I’ve always been a list girl. I’m sure many of you planner gals out there are list girls too. I enjoy tracking everything from my grocery list to my monthly goals and to do’s. That’s one of the reasons I created this tracker. I also like using my planner (and lists) to track (or document) more important things like my monthly gratitude, progress I’m celebrating and even lessons I’ve learned.
Last year I was playing around with a smaller, dot-grid planner and decided to start a month in review page. I got the idea from scrapbooking. I don’t remember where I originally saw the month in review idea but I started using it in some of my scrapbooks back in 2010. I thought the idea would be great to incorporate into my planner so I created a template and used it for several months last year.
I decided to make a version for my Happy Planner last month. I tested the format and it was great. I really liked having my goals and to do list back in my planner as well as a month in review. The one I made for October even coordinates with my Cute Halloween Happy Planner Kit. I think I’m going to start making these every month.
I wanted to share this with all of you as a freebie so click here to download it. Let me know how you like it! It has bleed built in with crop marks. I just cut it on my Fiskars paper trimmer and it was perfect. I did print it on 40lb presentation paper which is really nice and sturdy. The paper is thick enough that you don’t see any shadow from the reverse side. I’m thinking about doing a video on how to choose the right paper for your printing project. If you’d like to know my secrets from working in the printing industry for years then comment below and let me know.
It’s been a while since I’ve worked in my planner or designed something new but as the end of year approaches I want to get back on track with my budget. I decided to bring out my Happy Planner and design a new budget/finance tracker for October. I really like being able to see all my bills both as a monthly calendar and as a list so I incorporated both into this cute, Halloween theme budget tracker.
The first page of my monthly budget planner has a list of all my projected expenses and projected income. I have columns for an actual value (for those budget items that fluctuate like electric) and a difference column so I can see how far over or under budget I am. At the bottom I incorporated my results for both income and expenses so I can quickly see the big picture for the month.
I love these Cute Halloween graphics. They coordinate with the Cute Halloween Monthly Sticker kit and my Cute Halloween buttons/flair I already have up in my Etsy shop. My monthly and weekly spreads will coordinate with the finance tracker bootifully!
I also like to have a calendar spread with all my monthly bills and paydays marked so I can see where I am in the month and what will be coming up. It’s so nice to quickly glance at the calendar and see what’s next on the horizon.
On the last page of the budget planner I have several boxes where I can track individual purchases to see watch my progress to stay on track with my budget. I have a box for each main category and a blank box at the bottom for anything different I want to track each month. My projected budget allowance is listed at the top and I’ve given myself a few rows to record each purchase through the month. This works very well for me being single but I would guess that people with families would need more room so I plan to adapt this to 4 larger and 2 smaller blank boxes for the printable so people can write in their own categories and have more room for those categories that need more listings.
Do you love to budget like I do? If so, comment and let me know what features/aspect you enjoy about your current budget tracker and what things you’d like to see for future finance trackers.
I’m currently working on November and December budget trackers that coordinate with my Fall Vibes and December Sticker Kits currently in my shop. Sign up for my newsletter to see when I’ll be releasing those and for upcoming sale and discount codes.
I have to be honest… over the last couple of years I’ve been slacking on my Project Life albums. There’s been a lot of changes in my life with my job, friends and home and I just haven’t had the mental or physical energy to stay on top of it. I started the year on a good note because I had finished my 2019 December Daily album but shortly after that I got off track.
This year we’ve all experienced a wide variety of changes to our normal routines because of COVID. For me those changes have been working from home, canceling vacation & travel plans and oddly spending more time with friends. Most of these changes have created a lot of stress in my life and to help deal with that stress I decided to get back to my scrapbooking, planning and design work and use it as art therapy.
In preparation for all the upcoming scrapbooking I decided to get some inspiration and re-join Hip Kit Club with the July Main Scrapbook, Pocket Life and Color Kits. I love having the variety of both 12×12 and pocket scrapbooking supplies. I don’t do as much 12×12 scrapbooking but I like having the supplies for when I do. Plus, you can cut down the 12×12 papers and get a lot of use for pocket scrapbooking out of them. Plus the color kit had that cool stencil from Echo Park that I can’t wait to use on some of my holiday cards. If you’d like to see what was in this kit check out my unboxing video.
I also went back through my old albums and made a list of all the pages that needed to be finished (or started) and set about a goal of getting caught up on ALL my Project Life albums by the end of the year. I want to start the new year fresh and be current. I’ve made a lot of progress on my past albums and I’ll be sharing some flip-throughs on YouTube.
As of today, I am completely caught up on my albums for 2015, 2016 and 2017. I have a few months to finish in 2018 and for my 2019 album the months are all finished, I just need to add my opening and closing pages. I’ve even been able to work on some of my 2020 album. I’m starting to make process videos again and have my first one up for week 23.
Make sure to subscribe to my channel if you’d like to see the flip through videos and how I caught up on 5 years of project life in a matter of months. Also, hit that bell icon so you don’t miss any upcoming process videos or unboxings!
I started the year on a good note because I had finished my 2019 December Daily album. I was really proud of this project because this was the first year that I did a complete album with one page a day. In the past I didn’t have enough photos to do a complete album so I would document the photos I had but would incorporate a couple of years in one album. Not this year. I was very mindful of my goal and took photos every day.
I even purchased a kit to use specifically for this years album. Granted it was the 2018 December hit from Hip Kit that I got on sale but that’s ok. It’s the first year I treated myself and didn’t create a kit of my own. I found the album on sale at Michael’s. It’s a 6×8 Project Life album in teal with a white snow flake pattern. Even though we don’t get snow in Phoenix I loved the colors and thought it was really cute.
I’m really happy with the way it turned out and I’m going to buy another kit for 2020. Here’s a flip through of the finished album.
It’s been a long time in the making but I finally finished my Wheel of the Year stickers. If you’re not familiar with the Wheel of the Year, it’s a term used that encompasses all of the Pagan holidays (or Sabbats) for the entire year. It’s perfect timing too because Imbolc is just around the corner.
I’d wanted to make a set of Sabbat stickers so I can track the various Pagan holidays through out the year in my planner. These are printed on clear premium sticker paper and kiss-cut so they can easily be peeled off and placed in any planner or on any calendar. Each 3.5″ x 5″ sheet has 2 sets of small holidays (1″x.25″) and 1 set of the larger holidays (1.5″x.5″). They coordinate beautifully with my Pagan Name Full Moon stickers! Make sure to head over to my Etsy Shop to pick up a set today!
I love quotes! Inspirational, funny, heartfelt or just darn cute… I love them all. Some of my favorite stickers for my planner are quote stickers. So this weekend I decided to make some new inspirational quote planner stickers for my Classic Happy Planner.
These are sized specifically for the Classic Happy Planner to fit the full weekly box. I did make a second page sized to fit the Erin Condren Life Planner as well. If you’d like this free sheet of printable inspirational planner stickers CLICK HERE to join my Insiders List to get this and other freebies, discounts and ! This is the first download!
I was rummaging through a pile of photos the other day when I came across this blast from the past. This is a photo of me and my best friend from high school on the day she moved away. It’s so fun to look back at old photos like this from the 80’s when our hair was all big & crazy and our clothes… Man, our clothes in the 80’s were something else!
Even with the crazy hair and the dated clothes, I LOVE this photo! I don’t have many pictures of us. This was WAY before cell phones with cameras and even before digital cameras so unless it was a very special occasion we didn’t really have cameras at hand to document the beautiful memories like today.
But this photo is special to me. After my friend moved we wrote letters to each other for years. Like real, physical letters that you’d put a stamp on and mail! Man, I love those days. The excitement of checking the mailbox every day to see if the letter was there made it feel like Christmas when the letter finally arrived. Over the years the letters became emails then messages on MySpace than Facebook. We still share old photos and memories but it’s different. The days before cell phones, email and Facebook seemed so magical and I wanted to document this special day.
My layout was inspired by two sketches from Sketchabilities (#129 & #130). I liked the title and the cluster around it on sketch #130 but I liked the cluster on the upper right of sketch #129 so I just combined those elements to make the layout fit my needs. If you’re ever in need of a great scrapbook or card sketch head over to the Sketchabilities blog for more layout inspiration!
I’ve been wanting to use up some of this old kit Gossamer Blue kit I got back in May 2016. The background paper is a Dear Lizzy paper from a paper pack I got at Michaels and the paper for the flags I cut were from Simple Stories and My Minds Eye.
The pink acetate doily and this adorable silver heart puffy sticker are from a recent Freckled Fawn sale box. The feathers, floral corner and the woodchip paperclip are all from Simple Stories.
The “friends forever” title was a cut file from Miss Kates Cutables, the “you & me” flair is from my Etsy shop.
The button and the “heart” Love This embellishment are from Pink Paisley and tag behind the title is from My Minds Eye.
I loved this little envelope from the Carpe Diem bits & pieces set from Simple Stories. It was perfect with my journaling about the letters my bestie and I wrote after she moved. I paired it with a page flag cut from some My Minds Eye paper and this Simple Stories chipboard flower sticker.
I just finished a process video for my new YouTube channel if you wanted to check it out.
Do you have an elf on your self? This whole elf on the shelf thing is huge! I’ve seen stories of these feisty elves documented in December Daily albums for several years now. I enjoy watching the elf antics but never thought too much about it since the main purpose of the elf is to give status reports to Santa for his naughty & nice list and I don’t have any kids. Over the years I’ve seen a few people here and there with elves and some of these elves are quiet mischievous! So I figured it was finally time to adopt an elf! Being single I could always use the company and the help in my studio.
So let me introduce Scrappy, the scrapbooking elf who’s now making himself at home on my Kallax in my craft studio. When I say making himself at home I really mean it! I brought him home last night and got him all set up on a nice comfy shelf but silly me, I was taking pictures of a new set of scrapbook flair I made yesterday and forgot to put my camera away. When I got into the studio this morning I found out he’d been taking selfies all night.
He was exploring my desk and found this fun little hiding spot in my tool caddy.
I guess he wanted to inspect the washi tape I had out for my December Daily. I think he approves!
I caught him in the act of playing with all my new holiday flair! Naughty scrappy!
I guess I’m going to have to try to find things to keep him busy or keep a close eye on him. Maybe I should put my glitter and sequence under lock and key, just to be safe!
Has your elf on your shelf ever caused you mischief? If so, comment below! I’d love to know I’m not alone!
Ok, so it’s probably no secret to the majority of scrapbookers that Becky Higgins finally released the Project Life app for iPhone and iPad. It’s not the first scrapbooking app out there (Martha Stewart Crafts, Rhonna Designs, etc) but I know tons of people, myself included, love Becky’s style and were waiting for her to develop an app where we can create Project Life pages on our mobile devices. The release of the app was perfect timing for me because I had recently watched Social Media Scrapbooking by Megan Hoeppner on Creative Live and had already started playing around with other apps that are a great compliment to the PL app and I incorporate designs from those other apps in my PL pages.
This is one of my first PL pages from the app. I just wanted to play around with the app and get acquainted with it. I have a bunch of photos of me with my friends’ pets so I thought that was a good place to start. Since there aren’t any PL kits for scrapbooking pets on the app yet I decided to make my own card to add to the page and here’s what I did…
First, I used a fantastic app called Studio (madewithstudio.com). This app is absolutely amazing!!! And it’s 100% FREE!. Its main purpose is to create decorated photos and meme’s for Instagram but you can do so much more. The main downfall is because it’s designed to upload to Instagram it creates square images. This isn’t necessarily that bad because there are plenty of square pockets on pages in the PL app. Also, because the app was designed for Instagram and social sharing, by default your designs are shared on the Studio network for others to remix. But don’t worry, if you select the little person icon on the bottom right of the home screen then select the gear icon in the top right of your profile you can find the option to make your designs private. This is also the place where you can select to automatically save your designs to your photos on your phone.
After you download the app you can go through and choose several themes of digital stamps to install! There are over 40 themes (I have most of them) and each theme comes with word art stamps and image stamps. Once you choose a theme then you can start designing. You choose one of your photos or a digital paper you want to embellish. I choose this lovely polka-dot background that I had uploaded to my phone via DropBox. After you click next a list of the themes you have will appear. I opened the Dog Lover theme and chose the paw with the heart. It appeared on the screen and from there I can change the color, opacity, shadow style and color as well as size, move and rotate the stamp. After I clicked done I went into the Cat theme and choose the cute kitty face outline. I choose the same color, resized it about the same size and then rotated it the opposite direction and moved into the top left corner.
After that, I added two separate text boxes. I could have added the text (stacked one line above the other) in one text box but the app doesn’t have as many options to reduce the line size as it does to increase and there would have been a lot of space between the two lines. By creating two separate boxes I was able to stack the lines closer together. This will also allow you to rotate one line or change the color of one line. There are dozens of really fun fonts to work with that are very scrapbook friendly. For the caption on the bottom right card “Piggy in a blanket” I used Sniglet for “Piggy” and Sacramento for “in a blanket”. Using two text boxes allowed me to overlap the bottom line on the top. One of the coolest things about the Studio app (besides that it’s totally FREE) is that you can layer things and move the layers around.
So after you have your design the way you want it you click finish and the app will ask you for a comment. You can enter a brief description or even some hashtags if you plan to share your design on Instagram. You can also save your design with no description. You have the choice at this point if you’d like to email the design to yourself or a friend, directly share the design on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. Now the design is in your photos and ready to use on the next page you make on the Project Life app.
I have a few other apps that I use to layer elements from digital kits and save them as 4×6 images. I’ll be sharing those other apps with you soon!
I was rummaging through a pile of photos the other day when I came across this blast from the past. This is a photo of me and my best friend from high school on the day she moved away. It’s so fun to look back at old photos like this from the 80’s when our hair was all big & crazy and our clothes… Man, our clothes in the 80’s were something else!
