Planning Ahead in 2015-Choosing & Personalizing a Planner

This post is brought to you by Martha Bonneau from MugsyBoo.

The planner craze is sweeping the paper crafting world. Every day I notice more and more embellished planners and planner pages popping up in my social media feeds. In addition, several traditional scrapbook paper/embellishment manufacturers debuted planners in their lineup of products at this year’s Craft And Hobby Association Show (CHA) in California a couple of weeks ago. The concept of planners isn’t new, but the way paper crafters are embellishing and altering them certainly is! My first thought when I saw planners popping up everywhere was “but wait, I have a smart phone for all of those dates and appointments.” I am a visual person though and I have found that every month I will still print out a calendar and fill it in as a visual reminder in addition to the reminders and dates on my smart phone. Inevitably, having information in 2 places meant that occasionally I would miss something so inspired by the planners I was seeing on Pinterest and Instagram, I recently decided that I would dive into the world of daily planning in an effort to better organize my life, but where do you start? What size? What style?

I started with what size planner would work best for me. Planners are available in several different sizes with the most popular being personal and A5. Personal size planners have pages that are 3.7” x 6.7”, A5 planners have pages that are 5.8” x 8.3”. There are other sizes available if you want to go smaller or larger, but not all planner manufacturers offer all sizes. Ultimately I decided to go with the personal size planner, I wanted something that I could carry with me in my purse so that I could have it with me on the go as I would need to add dates/appointments to it while at school, taekwondo etc. with my daughter. If I was using it for work/business/more kids I definitely would have gone with the A5 size or larger for the additional space.. Another consideration is do you want a spiral bound planner or a 6-hole ring planner like a traditional Filofax style. Both styles can be customized and embellished so it comes down to personal preference. You can even create your own planner with a d-ring binder in the size of your choice.

Now that you have decided on a size and picked out a planner, it is time to set your planner up to meet your needs. This is my favorite blog post on how to set up your planner, it gives you all the details you need if this is your first time using a planner and it shows you how you can personalize your planner pages and make it your own using scrapbooking and office supplies.

Setting Up Your Planner

Planners can be used for so many different aspects of your life. You can keep everything together in one planner or you can have multiple planners to meet your needs. If you are an active blogger you might consider creating a separate blogging planner. You can also add inserts to your planner like these recipe cards to help streamline your weekly shopping trip.

Personalizing your planner. Here’s where it get’s fun, there are so many creative people out there embellishing their planner pages and creating custom inserts and pages! From creating a custom cover to embellishing your calendar, these ideas will show you can mesh creativity and organization beautifully.

Martha Bonneau

I live with my husband, 7 and 4 year old daughters, and a pug named Pixie in Crystal Lake, Illinois which is in the ‘burbs NW of Chicago.
I started scrapping in 2006 and was quickly addicted!I was an avid scrapper until late summer of 2010 when we started our adoption journey, at that point I was overwhelmed with paperwork (and emotions!) and I had to put something on the back burner in my life but I knew I would eventually come back to it.
We welcomed our daughter home from China in December of 2011 and a few months later I found my groove again and pulled out all of those supplies that had been tucked away.
I started out scrapping again doing traditional layouts, but at the beginning of this year I jumped into Project Life and I love it!
When I’m not scrapping I am usually spending time with our daughters which means library time, going on walks, thrifting (they love it as much as I do!) or watching Kung Fu Panda for the millionth time.I also have an Etsy shop Panda Eight Designs where I sell scrapbooking flair that I design.