Hello planner friends! Leah here and I am so excited to be a part of the Simple Stories Creative Team this year! I cannot wait to show you how I have been using the products from the Carpe Diem Scrapbooking Collection to customize my platinum Carpe Diem planner.

One of my absolute favorite things to do in a new planner is setting up the front pockets. I love to create fun pieces to decorate them with so that when I change up my front pockets later, I can use the decorative pieces elsewhere in my planner. The Simple Stories Carpe Diem Scrapbooking Collection offers all sorts of beautiful embellishments to get crafty with, like washi paper tape, ephemera bits and pieces, chipboard frames, stickers and a SN@P! Pack full of goodies! I layered these embellishments to create the little cards you see below. 

The floral details in the Carpe Diem Collection are my favorite! You can see that those florals tend to find their way onto everything I have made here. I love using the paper washi tape as a background to the Word Label Stickers, it really makes the motivational messages pop off the cards! I also used a few of my paper punches to cut out some patterned papers from the 6x6 Paper Pad and then used those shapes to add layers to the cards.

Now time to get all of these pretties into the pockets! 

Most of the embellished cards just get tucked into the pockets like you see above. However, I wanted to put the card with the coffee cup in the bottom pocket and I wanted it to be fully visible. In order to do that, I took a scrap of paper I had punched earlier and glued it to the back of the coffee card to create a flap that I can tuck into the bottom pocket, so the full front of the card would remain exposed. 

Above, you can see what the pockets look like fully loaded! I use a Glue Arts GlueGlider Pro+ loaded with a repositionable tape cartridge to secure any pieces that might feel loose, but any non-permanent adhesive tape will work to help keep everything in place.

Another simple way to add a personalized detail to your planner is to add or change out your planner charm. Each Carpe Diem planner comes with one metal charm already on the strap, but the Carpe Diem Collection has a set of four metal charms you can buy to customize your planner even more. Did you know that the Decorative Bradz from all the new Simple Stories collections have a top row of brads that are the exact same size as the circle Carpe Diem charm? Of course, I chose the gorgeous flower brad from the Carpe Diem collection and stuck it to the flat side of the charm. 

All that was left to do to finish customizing the front of my planner was to stuff the front secretarial pocket with a bunch of super cute planner stickers for on-the-go planning. I also cut down my favorite 12x12 floral paper from the collection to use as a front dashboard and voila! Here is the full view! Hop on over to my Instagram account if you would like to see more of the projects I have created using this charming collecton from Simple Stories!