Create a Beautiful yet Functional Planner with Jennie

Hello! It's Jennie McGarvey here today to say how excited I am to be introducing myself to you. I’ve been paper crafting for what feels like forever and Crate Paper products are always at the top of the pile.

As a scrapbooker, card maker, and planner, I was so excited to see the Day To Day collection. Beautiful images and great paper make this the perfect way to plan my days yet include my own unique creativity to each day. My favorite way to do that is to add photos and little bits of journaling to my planner.

As a person who leans very heavily on the weekly view, my monthly view often goes unused. I don’t like to leave any surface blank and I am sure you can understand that! Because I save my planners as a way to memory keep, I decided why not treat my monthly view as a scrapbook layout of sorts for the whole month? I’m keeping the planner anyway and this is a great way to add photos + memories to my functional weekly pages.

I love patterned paper and this is a great place to be able to add a swatch or two of it to my planner. I also used my circle punches a lot on these pages. It’s a great way to add more interest with no work at all.

Just like on cards or scrapbook pages, I love to layer elements in my planner, too. I do not typically add dimensional items as to cut down on bulk, but washi tape and sticky notes [I add adhesive on the back] are great compliments to stickers.

I Fussy cut my favorite elements from the patterned paper, and they became the perfect embellishments on my planner pages. You only need small accents to really bring a page to life or tell the story thanks to the small canvas and calendar grid.

Next up I will talk to you about the weekly view! This is truly my most created project, I would have to say. I started decorative planning in 2014 in order to keep my life on track with 3 school aged kiddos in activities. As a scrapbooker and card maker, taking those plans and dressing them up a bit seemed like the perfect solution. My planner allows me to be creative yet completely functional as well.

Once I’m finished adding my plans each week, while leaving room for last minute activities and lists, I love to add small decorative elements. A couple of strips of much loved washi is perfect for this.

Be sure to use those sticky notes! They are adorable, don't let them go to waste! Add a bit of adhesive on the back and you have a sticker that can coordinate perfectly. Here, I was able to use this sticky note for my meal planning for the week. Bonus, it layers perfectly with the stickers in the Day To Day collection.

Don’t forget your stamps. I love stamping and regularly ink up those lovely images and add them to my planner. However, I rarely stamp exclusively. Most of the time, I coordinate the stamps with other elements to make exactly what I need in my layout.

Being a busy mom to three boys, I need to keep track of everything going on in their lives. However, that is no reason to not have fun and be creative, so that is just one reason I reach for the Day To Day collection, because it combines beauty and function in one!