It's Raining JellyBeans: Plan With Me or Planners Are The Next Big Thing

I tried...I really, really tried. I gave it my best...I jumped in with both feet and my iPhone. I tried to go all digital with my calendar...in fact, I tried it for 3+ years. For over 3 long, disorganized years I exclusively used the iCal App on my iPhone. Rather than MORE organized, I found myself getting more DISorganized. Each year Iget later and later for birthdays and I forget more appointments (thank God for those reminder phone calls).

Our lifestyle would seem to be perfect for digital calendars. Being able to access each member's calendar and be instantly notified of changes would seem like the perfect solution to keeping organized. My husband's work scheduled changes monthly and he travels a lot so having the ability to change his schedule on everyone's calendar all at once is great. My kids' school events and deadlines can easily be shared within the entire family. So what is the problem? I don't know. Going digital seemed like it would be perfect but instead of making me super organized, I am a disaster. I am so disorganized that it has taken me longer than it should to realize that it is just not working. Ditching the landline phone and a paper calendar

hanging next to it did more than just get rid of telemarketing calls and beautiful artwork. It took away the PLACE where things were organized; the place where I kept things like business cards and phone numbers and appointments. Now I keep forgetting birthdays, never think of anniversaries, and have become an unorganized disaster.

At first I thought it was just me struggling with schedules but I am quickly realizing a lot of women are saying the same thing....digital planning just isn't working. So many in fact that there is a huge PLANNER movement occurring. The movement has become very popular on Instagram and ETSY shops are popping up left and right selling stickers, dividers and downloadable pages. The eye candy is everywhere and So. Much. Fun.

Planning can be everything from a cheap paper calendar to documenting so in-depth it is more like a diary. My version of "planning" is pretty simple. I bought a planner and made my own dividers. Then I made a ton of fun, encouraging, positive message tags and ephemera to attach here-and-there to make the whole thing beautiful.

There are all sorts of calendars available with more coming all the time. I suspect this holiday there will be a huge number of planners introduced in the marketplace. Choose your planner style and then look at all the stamps and stickers and accessories that are available. Today I will just show my planner but I will post about some of the more interesting stamps and stickers available in a later post.

Here is a look at my planner:

I started with a beautiful Personal Size Gold Color Crush Planner from Webster's Pages. I snagged this pic off Google Images because I forgot to take a picture of the closed planner but they are no longer pre-order and in fact many are sold out but there are so many planners flooding the market I know you will find one you like.

This is my GORGEOUS Gilded planner.....

There is plenty of room under the flap on the left inside cover for a variety of fun embellishments that can be changed in and out over time as well as post-it notes and stickers.

This page was made from the waste or "negative" foil left-over from a project I made using my Minc Machine. I simply laminated the negative foil and cut it into this size.

Below I stuck a piece of white paper behind the page simply so you can read the sentiment. The foil negative is from one of items in the Heidi Swapp Minc Die Cut Phrases.

I made my own dividers using the most gorgeous paper collection ever made, Fancy by My Mind's Eye. I fell in deep with this collection the moment I saw it. All that mettalic gold....it just had me at Hello.

Anyway...the dividers were cut using a Cricut and an SVG files from Kerri Branford. If you have better scissor skills than I do you can easy hand cut them....I just can't cut a straight line for anything.

Let's talk laminating...I laminated the dividers using Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches. Originally, I bought the el cheapo ones from Amazon that Christy Tomlinson recommended in her Creative Planner class but I gotta tell ya' they sucked. I mean, if you are looking for a "distressed look" maybe they are just what you want, but they are a hot mess. When I used them on the dividers I never got a smooth beautiful finish and when I laminated the foil scraps there were bubbles and the foil creased...here let me show you.

Amazon Lamination sheets

Scotch Lamination Sheets

Look at the that smooth shine. It's so shiny it is was hard to get a picture without seeing myself.

Amazon Lamination Sheets

This would have been so pretty if it wasn't a hot mess.

Scotch Lamination Sheets.

Literally all 4 were made using the exact same technique and the same brand of foil. The only difference was the lamination sheet.

This is what you want to get.

Here I made a "shaker" out of a piece of plastic packaging and a vellum tag. I filled it with some of the gorgeous sequins from one of mixes from Lucy's Cards.

My collection of Lucy's shaker mixes.

Another tag made from laminated waste foil and die-cut into a tag shape using a Tim Holtz die.

Yes, I have an unhealthy obsession with ampersands.

The heart is again made from laminated foil. The silver is actually the backside of pink foil but it matches my planner better.

Here I made a pocket and a tag with some things I think are important to remember tucked right inside. This is probably my favorite embellishment that I made.