Rachel Newman's Blog Posts

06.07.18

Hello Again! Rachel here, and I’m am so excited to share my setup for my work planner in my Black Speckle A5 planner using the Good Vibes Collection. If you follow me on Instagram, then you know I cannot get enough of this collection. I am in love with the pink, aqua and bold black and white accents of this collection. I feel like it was MADE for me! What better way to spice up my work planner than with some good vibes from this fun collection!

Let’s start with the pockets! As a planner girl, I love my planner pockets! Sometimes, it can be hard to keep all the cuteness contained in the pockets, so for this pocket setup, I adhered the chipboard stickers with removable tape to trimmed-down pocket cards for the 4X4 Elements paper. I like to mix up the background shapes in my pockets. For the circle, I used one on my favorite tools, the circle photo crop, to trim the circle out of paper from the element paper. I loved opening my planner this month and seeing these beautiful pockets! For the front divider, I used one of the 12X12 papers and the divider template to trim down the paper, and hole punch the paper to make a perfect divider (no measurments needed!). I decorated the front divider with 3X4 element cards and the combo stickers. The sentiment on this card is a good reminder at work to do my thing (which is, be friendly and help students!).

I used the same steps to make two more dividers for notes and important documents. Since this planner is for work, I need it to be very functional. But that doesn’t mean the dividers for each section can’t be fun!

  For this divider, I added some of the bits and pieces and the word strip stickers from the 4x6 sticker sheets. Again, some good reminders on these word strips stickers - “Work hard. Be Humble. No bad days. Let your life shine!” I work with college students every day and these sentiments remind me that I do my best work when I put the students first, and try to make everyday a good one.

I rarely decorate my monthly spread in my work planner but with this collection, I just couldn’t help myself! I started with that fantastic washi on the top and bottom and then filled in the days with stickers from the 4x6 sheets. I love how the box stickers fit perfectly in the daily squares.

My favorite decoration for the month was on the 30th. That’s right! In July, my husband and I are headed to Spain and I can’t wait!

While I do use weekly inserts in my work planner, my daily inserts are the real work-horse. Here is where I write down “all the things”. Sometimes I decorate them, other times I don’t. Either way, the daily sheets give me plenty of space to jot down notes, to-do’s and document the people I have spoken with throughout the day. This is super helpful for the reporting I have to do for my job. When I have time to work on my monthly report, I simply look back through my daily pages to update the report.

These pages are functional first, but I also love getting to decorate them, too! For this day I cropped a scrap of paper using the circle crop so that the “yes, please” was still included. I added stickers for 4x6 sticker sheets and even added a journaling 3x4 element card for decoration and function.

 

I hope you enjoyed getting to see a peak into my work planner. I have really liked this setup for the month of May. Tell me, do you use separate planners for specific areas of your life? Comment below and let me know!

Supplies
04.13.18

Hello Planner Friends! This is Rachel and I am so happy to share another planner blog post with you. Today, I am going to show you my personal-size planner that I use to document daily happy moments.

Can I just take a moment and say how perfect this little planner is? First, the color - if I could only have one color of planner (gasp!), it would definitely be this Robin’s Egg Blue! It goes with everything and makes me so happy every time I look at it! And while some personal-size planners can feel too small, this planner is perfect, with its slightly wider size and inserts. I keep this planner on my bedside table so I can easily work in it at the end of each day.

When I saw the Crafty Girl line, I knew I wanted to give this little planner a facelift using this colorful and cheerful collection. Those pockets were begging for some decoration. I used a few scraps from the 6x8 papers to back up a few of the bits and pieces die cuts.

 

I decided to make some monthly dividers using the 6x8 paper pad, the new personal planner dividers templates, and the tabs sticker tablet with decorations from the Crafty Girl Collection Kit.

I love this quote from Alice Morse Earle: “Every day may not be good...but there's something good in every day”. This pint-size planner helps me document those good little moments so I don’t forget them. Maybe it was a good workout, time with friends, a good moment at work or even just quality time with the husband. Documenting these moments helps me thank my lucky stars and focus on the good, rather than dwelling on the bad.

Something I love about the Craft Girl Collection is its versatility. The colors, patterns, and stickers can be used for more than just documenting your crafty life. But the crafty sayings also inspire me to get my crafty on! I know that spending time crafting helps me relax. Plus, the more I do it, the more I want to keep doing it!

Since I’m usually working in this planner at night, I have a little planner “kit” for myself to limit my supplies. That way, I spend less time choosing decorations and more time documenting.

Along with Crafty Girl Items, I also keep the new Sticker Tablets close at hand for dating the pages and adding little icons here and there.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed getting to peek into my personal “good in every day” planner. How do you document the goods things in your life? Comment below, I would love to hear from you!

Supplies
03.20.18

Hey Planner Friends! It’s Rachel Newman and I am thrilled to be on the 2018 Carpe Diem Creative Team. I am a planner girl through and through, and I can’t wait to share with you all the ways I use and decorate my (many) planners! For my first blog post, I want to share how I used the Simple Stories I AM collection to decorate my monthly and weekly pages in my Blush planner for March. But before we get into the planner pages, let’s talk dashboards and planner pockets!

I am more likely to actually use my planner when it is just the right mix of pretty and functional. When it comes to my planner pockets, I try to decorate them enough so that they are pretty to look at, without over stuffing them. For the opening dashboard, I kept it pretty simple with a trimmed down paper from the I AM paper pad and a planner decal. So pretty and still so functional!

I decided to spruce up my March divider with another trimmed down sheet from the paper pad, which I punched and adhered straight to the divider. I love that I can still see a little of the original dashboard peeking out and bordering the floral paper. If you look closely, you can see that the paper has a typewriter print on it! How cool! Lastly, I added a  Sn@P card from the Sn@P Card pack and some washi to complete this dashboard. Simple, but beautiful!

Now, for the monthly spread! First, I created a faux washi down the middle of the two pages with paper from the collection kit.

Then, I filled in my major events using icons from the sticker tablet. I finished up my decorating with stickers and ephemera from the bits and pieces pack.

The weekly spread is next - which is my favorite part to decorate! I consider myself an equal opportunity planner girl. I love trying out a variety of insert formats, so the fact that Carpe Diem inserts are undated means I don’t have to commit to one kind of weekly planning. This week, I wanted to try out the appointment inserts.

I love that these inserts are lined can be used as hourly inserts or can be easily modified to be a completely blank slate! And I cannot get over how adorable the I AM collections looks with all the great little icons and boxes from the new sticker tablets!  

I love adding little pocket cards into my weekly spread for a little inspiration. To make this pocket card dashboard, I placed two butterfly stickers together to create a tab, and punched the card using the planner punch.

Since I like to plan just about anywhere, I always have a storage pouch in the back of my planner filled with stickers, pocket cards and bits and pieces that I can use throughout the month to decorate my pages. The 4x6 I AM sticker pack will easily last me the entire month, with stickers to spare!

I hope you enjoyed getting a peek into my planner setup and process. I look forward to sharing more planner posts with you this year!

Supplies

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