August's pages
September's pages
August's pages
September's pages
While I love to share my cards and my memory planner pages here, I've never really highlighted my planner pages. I'm a huge fan of The Happy Planner by mambi. This year is my second using their planners and I am obsessed. In this post, I highlight all my weekly spreads from May to August. See my spreads for Jan-April here.
May -- Lots of fun colors in my May spreads. I also used a lot of kits: Bee-utifiul from Fabulously Planned (May 1-7), Mother's Day kit from Kaidens Mom Shops (May 8-14), Floral kit from Formless Designs (May 15-21), Polka Dots from Plan-It Planet (May 22-28).
June -- Lots of bold colors for this month. Plus lots of kits! Snow White kit from Simply Sweet Planning (May 29 - June 4), Alice in Wonderland kit from Simply Sweet Planning (June 5-11), Mermaid kit from Simply Sweet Planning (June 19-25), Dr. Seuss kit from Plan-it Planet (June 26 - July 2).
July -- Of course I had to pull out my patriotic kit for the week of the Fourth. From there, I just went with some random fun kits i had in my stash. Patriotic Kit from Simply Sweet Planning (July 3-9), Doctor Who Kit from Polished Patterns (July 10-16), Alice in Wonderland from Formless Designs (July 17-23), Blue, Green, and Tan kit from Formless Designs (July 24-30).
August -- Wrapping up this third of the year with some super bright and fun spreads! I pulled out all my bright kits before making the transition to more muted colors for the fall. Rainbow kit from Brianna Nicole Designz (July 31 - August 6), Back to School kit from Kaidens Mom Shops with leftovers from the rainbow kit (August 7-13), Seasonal stickers from Mambi (August 14-20), Swept Away from Fabulously Planned (August 21-27), and Alice in Wonderland kit from Formless Designs (August 28 - September 3).
For July's pages, I relied less on a specific monthly color and on a lot of washi tape I just went with whatever tickled my fancy for that page. I tried to write a bit more than usual.
While I love to share my cards and my memory planner pages here, I've never really highlighted my planner pages. I'm a huge fan of The Happy Planner by mambi. This year is my second using their planners and I am obsessed. In this post, I highlight all my weekly spreads from January to April.
January -- I went with the red, blue, and gray color scheme as used on the planner pages. I was just diving in and my pages aren't quite formed yet. Jan. 9-15 looks very similar to how I set up my pages currently.
February -- Of course i had to pull out the reds and pinks for February!
March -- My Birthday Month! I started with the planner's green color scheme, but added in purple (my favorite color!) and yellow. I also used my one of the beautiful kits from Fabulously Planned. For the last week of March, I featured the Peacock kit. Love it!
April -- This month was all about the pretty feminine colors. I stuck to pastels. Kits include the Flamingo Kit from Kaidens Mom Shops (April 3-9) and the Muffin Kit from Kaidens Mom Shops (April 17-23).
For June, I played around with the use of the boxes. I didn't also stick to the vertical columns for each day. Case in point, see May 30th. I ended up bleeding my story and photo into the next day's box. Seems simple, but I usually cringe at crossing lines with my writing. I'm really loving the look of these pages.
Note: I left off June 29th - July 2nd as I haven't printed the pics for July yet. I'll feature that page in my July Memory Planner Pages post.
Loving May's pages. They are super colorful and I didn't obsess over filling every tiny bit of white space...
While including lots of pictures (of course!), I tried to write more stories. I even played around with the columns to fit in stories and pictures I wanted. The best example of this is the last weekend of the month when I had SU bingo during the day and a big live show at night on Saturday. This was the month that I decided color schemes didn't really matter and I started decorated with what called to me.
I've had these pages finished for a few weeks, but never got around to taking pics of the completed pages. I rectified that oversight this week. For March, I went with a purple, green, and yellow color scheme. I also tried to use more layering pieces instead of just washi tape.
To document my birthday day in San Francisco, I added a small pocket pages insert for the multitude of photos. I kept the journaling light, but made sure to include the names of every place I stopped. Perfect way to get it all in!
Had to get a bit creative due to a couple of sick weeks...
I finished these pages back in mid-March, but my birthday celebration filled all my posts. So I'm sharing my pages in April... Since it was February, I went with a red, pink, and gold color scheme. I ended up doing a fair amount of journaling on my pages. This was aided by me jotting down a few notes at the end of each day. If I can keep it up, I'll have a nice base for remembering my days. I also played a lot with picture sizes and layering. Trying to find that good balance between pictures, journaling, and decoration.
For 2017, I am diving into memory planning. I was admiring all the gorgeous examples from creatives I follow, but was scared to start another project. But then, I joined the Awesome Ladies Project where rukristin encourages us to tell our own story. I realized that the Project Life scrapbooks are mainly focused on my children. I occasionally include stuff about me or what I'm doing, but it's rare. I decided to create a scrapbook to tell my own story, but didn't want to attempt another 12x12 PL album. I already do 5 (one family and one for each of the boys), I just could do another. Then I remembered all those who memory plan. Perfect! After Christmas, I bought a Big Happy Planner with my Michael's gift card.
I started to think about layouts and what to include. To make it easier to include items and photos focused on me, I started Project365 Me on Instagram. I try to take a photo each day that's focused on myself and not the kiddos. I also decided to include a photo of each book read and each craft or card made. On Tuesdays, I plan to do a Currently segment. Occasionally the kiddos will appear in the planner (how could they not?), but I want to focus on me.
In terms of supplies, I went and bought a few MAMBI sticker packs for the new Big Planners (Color Story and Memory Planner). I also raided my washi tape stash for coordinating colors and fun patterns. I decided to follow the color cues from the planner itself. I picked this one because it was full of bright colors but used as accents instead of covering the pages. Beyond that, I have a ton of crafting embellishments and stickers. I'm certain I'll be able to find sticker and decorations.
The last consideration I had was for the photos themselves. Some memory planners use a photo printer or a small printer like the Polaroid Zip or the HP Sprocket. While it would be convenient, I'm still torn on spending the money on one of those items. Instead, I discovered collage prints through Walgreens. You can add between 2 and 20 photos onto a single print (4x6, 5x7 or 8x10). I usually add 4 prints onto a 4x6 print. I have to cut them apart once I pick up the prints, but they are just about the perfect size for the planner. The 4x6 prints are $0.39 each, but I've been buying when all prints are on sale. It works for now. Maybe I'll get a printer at a later date, but for now the collage prints are my go-to.