We love our planners.  We love that they keep us organized and on track.  We spend money buying products for our planners to personalize and decorate them.  I know I can’t be the only one that has a better week when my pages turn out beautiful!  Well what happens when the creative juices aren’t flowing or you have no inspiration for your pages?  I’m going to share with you my creative process.

I always start with one particular item that I KNOW I want to use., whether it’s a new washi roll, new stickers, or new page flags.  I start with that ONE item.  Then I draw inspiration from it.  For example, this week I found an adorable note pad & matching sticky notes from Target.  I knew I wanted to use it for my pages this week.  From there I knew my color theme would be kraft paper/gold and one other color.  I pulled out all my kraft paper colored washi, which included the teal with gold polka dot roll.  I decided then that my second color for my theme would be teal/turquoise, pulling that shade from the circles on my note pad & sticky notes.

Once you have your color theme picked out, start pulling out everything you see that matches.  Your embellishments, stickers, note pads, sticky notes, ink, page flags, etc.  This pulls your potential supplies for the week away from your entire stash.  This helps declutter your mind from all the colors in your collection.  I promise that will help you imagine what your pages will look like when you’re focusing on only a few things at one time.

When it comes to ink, I will either choose the exact color from my theme or a coordinating shade.  Ink can be a little difficult at times to match perfectly.  This week I had to choose between a turquoise or a light blue.  I have the Colorbox Paintbox ink as well, but the teal/turquoise in it is pretty close to my Versa Magic shade, so I didn’t pull it out.  I actually really liked the light blue ink with my pages, but the really light Versa Magic inks are a nightmare to film & photograph.  So the turquoise ink won.

Then once you have everything chosen, start your pages!  This week I tried something different with my pages.  I’m using my side column for weekly tracking.  My significant other and I have started going to the gym and trying to get healthy.  So I have more things to track and plan in my pages.  Moving those to the sidebar freed up some room on my day boxes.  Once I’m finished, I pick out the paper clips I want to use for the week & add them in.  Done! Do you follow a process when decorating your planner?


This blog post was written by Emilee Adams for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. For more information about Emilee visit her blog at www.emileespeaks.com. Please share and repost this blog entry with your friends! All we ask is that you give credit to Limelife Planners and the post author.