Tuesday, March 31, 2015

How to choose a Planners | Part 2 - Intentions and a large roundup/collections of all the planner sources

*This is a super long post, I'm going to split it into 3-4 posts. Click on this link for all the post *


Hello! I'm back with my blog post on Planners. Today we talk about intensions, how do you intend to use the new planner?


1. As Project Planners -
Sometimes, you are actually looking for project planners(as compared to daily planner), to plan a new project, say building a new house, getting ready to get married, or say planning for a trip. In this case, jotting down ideas and thoughts and actionable are some things you would like to do with your planner.  You might also want a to do list for projects. For example Noell Hyman mention in the recent Paper clipping roundtable episode. this is what she do most often, as some people think better by writing them down. You can also draw mind-maps and annotate easily, draw shapes arrows etc which are difficult to type out. This kind of intentions you can consider using the Bullet Journal system , which you don't need a specific planner brand, any plan notebook works. For durability, I recommend using the plain moleskin notebook, or the Midori Travellers notebook.




For cutesy kinds, you can consider Japan/Korea online shop, there are quite a few. Singapore has two well known Japanese shop called Tokyo hands and Muji , which sells pretty cute , simple and inexpensive notebooks too.


2.  As Life Planners
Looking for planners to plans for your goals and aspiration of your life, or for the new year, check out the following

  1. Unraveling by Susannah Conway - She provides you with a PDF worksheet , with tones of questions and pages for you to make sense of your life, goals and direction. Good for penning down during the start of a year, but also good for penning down thoughts and ideas when you face changes in the course of your life. (click the picture below)

  1. Powersheets by Lara Casey 


For more ideas on project planning and goals planning, you can check out Elise Blaha Cripe and Kellie Winnie, they have great posts on this topic.

3. Documenting your life
Many scrapbookers use planners as an accompliment to their existing PL album, or even to replace it , because it's cute and easy to do for each day. You can get all creative with the stamps, washi tapes, stickers and etc. Some goes to the extremely creative side of even painting on it. **Somehow the youtube links are not working, please click on the words instead*




Some designers incorporate it with her Project Life album. Check out this post by Jennifer Wilson from Simple Scrapper on this topic (the planner sheets go straight into her PL album, two in one, how cool!)

If you want to do this sort of planning, you can check out Noell Hyman and Izzy Video 's youtube channel with tons of CHA videos for reviews of all the suitable products

- Heidi Swapp Planner system / supplies



- Simple stories - This video is by Scrapbook.com



- Me and my big ideas



- websters pages



- Marion Smith




You can also read  the review by Nancy Nally from scrapbook update


4. Keeping things together (Self) 
What I think my planners are usually for and my original idea of planners are to keep things together. Sometimes things gets so hectic that the electronic planners are just "out of sight out of mind" If i don't intentionally jot down the task I need to complete, instead key into my notes app, they will get forgotten. I manage to strike a balance between using the physical planner and an electronic planner (I might share more on this in another blog post :) Check out how Marcy Penner puts her planner together.

Filofax - Marcy Penner (2014)
Midori - Marcy Penner (2015)

5. Keeping things together (family ) 
For family, usually you need a larger space to write, especially if you have a large number of family members at home. Home binders are great because they are A4 or Letter sized, and you can have sufficient columns to put everyone's schedule into perspective. Scheduling chores and stuff becomes easier. You can put it in a place where everyone can access, probably beside the phone, or someplace eye catchy. For the binders, try The Simplified Home Binder by  Emily Ley and Binders from Russell and Hazel




For the contents, save some money and consider free printable on Pinterest.

Hopefully this gives you a good overview of whats out there. Definitely this list is no where near complete, please share in the comments where else are good sources of planners :) Thanks for stopping by and we will continue the next post , which will be on the sharing of my own planner :) Cheers!

Sunday, March 29, 2015

How to choose a Planners | Part 1

*This is a super long post, I'm going to split it into 3-4 posts. Click on this link for all the post *


On a recent PRT (Paperclipping Roundtable) episode, they discuss on the recent Paper Planners trend. And I got very inspired to share on this topic. [Click on each picture to go to the respective website]



It took me a long time to settle down with a planner that I like, and use it often enough to justify my spendings. I'm no expert in choosing a good planner as i'm still choosing and learning, but I figured I can share somethings that I learn during my choosing process and while i'm doing my own research.

My general advice is that, you have to use it often enough to know when something is missing, and when you realise you are missing something, don't just make do with what ever that is available, you have to jot it down somewhere to remind yourself that . And over time, when you look for another planner, find one that have that missing element and adapt from there again. I used to use a normal cute notebook on a spiral bound, then I get exposed to the binder system, which I totally fall in love with because it's not only aesthetic pleasing but most importantly it's very customisable.

Consider the price 
Mine was 50usd which turns out to about 70sgd from Amazon . The printable files that i used (more on it in the next section) are approx 15USD and i printed using normal 80msg papers and HP printer . Including the inks and etc, I guess my planner is easily SGD100. Currently it is working so well for me that it makes me want to go to work,  just to fill my planners with the to do list first thing in the morning.

The type of material - I don't use leather products, so that eliminates alot of options for me easily. I'm currently using faux leather Filofax Domino A5 for my work, and personal filofax - Patent Personal Compact Duck Egg (a minty blue color) for personal use.




Do you need it to be portable?
My portable planner is the compact sized one and it's super light weight. But it does not fill many pages. I use this for my personal planning, mainly for scrapbook projects and other leisure activities.

On the other hand, I my A5 planner is huge and not that portable, but it is so thick that i can stuff ALOT OF THINGS inside. It is also larger in size, so each page provides me with more space to write on. Since I always set it on my work desk in my office (And I seldom bring work home), it is totally find to be huge and bulky. If you drive, that is not an issue either . I only bring it home say once every 2 weeks over the weekends to plan ahead if needed.

Next post - Your Intentions 
So what do you want to use it for? Each individuals have different ways of using it. Give it a thought and I shall continue the sharing in the next post :)

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Project Life 2015 | Plans and Intentions Part 2

Last Sunday I shared my plans for project life this year and shared my album. Today I'm going to share the supplies I'm using and also other projects 

The supplies 
Here are mainly some of the supplies I use in my album. I'm trying to keep it minimal and just do most of the work on my computer, especially using the layer templates and words overlay are so quick and easy. I'm loving the simplicity of how my album looks like now. 

The Digital Products 

Physical Products
- Silhouette die cut labels files
- little embellishments - metal clips/pins, wood veneers, cork shapes
- date stamps 

I cannot go without label in any spreads that i'm working on. They are ESSENTIAL! You know that right? You have to agree!


Inks
  • Studio calico color theory for stamping on journaling cards
  • Stazon (black , red and navy for the most part) for stamping on photos 
  • Sometimes gold and white for some finishing touches


(I will do a post on how I stamp on photos, I have been experimenting on how different inks work on canon selphy photos and persnickety prints photos)


Some Tips

Buying individual packages of 6x12 might give you less variety and also there isn't many configurations. Hence I decide to take the plunge and cut down all my large big variety packs of PL sleeves and make a bunch of sleeves that fits my 6x12 and they are of various designs. 

These are the inserts for my album, they are thinner than 6 inches and are of all sorts of configurations. Some of them are existing Becky Higgins Page designs, some of them are cut down from a 12x12 page protector. Here I have inserts that fit landscape 3x4's, portrait 4x6's and our all time favourite instagram squares 4x4's




Here I have a 6x12 that fits 6 pieces of portrait 3x4's

Getting dizzy with the numbers yet? Haha! Next I share some of the other scrapbooking projects that i'm going to tackle this year. Hopefully I get to share some of them as and when.

I'm keeping things simple this year. I had some unfinished projects that I'm still working on. 

Unfinished Project
  • Travel albums 
    • Adelaide 2014 - OA 6x9 album
    • Taiwan 2013 SC 6x8 handbook album
    • Taiwan 2014 SC 6x8 Handbook album

  • Childhood album - WRMK 12x12 album
  • OLW 2015 album 8.5x11
  • PL 2014 WRMK 12x12 
  • PL 2014 Dec 6x8 album 
Up coming projects
  • Taiwan 2015 
  • Adelaide 2015
  • PL 2015 6x12 album
  • Story 12x12 album - I'm currently gathering inspiration from AE story kits to scrapbook the stories of my life. I'm trying to pull photos and memories from over the years and combine them into a trend/pattern. This is also inspired by Stacy Julian Library of Memories / Photo Freedom system 
  • Photo books - Mainly for photos which I love from travel that might not necessary have important stories. Mainly going to print from Persnickety Prints or Artifact Uprising

That's all for now!
I will start sharing my Project Life spreads for Jan next week onwards :)

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Project Life 2015 | Plans and Intentions part 1



Oh yes, I was inconsistent with my blogging, I gotta admit. But I'm still scrapbooking ! For real! And I'm really excited about my scrapbooking plans this year that I'm not sure if I can put it in words. I have the visuals :D 

Firstly, let me share with you the dilemma that I have at the beginning of this year. I shared this on the Paperclipping forum .

My Dilemma

It has been about 1.5 years since i scrapped a 12x12 page.

I'm currently shifting towards "only scrapping project life" . I like the way it keeps track of my life in a small format, a diary sort of, in a chronological order. Since then, I have not touch my 12x12 papers, using only kits from studio calico, or Becky Higgins PL kits. Also using digital journaling cards from The-Lilypad. I'm also becoming more and more of a hybrid scrapbooker influenced by Ali Edwards and Peppermint Granberg. So I journal on my computer, put them on the photos or journaling card and print them out. 

This makes me think of purging 90% of my scrapbooking supplies and just keep those little stuff for my Project life.

On the other hand I'm drawing more and more connections between events that keeps happening every year, and it makes me want to scrapbook the Stacy Julian library of memories style, where i scrapbook about the event across the year, finding those stories and meaning behind. I was thinking of scrapbooking this in the 12x12 format because I have still quite a few empty 12x12 albums not filled up . Furthermore I have projects in the 12x12 albums format that are not  completed (mostly chronological format)

And I couldn't bare to give up my mixed media supplies which I only use once in awhile (say once every 3-4months?!) I still have lots of interest in the painty , inky and misty stuff. Hence I don't bare to get myself to purge them all !

And then again, my PL in the 6x8 format really takes up lots of ALBUM SPACE! because it's so small and I like to print alot of photos and keep memorabilia, I end up having 3 albums for June 2014 to Dec 2014!!!

Anyone feeling the same dilemma as I do? Do you manage to resolve the conflicting interest? 


Okay, having put it out there, I now have resolved my conflicting interest and am a happy scrapper now! 

The Destash









Firstly, I did destash most of my supplies at home, I would say 40% maybe? And I gave away large storage items which I do not use anymore. I sold more than 50% of my 12x12 papers, 50% of my mist, 80% of my washi tapes ( I used to have say 250 rolls, now I only keep 40 of them), all of my ribbons, 80% of my embellishments, more than 50 stamps sets (but I still keep a lot of stamps because that's what I use a lot , I shall think of a way to sell more ) 50% of my PL cards (because I turn hybrid)


The album

Next, let me share with you my plans for Project Life :) My plan for Project Life this year is to use the 6x12 album. I had 2 of these WRMK Teresa Collins Gold Faux Leather album from last year, and I always couldn't figure out a way to use them, now they have a function! This size is completely new and interesting to me, but I have been loving it. Firstly because the album have the same thickness as a 12x12 album, so it house alot of the layouts, unlike my Simple stories 6x8 album. But at the same time, it is not as bulky as the 12x12, and just a little heavier than my 6x8. It still sits on my desk and it's still easily accessible and can be flipped through easily.








I will share more about what supplies I use and what are the plans for my other scrapbook projects in the next post :)