjoying My Journaling

Hey Y'all
Thanks for coming back to see me and find out what I've been up to!!  I saw a Instagram tutorial and of course I was hooked but because I had therapy I had to stop at 1 but more are in the works.

Then here's a peek at my Erin Condren Planner you can see its been removed from the coils and placed in a Kikki K A5 Planner.  I have really gotten carried away with all the pretty stickers, Washi tapes and such since I first got it last year in June. I can remember being so excited about getting it that I truly watched hundreds of hours of YouTube videos of ECLP reviews but I'm so glad I did!!!

As with anyone who loves all things paper it has really been amazing how I turned into the person that needed to add more to the mix. So what did I add........my Fawndoris here's a link to the YouTube video I created. They've  come to be the extras I didn't know I always needed

                  THIS IS A PEAK AT MY Documented Faith ENTRY

I also decided to make some magnet bookmarks and I'm really glad with how they turned out it took alot of searching on YouTube but I finally found the right method to get the results I was looking for. 

Well, other than therapy and church I'm just enjoying all that I've shared with you. So be blessed and find your little piece of heaven

Time to Plan a Catch Up

The end of my year was good, not so much on the health end but I did make a change in how I plan I was able after some Christmas cash to create my Unicorn Planner. How you ask........take apart and trim one Erin Condren Life Planner and insert it into one Kikki K Planner Binder!! It's been nearly 6 months and I'm still in love and have planner Peace!!

 
 
 

Ravelry, Planning and other Random Things

Well as much as I think that my new sedentary life will yeild me more time to stay up on my set blog schedule my only constant is daily Devotional and Prayer time.  When you give your Will over to God's Will the day can go any kind of way as long as you are being kind and helpful along the way.

Let's jump right in and I will share my latest SWAP package that I recieved from Paisley Spirit on Ravelry from the Cowl Swap group I'm in.  Needless to say I love everything and look forward to knitting/crocheting and getting lots of compliments from wearing my wonderful cowl she created for me.

Here it is my Erin Condren Life Planner in a Day Runner Binder. Ask me how you can get $10 off your very first order.  I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about taking my planner and ripping it out of the coil and cutting off the side just to 

put it into a Binder.  Turns out I love it.  I did just 1 month and after a week went ahead 

and did all the way up to March 2015.  

The next thing I did was pull out my Cricut Expression and figure out how to make my own dividers with ornate tabs just because I could kinda thing.  It took me a while because I use the Cricut Craftroom software and for some reason I could not get both shapes to weld into one shape for cutting.  I had to walk away and then since I find everything on Socail Media I figure the fastest way after searching the site for help was to try Facebook and YES I hit the jackpot.  I found the answer I needed and proceeded to make these babies.

                                                   That line is the problem I tried to fix.

Here's my cute Top Tabbed Dividers cut, laminated and punched

                                                                         FRONT

                                                                           BACK

MY DAY RUNNER BINDER

                                                                     
                                               MY LABELED TOP TABBED DIVIDERS

Well that's it for now hope you enjoyed my little post and I pray all is well if not know that God is able to do whatever you stand in the need of.  I will be posting several videos here in the next few weeks until then Be Blessed, Be Encouraged and always Be Creative.  

                                                     

Life, Erin Condren, Instagram, Smashbooking and ME

So it's been almost 2 months since my last post and alot of things have transpired since that time.  One should be obvious my Blog has a new look thanks so much to Ms. Paulina D.  I want to thanks so much for giving my blog a new look.......Paulina YOU ROCK GIRL!!!!

Let's jump right in.  Life well, since the last post I'm still not working trying to get my Etsy shop up and rolling making a few sales but the fees are killing my profit so there maybe a change in shops real soon.  My health is about the same I am having some better days and feeling a little stronger.  Thanks to my DD Carmen she gave me and her son a great gift a virus so for the past 10 days there's been a lot of coughing, sneezing, tea with honey, Nyquil, Theraflu, Ricola, Water and Orange juice and needless to say handwashing just because, Lysol sprayed throughout several times a day with windows opened to air out the house. LOL

Instagram well I finally did my first Instagram/FB giveaway in collaborations with The Ink Road and Forever Anchored 316 both with shops on Etsy.com were so awesome in helping my followers have an awesome experience

 I can't wait until I reach 500 followers there will be some gift cards and goodies involved.  Thanks to everyone that participated but especially to my collaborators you were so awesome!!!!  Hugs to you both.

Erin Condren..........I have really blossomed since I first heard about this Planner.  In my previous post and Video I talked about my first planner and then my discovery of ECLP which I'm absolutely in love with.  Since this time 2 months ago WOW it's been that long I've become involved in a lot of FB groups specifically for Erin Condren Planners.  Here are a few pics of my Planner

This first pic is a screen shot of how I would like to eventually master in my planner.  What I love most is the neatness and Jen D. is the creator of this lovely layout and in my book the master of great layouts in planning.

This week was in July and it was getting pretty busy I just took a look back and wow it became even more hectic 

Here's a Dashboard I made by laminating the left side and then punching 1/8" holes and spliting them so that they just snapped into the Planner.  I use these to write Biblical Inspirations weekly.

Here's on of my weeks in August and although most ECLP users don't color coordinate with the specific month I do.  I never plan with a theme in mind it's always with color, and stickers and I'm trying to get into using the same color ink as the month BUT so far that's not consistent.

Here we have September and I've tried to be a lot more organized in how I list my items. One thing I'm learning is this is an ever evovling process and I still have a long way to go.  

In my next post I will talk about my FoldOut Dashboard I made and how it's helping organize my living space and my wallet. So stay tuned for that.  Next up let's talk about something I've wanted to do since I first started this hobby.

Smashbooking is a form of scrapbooking but without serious forethought at least that's normally my approach.  To me it's like making a collage of your life in stroy form.  This group I joined on FB Smash & Share had a 30 Days of Lists Challenge for August and I thought why not and jumped right on in.  Here are a few pages that I made

Getting My Life Back on Track.........thanks Erin Condren

So I use to be a stickler for having a planner and Franklin Covey was always my fav.  But as Smartphones came into my life I pretty much relied on them until Oct. 2011 after my 2 daughters and 3 other family members were in a horrific auto accident.  I was overwhelmed by all the information I needed to have and keeping certain things compartmentalized I went to Target and found a planner and life was grand again. Forward to last year, instead of getting a planner I decided because of my church projects and such I would opt for project planners instead so I now have one for Outreach, Minister and  DVine Redemption.  that was ok for the most part and will still use them as they help set up meeting agendas and contacts of People who are in charge of specific tasks and as you can see you have the left column for what action was taken from the plan that was set in the right hand column.  I now needed something for the rest of my daily life and schedule.

Last month I was looking at getting a daily planner and of course I went to social media for reviews and what I was really looking for.  I finally went on Esty.com and found Melvedy Designs planner but when I got it although I liked it and the setup was good it was not enough space for me to really PLAN anything for a full day.  I went back to Social Media and on YouTube I started seeing videos on FiloFax, Erin Condren and Lily Pulitzer.  After determining that the cost of  Filofax was waaayyy out of my budget and Lily Pulitzer was good but it was something about the Erin Condren Customizable Life Planner that really drew me in and the option to have a 12 or 18 month planner was appealing as well.  I watched in upwards to 60 videos and everyone was enthusiatic about her product so I made up my mind to go from this  SORRY FOR THE BLURRY PIC MY SHAKING HANDS.

 The Erin Condren Planner is to your left and the Melvedy Designs Planner is to the right.   See the difference in size and from what I learned the Erin Condren Life Planner is A5 size planner.

 Here's my Erin Condren Life Planner in Fleur Feliz pink/purple there are also other planners ie. Teachers, Sorority, Inspiration/Quote, Wedding along with Address and Notebooks.

 Here's the month at a glance nice amount of room for jotting times down or below you can customize your planner to include specific bills, social activities and such look below

 At the end of your planner there is a note section with lined and unlined pages for jotting down list of various things that are important to you.

 What I also loved about her planners is that they are Bright, Customizable, there are Inspirational Quotes throughout and at the on the top of every month at a glance page. It comes with re-positional stickers with whatever you want them to say.

 Here's a tow-sided pocket for storing whatever you like.  It also includes a clear vinyl pouch that you can place whatever you need for planning on-the-go.

And here are my additional stickers with my church emblem my girls and my grandson along with event stickers just for the things that I know are important to me.  

 to finish it all up you can also order a band to hold your planner all together

Well you can check out my YouTube video of my first impression of my planner when I opened it along with the accessories I purchased to jackup my planner and make it more personal and fun and the FREEBIES that are included.  If you think this planner is for you hop on over for $10 off your first order   Stay tuned for my 30 day review and how I'm using my planner and setting it up.

Until next time keep lifting me up in prayer and I will be doing the same for you.  My next review will be a video review about my Natural Girls Rock packages I received.   Take care and God bless.