The reasons why a handmade calendar is so awesome by iHanna

Creative brains need to beautify everything, even such a thing as a calendar. We just want to be our own boss, and manage our own time. The first step is to create a calendar that we will actually use.

If you think "cool handmade calendar", the first mixed media artist that comes to mind is iHanna who has created a lot of Calendar Inspiration and tutorials on her blog, from making your own binder to creating calendar tabs, so I invited her to chat about the subject.

Here is what she wrote on the reasons why she loves to make her own:

As a journalist I love writing and that is a big part of my life. I also am passioned about knitting, making collages, sewing, taking photos with my Nikon d50 camera, playing in my Art Journal, crocheting, making softies, reading books, drinking coffee while I work and being on the lookout for even more inspiration!

Crafters, artists, paper lovers and planners all agree that a personalized personal planner is the way to go – if you have the time to put into it for planning your year, blog posts, important dates, and the daily progress of your many creative projects! With specific list pages to record what you watch, read, borrow, want to check out in the future and more... Make your planner work for YOU!

As I printed pages for 2014 I decided to create all the 52 weeks in one computer file (with all the 365 days dated and week numbers added). I then, finally, decided to offer it as a digital download, for a small cost, to all my readers who has been requesting it since for ever. To me, and you probably, the time it takes to assemble this is sooo worth it! Oh the joy of putting it together and then getting to use it.

I love my planner

What I absolutely LOVE about making/using my own planner is:

* choosing papers (mine is 80 gram cream coloured paper especially bought for this project)

* making my own section dividers (tabs)

* using pretty scrapbook papers, postcards and other fun stuff

* deciding what’s important and what’s not (in a pre-made calendar you will always get a new phone list but what I really want is a space personal lists like my read book list etc)

* printing 6 months at a time and then the rest later

* having everything in a ring binder so that I can move, remove and change order of everything that’s in there

* having room and papers especially made for list making, sketching, writing, keeping track of time, to do-lists and more

* being able to make something pretty that I use in everyday life – daily

* being able to customize a ring binder that fits your purse!

* that I can re-use the ring binder, dividers and list pages year after year!

Thank you so much Hanna for highlighting the many creative reasons to make our own planners! Both my organized and my creative sides are happy with these. ;)

You can still get iHanna´s 2014 calendar pages on etsy https://www.etsy.com/listing/174045641/diy-calendar-planner-2014-for-the and the extra pages, especially made for list makers and those of us who love to plan our lives ahead of time, here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/182564607/printable-extra-pages-for-planning-an

Places where you can find iHanna on line:
Website:
FB page: Studio iHanna
Twitter: @iHanna
G+: iHanna
Pinterest: iHanna
Instagram: iHanna
You Tube: iHanna´s Creative Channel

November 2013 update/December plans

My S4

Do you take pictures with your cell phone? Yes? That´s what I thought, so I created a "Life on the Go" Facebook group! A place where you can find daily prompts and meet a cool group of people from all over the world, sharing their view on daily life. From the seasonal fruit to the buses, from the breakfast table for six to the take away for one, from their knitting to their moving boxes, from the birthday cake decorated with Angry Birds to the books on their side table. Life. Glorious, ordinary life. 








Here are my 30 pictures for November following the daily prompts:

Sounds interesting? You can still join for the Advent season. :) Advent is a veeeeeeeeery busy time but it is also a great "memory making" season. So I´ll keep this group open till the end of the month. 

How´s that for an Advent Day 1 gift? 
When I introduced myself for Art Every Day Month back in 2010 I had this long list of plans. I remember all of those projects. Now the time has come to let go of some of them to make space for new ones.

One of the projects that is coming to an end in its current form is my Creative Every Day challenge  led by Leah Piken Kolidas. I´ve taking at least a picture a day for the whole year for the past four ones and presenting a weekly update.  The update will now take a montly form, right in time to summarize it in numbers for the My month in numbers feature by Julie Kirk.  Here are some inspirational instructions on how to go about it. Yep, two-in-one, I´ve been known to multitask that way before. :D

My 30 pictures for November. You can read what they are about in week #44,  week #45, week#46  and week #47

I can also show you my working table each day of November. Those are 30 views of how I roll. 

And of course the 30 completed layouts.

Do you want to have an idea of how they look all together? Here they are. In fact there are 31 because I couldn´t stop. :D

Jamie Ridler from Jamie Ridler Studio is bringing Wishcasting Wedesdays and Full Moon Boards projects to an end and so am I.

From 6 creative projects to 3. That makes a lot of yummy, fresh, free, open space to play. Let´s pretend we are 5 again and at the Kindergarten playground. Do you want to play with me? What do you want to do?

By the way I´m joining Kat with Reverb 13 and Jamie & Shannon with blogging for December! Possibly not every day but back to my 3 a week schedule. Oh! I didn´t count my guests posts. My schedule might be a bit tighter than I thought it was. *w*

AEDM 13 Day 30 We did it!

Singing like Dora the Explorer as I go about my day on the last day of Art Every Day Month. We did it! On my 8th AEDM:

* 30 days of working tables.

* 30 scrapbooking layouts.

* 30 pictures taken with my cell phone following prompts from Life on the Go.

Working table for Day 29, a new kit opened.

My layout. Another one that took forever to finally come together! My girl getting her primary school diploma.

With that first page of the double spread, the table on the 30th was about matching.

And the final layout! Day 30 of Art Every Day Month.

Thank you so very much for the encouraging comments this month! Thanks to all the AEDMers that published and shared their work!

See you tomorrow for the month´s summary in numbers and some new plans. Unveliling little by little. ;)

AEDM 13 Day 29 Kristen Toney Campbell´s recipe book

I met Kristen Toney Campbell through a blogging group and immediately fell in love with her blog. It is full of lovely projects with a down to Earth approach that completely suits my style.

As I´m running a decluttering and organizing of crafty material series on my Facebook page with daily tasks and I´m also introducing some holiday prompts to get ready for the season Kristen´s post on a personalized Recipe Holder fit both themes perfectly and I asked her to be my guest here today.

You can find more organizational articles at her "The road to domestication" blog and more tips at her Domestic Road Facebook page.

Here´s Kristen´s demo:

So, I LOVE to cook. Some women don’t like to come home after working a full day and have to cook, but it’s literally one of my favorite times of day! It’s my “me” time, it’s my relaxation time, it’s my time to create and experiment with flavors, textures and styles!

As you can imagine, I’m always finding new recipes. I see them on blogs, I get them in my email, I get them from friends, I pin them on Pinterest…you get the idea. And almost none of them come in the exact same form.

This created a large build-up of papers (of all shapes and sizes), napkins, recipe cards, etc. Whatever form the recipe came in was shoved into a folder, which meant that every time I said, “Hmmm…where did I put that recipe for Paula Deen’s meatloaf I found the other day?” I had to pull out the folder and dig through until I found the desired item. VERY ANNOYING. Not to mention that our kitty figured all the papers spread everywhere was a direct invitation to come along and pounce away. An even bigger mess.

As the holidays drew near (last year), our family began to set up menus for all of the events, and there are always requests for specific dishes I make. The only problem was finding the recipe for all the requested dishes. And I was over it this past holiday season. Something had to give.

So, I searched and searched for the perfect solution. To no avail. After a few weeks of frustration, my husband commented, “Geeze, why don’t you just make your own! You make everything else, don’t you? That way you can customize the whole thing and it will be exactly how you want it to be!”

Smart man I married, smart man.

Here’s what I did – it’s all pretty simple.

1. I picked up a black 2-inch ring notebook, a set of black and white 8.5 X 11 scrapbook papers and a set of sheet protectors. 

2. I went through all of my recipes and separated them all into categories that made sense to ME and the way I cook.

3. I created sections for each chosen category using the sheet protectors, scrapbook papers and my big label maker.

4. I put ALL of my recipes on the SAME SIZE sheet of paper in black and white.

Voila!

What I love about it:

• It’s all black and white. I’m a very black and white person, literally and figuratively, so this worked great for me, and it saves on printer ink, too - but you can do it in any color combination!
•  It’s customized so I know exactly where everything is.
•  It’s easy to add a new recipe.

Here’s what a section looks like:

And here’s what a typical entry looks like! (I just copied this out of a magazine somewhere…I think! Ha!)

I even made the back cover pretty!

I was originally going to put a Table of Contents on the back cover, but I decided not to yet, because I’m always adding and changing things!

This made the holiday season much less stressful, I have to say, and it’s still working perfectly. Did I mention it makes meal planning and grocery shopping SO MUCH EASIER? It does!

Whatcha think? Fairly simple, right?

Thank you for your contibution Kristen! 

Find Kristen on line at her blog: The road to somestication, her Facebook page:  Domestic Road and Twitter: @DomesticRoad

Talking about organzing things, I´ve been working on my plans for December and beyond. I´ve been working with my own pretty papers too:

And here´s the finished layout: Tati´s first cell phone (ok, the only one so far but the title looked cuter with "first" ;) ) which she got when she finished her primary school.

Only one more to go for Art Every Day Month!!! Come back tomorrow for the summary of such an intense month and an invitation to new adventures. :)

AEDM 13 Day 28 What do you wish for?

Me? What I wish for?
A complete plan for 2014. An exciting, full of energy, hope and fun plan. A plan I can pin on the wall and smile at it. A plan I can share with you and you will smile at it in a "Yep. Let´s do this" way.

My plan in four colours for 2009

PS: a few hours later. I´m planning today. It involves lots of acrylic paints to write notes which I will stick to teh wall with masking tape. What do you want to play with next year? I´m open to new projects, both joining and leading. Jot down your crazy, wild ideas in the comments. Let´s play!

I started Wishcasting back in February 2009, right on my birthday. With the years it has morphed from "I wish this" to "I will do this", becoming an action trigger. All based on Jamie Ridler´s prompts.
Today Jamie has announced she is no longer going to be hosting these. To participate in the last Wishcastings of the year, go to this week´s original post to add your wish.

I remembered to take the picture of my working table when the page was almost done.

A sweet page about my niece´s first steps for Day 27 of Art Every Day Month.

PS: I wish for Quinn McDonald´s new book to be a wild success. I wish to be able to accept that I must be kind of good if my writing is in it.

Click on the book to be taken to a preview of the inside of the book

More plans on December 1st. Come back then for more fun! :)

AEDM 13 Day 27 And a bit more later

The basic tools on my table:

Cutting board and metal ruler, scissors, hole punch, black pencil, blue pen, ruler, adhesive, scissors, date stamp, black ink, blade cutter and circle punch.

The layout for Art Every Day Month, Day 26: Die Mannschaft whch means team in German.

Not totally happy with the foamie letter stickers. Wish you could see them better.

AEDM 13 Day 26 and a summer project

It was a long weekend in Buenos Aires and with only one week to go for Art Every Day Month and a month to go in the year, it was a great moment to plan the summer and to start setting the intentions for 2014.

This will be our summer project: the garden.

We will redesign the landscape, taking some old shrubs off, changing lights, repainting walls and adding a little reading, lounging space with cute little details.

I started by prepping three bottles we had in different colours and taking the labels off. Two ofthem have nice patterns on tehm. Any ideas what I can do with them? Suggestions welcomed!

Since 2008 I have been choosing a word as compass for the year. It took me a while to understand that only my true words worked. Not those chosen because "everybody else" did. The most powerful so far has been 2010´s LISTEN. And for 2014? We are making a list. There is one that has caught my attention lately. I want to see how that relationship develops.

Here´s my crafty working table on Nov 25th:

And the finished layout for Art Every Day Month Day 25: Tati and her clay mask made at school in Year 6 of primary school.

AEDM 13 Day 25 Week #47 summary with pictures and stories

Wooow! What a full week! Lots of family activities, several good news on my 1400th post and Tammy Doiel as a guest. On the creative front: seven pictures with prompts, seven scrapbook layouts and seven posts telling the stories.

Do you take pictures with your cell phone? Join Life on the Go for daily prompts and an international group of women to share your photos with.

This is my weekly summary. The prompts were: pretty, blue, open, closed, purse, floor and heart

And now the week´s summary for Creative Every Day challenge 2013 by Leah Piken Kolidas. I´m taking at least a picture a day for the whole year. I´ve checked 320 out of the possible 328 pictures for 2013 so far. Click on the pictures to see them bigger!

Monday, November 18th (314/322): Today Tati and I baked a cake together. Lovely mom and daughter activity plus yummy warm cake for tea. The cake was gorgeous, the exact perfect colour on top and under. Not too much, not too little. So pretty that it qualified for the "pretty" prompt. So far, so good. Except that I took the picture with the point and shoot, not the cell phone! *insert surprised exclamations late in the evening when I realized the mistake* Never mind, my new tuppers in the freezer are pretty too.

Tuesday, November 19th (315/323): totally forgot to take my fil´s new blue fishing rod that we gave him for his birthday though loosing two photo ops in one, so I show you my navy blue Windsor bookmark.

Wednesday, November 20th (316/324): an "open" car door when I came back from picking my mom up for lunch.

Thursday, November 21st (317/325): My cousin Alexandra´s birthday. According to her no birthday party is complete without balloons.

Friday, November 22nd (318/326): my favourite purse/bag.

Saturday, November 23rd (319/327): our nephew T´s second birthday

Sunday, November 24th (320/328): Sunday lunch at my in laws.

My working table on November 24th for Art Every Day Month












My layout for Art Every Day Month Day 24