The Limelife Planners Menu Planning Add-On has been a great help to me and my family. I love the simplicity and design of the planner. I have a family of four: two adults, a 4.5 year old, and a 2.5 year old. Having all of our tastes line up is difficult. Before using the menu planning add-on, we would just buy whatever looked good at the store and figure out the actual meals on the fly. This was stressing me out. I would look in the fridge and cabinets and have no idea what I was going to make that would please everyone in the house. Once I started using the menu planner I felt so much better and in control at meal time.

The grocery list keeps me organized. Having it placed on the same page as the meal planning means once I decide on the meal I am able to jot down all the ingredients that are needed to create the meal. No more guessing and hoping I have what I need! Once I have a completed weekly menu and grocery list I take a picture of it with my phone. This way I have it with me and I can send it to my husband if he is the one doing the shopping. I usually don’t plan out a budget for my shopping, however I do like to write down what we spent so I can get an idea of how much we are spending from week to week.

This week I started tracking my own personal food intake using the menu planner. I jot down what I ate, including snacks. I’ve been working on being healthier and counting calories. Using the menu planner is just another way to track and journal my food.

Hopefully, using this menu planner will help me develop a healthier relationship with food and make my time in the grocery store and the kitchen more pleasant. So far, it has been great!

---

This blog post was written by Katharine Poppe for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. 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. 

Read more »

In my house, there always seems to be confusion as to the who, what, when and wheres -- honestly, you'd think that I have some huge family but nope, there's only the three of us and my two in-laws. Keeping the schedule of four adults and a special needs kid is tough sometimes! 
In an effort to keep us all straight I started branching out from my planner. I really disliked my husband looking through my planner, and *gasp* trying to write things down on my calendar. Then there are my in-laws asking oodles of questions about our schedules so I started hanging a monthly calendar on the fridge. My son is all about his schedule and frankly, so am I. Even with the monthly calendar, my family seemed overwhelmed and clueless at what exactly was going on so I thought a more detailed weekly list would help.

Usually I sit down on the weekend and have 'planner time' to ensure everything is squared away. Once I get my planner straight and ready to rock, I pull out the weekly pad to make a condensed and easy-to-read version for my boys and in-laws. This weekly pad is amazing! The possibilities are endless and with the large areas for notes and task list, you could use this for so many other things, not just a schedule for your home. 

I hope to also utilize this more and incorporate a dinner menu as well. I'm terrible at meal planning and would like to streamline our household more. Another idea I had was to use this sheet as a way to track homework and story time for my son. I admit, I do get a bit lazy during the summer when it comes to keeping a schedule for him and would like to use this to make myself more accountable.

As soon as I hung this weekly page up, my husband was impressed. I told the house that there was room for them to make notes and add on so that we all have our input up there. I absolutely love how it brightens up our fridge and is so accessible to the whole house.

If you use a Limelife Weekly Planner Pad what do you use it for?! Work, home school? Email us at limelifeplanners@gmail.com... we'd love to see it! 

---

This blog post was written by Kate Morse for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. 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. 

Read more »

One of the many {many!} reasons I love having a paper planner is having my schedule, meal plan, and to-do list right at my fingertips.  I am totally the girl that carries her planner everywhere.  I can’t imagine doing life without having all of that information handy.  Carrying a planner, along with everything else I need as a mom to three littles, requires a bag that is up to the challenge.

I absolutely love the Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bags.  They’re not your typical mom-jean-fanny-pack, winnie-the-pooh-adorned diaper bags, but are so much more durable than a fashion bag.  I own four of these; I use two for daily use, one as a camera bag, and one as an overnight bag.

Here’s a look at what I keep in my daily bags.

I mostly use this bigger bag, the City Carryall.  In my bag, I carry my wallet, diapers and wipes, a Petunia Pickle Bottom Powder Room Case full of essentials, my coupon bag, Tylenol, hand sanitizer, a Perfectly Posh Healer stick {cures everything - rashes, burns, stings, bites, dry skin}, snacks, hair pomade for my boys, a favorite pen, gym tags for the kids, my house book {a notebook with paint samples and fabric swatches for each room of our home - makes shopping for the house a breeze!}, toys for my boys, a tape measure, a Tide pen, lipstick, sunnies, and of course - my planner!

It seems like quite a bit, but every mom knows the need to have a Mary Poppins-esque bag with anything and everything to stave off a toddler tantrum.  Everything pictured fits so well into the bag, with plenty of room to toss keys and my phone on top.

In case you’re curious about the Powder Room Case, here’s what I have stashed in there.

 

Tissues, tampons, earbuds, bobby pins, hair ties, extra pens, a key to the church building, cough drops, band-aids, my checkbook, and nail-care essentials.

If I’m going out without my gaggle of children {or if I’m in the mood for a smaller bag}, I reach for my Touring Tote.  I just transfer over my wallet, Powder Room Case, and of course my planner.

My planner fits perfectly in each bag, with plenty of room to zip.  I just love that if I find myself at the grocery, I have my meal plan and grocery list handy.  If I’m making plans with another mom, or at the doctor’s office, I have my schedule handy.  I don’t need to take one of the annoying cards {that I always lose!  always!} to remember my appointment; I have my planner at the ready.

Another bonus?  I spend an undisclosed amount of time in line at a Starbucks drive-through each week {day?}, and I can always pull out my planner to update my to-do list or {my favorite!} cross things off.

What about you?  How do you carry your planner?
 

This blog post was written by Abbey Niebel for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. 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. 

Read more »

My favorite part about using a planner is using sticky notes. I have a small collection of them and they are helpful in so many ways! I love to use them to write down things to add to my planner in future weeks, and since I’m writing it on a sticky note, I can move it around and not commit to writing it in pen right away.

I use sticky notes for future appointments, for meal planning, for laying out a week in my planner, for just about anything!

I use small tab sticky notes to plan out meals in the monthly layout in my planner. That way I can move them around and change them if needed. Once I have the meal plan set in stone, I write the meals down in pen. I also save the sticky notes to use for the next month’s meal planning, so that I don’t waste paper, and also so that I know what meals my family likes best. 

I keep a small stash of sticky notes in the pockets of the binder I use that holds my Limelife Planner. I have the “unbound and unpunched” version of the Limelife Planner, and I chose to put it inside a Kikki K ring binder system. That way I can add my own pages and add things like journaling cards to make my planner unique. 

Here is an example of how a dashboard works. Any laminated or smooth-covered piece of card stock will work, and you can clip it in to your planner with binder clips.

Sticky notes are very versatile for planning and can be purchased from many different places. Happy Sticking!

---

This blog post was written by Nicole Ferland for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. Please do not repost this blog entry without permission from Limelife Planners. For more information about Nicole and her Etsy shop, you can find her at @thealexstudio on Instagram. 

Read more »

When we set out to pick 10 people to help us represent Limelife Planners we had no idea how wonderful nearly ever single application would end up being. True story. We had such a difficult time picking 10 people that we ended up picking 12. 

These mothers, students, teachers, friends, daughters, and planner-lovers will be blogging as well as showing off their ideas on Instagram and Facebook. Be sure to check back often because all of this goodness starts TODAY (no April Fool's Day here!).

Without further ado, here is the Limelife Media & Creative Team (pictured top left to bottom right):
1) Elliscia Axson-Hall 2) Sarah Halstead 3) Kelly Cosgrove 4) Nicole Ferland 5) Katharine Poppe 6) Amber Boyd 7) Kate Morse
8) Jamie Breeden 9) Emilee Adams 10) Debbie Crowder 11) Florence Antonette 12) Abbey Niebel 

Tasha, myself, and these amazingly talented (and beautiful) women have a lot planned in the next 5 months. Expect lots of great ideas -- prepare to be inspired!

Read more »

This is your store’s blog. You can use it to talk about new product launches, experiences, tips or other news you want your customers to read about.

You can check out Shopify’s ecommerce blog for inspiration and advice for your own store and for your store’s blog.

How do I remove this post?
Log in to your store’s admin area then go to the blog section to delete this post.

We have an exciting opportunity for TEN talented, organized, creative, planner-loving individuals to join our Media and Creative team. We want YOU to help us share the Limelife brand as we continue to grow and develop.

Responsibilities include:

• Writing two planner/organization related blog posts per month (dates will vary and can be set up to accommodate your schedule. We will also work with you to come up with blog topics if needed -- we have a few ideas up our sleeves!). 
• Provide Limelife with 10 new images suitable for Facebook and/or Instagram. These images will be of or relating to your Limelife Planner (or other forthcoming Limelife products). These images cannot be ones that you have previously published on Social Media and will be subject to approval from the Limelife owners.
• Email Limelife with a headshot of your for our website. 

In return, you'll get a FREE Limelife Planner of you choice as well as an advance sample of every new product that we release during your time on our Media and Creative Team. We have some other fun things in store for M&CT members as well. (Trust us, it's pretty great.)

Media and Creative Team members are hired for 5 month contracts, which will begin on April 1st, 2015 and run through  September 1st, 2015. At that time we will be choosing another group of 10 individuals, although an offer to stay may be extended to M&CT members who have done an exceptional job. 

To apply, please send three images of your planner in use (does not need to be a Limelife Planner), as well as a statement of interest -- tell us why you want to me on our Media & Creative Team! Be sure to let us know if you are an Etsy shop owner or have your own planner-related small business. We are happy to have other small business owners! We'd love to help promote your products as well. We will be choosing members by March 10th, and we are asking that you apply no later than Wednesday, March 4th. 

 

Read more »

This post has been a LONG time coming.  We've had people ask how the business started and where our name came from.  Well here you go!  The evolution of our Limelife Planners.  The last two years have been the biggest changes to the planners and to our business. It's been a roller coaster and we've learned some expensive lessons along the way, figured out what people want, what they don't want, and a TON of other things.  Here are all my planners from the very beginning. 

I've (Tasha) always had a pen and paper addiction. Ask my mom, as a kid I would "play" with pens, pencils and paper.  So no surprise that I love paper planners.  I can't use my phone, I need it in front of me.  And if I don't write it down, I will not remember.

So that brings me to the beginning.  5 planners ago, I asked my dear friend Leslie if she would design me the monthly pages (at the time I had basically no design skills...okay, lets be real - I had none) and she was a freelance designer.  I told her I would just print them myself, take them to staples and have them bound.  She of course agreed (because she's the best graphic designer around).  So she made me all of the monthly pages and I "designed" some notes pages.   We decided to make the planner 5.5"x8.5".  I then cut tabs out of cardstock, BY HAND, and wrote on them with a sharpie.  The tabs were all me, I wanted tabs badly.  I needed to be able to quickly flip to the month.  But the best way we could figure out was to just make them myself.   My cover was literally a piece of cardstock and I printed my photo and my logo separately and used adheisve to put them onto the cover, then I had Staples put that piece of acetate on the front to protect it, when they spiral bound it.  At the time, we loved it. 

A year flew by and people had seen my planner.  So this time around I had to make more than one.  Leslie revamped the 2012 pages.  I made one for myself, my mom, and about 3 close friends. Leslie was not on board with the spiral-bound planner at the time. She was a three-ring binder girl at heart, so she printed the pages and punched them for her binder.  I however could not and would not cross over; I had it in my head I wanted it spiral bound.  This time I designed the cover and printed as a piece of cardstock and again used the piece of acetate on the front.   

When it was time to plan the 2013 planner we were getting smarter, and more popular.  This time we had several people that wanted them.  Leslie also made files for the tabs, I printed them on cardstock and then cut them out by hand again (instead of writing on them with a sharpie).  Leslie also had the bright idea to make the right side of the page fold out so that we could make the monthly boxes larger.  I don't have a photo of it, because I didn't make mine like that.  I wasn't crazy about having to fold out the page every time I needed to see the month...which turned out to be the consensus of everyone.  But we tried it, and learned from it.  That year we sold about 20 of them.  We had things we wanted to do for the planners but we just couldn't do it and keep the planners affordable if we were only making a small amount of them.  We always joked about needing a rich Uncle to make this business really happen!

That year FLEW by...and now we had TONS of people who wanted them.  Leslie wanted to make the planners 7x9 this go round so that the monthly boxes could be larger without having to mess with folding pages.  I was very hesitant...will they be too big? Will people like them?  BUT I trusted her, and I went with it.  As long as I had tabs, I was happy! :)

We FINALLY found a company that would do the tabs for us.  Oh happy day! I was over the moon when we got to give the lady all the details of these and they were going to be exactly what we wanted.  We had to order at least 50 of them.  And we were oh so nervous for that expense.  Let me just tell you, they were so expensive... and we were completely funding the business without any outside support (the way we still do it today). But we did it, and jumped in with two feet.  We ordered 50 tab sets and made some other huge decisions; laminated covers this time around instead acetate, the larger planner, custom covers, and added horizontal weekly pages.  Leslie also designed meal planning pages and I did some photography log pages that I'd been wanting for my photography business.  We sold 50 right off the bat and were blown away! (With no website, Facebook page, or company name at this point.)  We made the decision to order more tabs.  And they all sold, too... 106 total that year!  That was in October & November. Once we were done with that round we called it quits for the year, but decided on a timeline for the next year. 

In December Leslie came to Ohio and we held a very formal business meeting... 8pm on a weeknight, in our yoga pants, at Average Joe's with beers. That's the night "LimeLife Planners" was officially born.  That name was all Leslie's suggestion (she owned a graphic design company called Yellow Lime Studio, so this was a spin off from that name)... it was perfect!  We made a Facebook page, a logo, business cards,  website, and tons of other work had to be done.  In June we launched our Facebook page and flew to 3,300 fans in 30 days!  We were hoping for a few hundred...here it is December and we are so close to 5,000. We made some changes to the tabs, ordered aluminum coils in varying sizes, designed tons of different planner options, as well as add-ons, and decided to also offer notebooks, covers, stamps, and other accessories in addition to the planners. The number of planners we have sold this year continues to blow our minds. Just a few short years ago we were hand-cutting tabs! From cardstock! 

All along we have wanted to do planners the way we like and use them. We know there are a lot of other planner companies out there, but we also don't like how a lot of things are done with their planners. The last few months have been a whirlwind but we have felt so blessed by every minute of it.  We cannot thank you all enough for your support. Please continue to share our Facebook page and follow us on Instagram. We cannot wait to see where next year takes us! 2015 is going to be big for Limelife. 

Read more »

If you spend any amount of time on Pinterest (or Etsy for that matter), you'll notice an overwhelming number of links for free printable planners, or shops with printable planners for sale. In an effort to make sure that we are keeping our prices comparable, we wanted to take some time to do the math and see just how much cheaper printable planners really are.

We wanted an 'apples to apples' price comparison, so we just used the number of pages that come in a Limelife Planner. Some online printables have more or less pages than our planner, so it's important to keep that in mind. For our purposes we are basing this off of the following planner:

• Basic Planner (60 double-sided pages)
• Standard Weekly Pages Add-On (70 double-sided pages)
• Laminated front and back cover (2 double-sided pages + lamination)
• Coil (we use a sturdier aluminum coil, but the 'Big Box' office supply stores don't readily have this option; they use plastic coils in standard colors.)

We also based our prices off what Staples would charge to have this printed. They charge .98 per double-sided color copy (which includes the paper price). 

Drumroll please.......

By purchasing a pre-printed/laminated/punched/coiled planner from Limelife you could save roughly $79.70 than if you were to print it yourself. Now, of course, you might have a local printer that charges you less than .98 cents per double-sided copy, or you might have fewer pages in your printable file, etc. which would impact the price of printing yourself.

It's also important to note that you want a planner that works for your life! If you find a printable that is exactly what you need, it might be worth spending the extra money (and time) to print yourself.

We are really happy with the results of this comparison! We know that we're giving our customers a great product for a great price - especially since we have free shipping on all US orders. 

Happy Planner Shopping!
 

Read more »

We are always scouting the latest and greatest fonts for use in our products.

It's a little-known fact that I can identify fonts pretty much anywhere. You know that show 'The Miller's"? The font on their mailbox is Thirsty Rough. Dreamworks uses Populaire in some of the inserts in their DVD/BlueRay combos. Good fonts are everywhere and we're always studying them. Planners and fonts are always on our minds. 

Here's a fun list of some of our favorites. If you like these fonts, be sure to pin this image on Pinterest! Just hover over the image and a "pin it" button will appear in the upper left hand corner.

Read more »