So this week I needed to find a planner, but not just any planner. For years now I have used Amy Knapp's Family Organizer, which is fantastic. It has monthly overviews and weekly pages, with perforated edge sections for grocery lists and meal plans that you can tear out and take to the store with you. It is practically perfect in every way. Except that it doesn't exist any more. I mean, it's there on Amazon as if it exists, with that cute new cover, but 6 copies in all the world?! For $50 to $100 each?! No thanks.
If I couldn't have that planner, I had some very specific, however impractical, requirements. It needed to have a page for each month -- I like to see the whole month at a glance -- and it needed to have pages for each week, with space to write in each day's commitments. Easy, lots of planners have that. But I also wanted it to have blank journaling pages for each month so I could record the important happenings or things I'd like to remember as they happen. And have some fun and/or inspirational quotes -- my favorite things. And some colorful images. And a cute {but not generic cute} cover. I had to want to take it everywhere with me and look at it often. That's not too much to expect from a planner, right? Wrong.
I decided to make my own. Using Blurb.com {the place where I've printed my blog books in the past} I was able to create the planner of my dreams -- at least I hope it turns out to be. I created eleven pretty quote pages using Gimp -- one for each month {minus the one I found on Pinterest and purchased because I loved it so much and had already spent waaaayyy too long in front of my computer working on this project}.
sources: camper image, ribbon image, typewriter image
{If anyone knows the original source for the Be Yourself image, please let me know. It is stunning and the artist deserves full credit, but I followed the Pinterest trail until it ran cold with no luck.}
{UPDATE: I have finally tracked down the source of that beautiful Be Yourself image. It is available from Emily McDowell Illustration on etsy. I have since purchased a print of the image, but it is NOT my work so I have removed it from my site. Emily has lots of beautiful prints available. Check out her site!!}
Many of these images were inspired by things I had seen on Pinterest, but I put my own spin on them for my own custom planner. {*so excited*} These images appear opposite the monthly calendar pages in the book. I matched the background color and fonts on each calendar to match it's quote and left the week by week pages white. Here's what I designed for the cover {maybe my favorite part!}:{UPDATE: I have finally tracked down the source of that beautiful Be Yourself image. It is available from Emily McDowell Illustration on etsy. I have since purchased a print of the image, but it is NOT my work so I have removed it from my site. Emily has lots of beautiful prints available. Check out her site!!}
source: vintage book cover image
So, that's what I've been up to these past couple of days. Feel free to borrow any of the images that I created for your own personal use by clicking on the image to enlarge it to full-size, then right-clicking and saving to your computer. Have a great day!