New Year, New Plan, #CraftyGoals2023

 Hi, and welcome to the #Craftygoals2023 collaboration! This is a new adventure I'm starting with a group of crafty women here on YouTube and in Instagram. We are going to share with you how we are making our crafty goals come to life through the year. There will be different topics along the way, and follow-ups to share how we did, what works and what didn't for us, and maybe some hints and tips that will help you.

We are posting on the 1st of every month throughout the year. Please check out the links below for the crafty creators who are participating, and please like and subscribe so you can be notified of all of the posts. Thanks so much for watching, and lets plan to have a crafty year!!! Debbie Alley’s Project39 Mini Albums

Crafting and Creating with Caroline

Letty Zavela

Michelle Hale

Michelle Allen, {That's Me!}

Hope Michaud

A New Year, A New Plan

Happy New Year!!!!  Welcome to 2017!!!

2016 has been quite a year, and now, we get to "start over" with 2017.  A lot of things have happened and a lot of things have been created.  I can't wait to "do all the things" this year!  

I want to start by saying that I am going to make it a priority of making this blog awesome.  I want to create my own things, share with you the awesome skills of others, and just plain have fun with this blog.  I am not going to get famous or rich.  I will not sell patterns or add those advertisements to my blog. I just want to have fun, and share in the creative community.  I'm going to try to do more tutorials, and more videos.   My ask of you all, is please please please let me know if you like the posts.  If you use one of my ideas, please let me know and share with others where you found it.  I am committing to doing the same for you all.  Let's make 2017 ROCK!!!

So, as the post title suggests.  Here is my new planning for 2017.  

I am in love with the Happy Planner!  I have a huge collection of stickers, papers, etc.  I use a mini planner, just for the monthly calendar and notes in my purse.  It is sort of a "jotter" or a "satellite" planner.  I can't carry my huge planner everywhere I go, so it is useful for quick notes on the run.  

 For my desk planner, I am using the Happy Planner "classic" size.  This is the upcoming week, and I tried to go with the blue/pink/gold look.  On the top row is my work schedule, and special appointments and dates.  The middle row is tasks that need to be completed on that day.  The bottom row I divided.  Above the washi is TV shows that are on that day, and on the bottom I am doing meal planning.

I have been working on a cleaning schedule to keep my house in good shape.  It's a huge task some weeks, but since I made this little plan it has worked well.  I have made this up on my computer, and just cut it out and stick it on one of the mini list pages.  I have divided my big weekly chores into four weeks of chores.  The front of the page will be a place for extra notes, shopping lists, etc.  On the top, I am trying a new way to do my 52 week savings plan.  I am going to just do $25 a week, rather than the money amount for the week (for example, Week 1 is $1, Week 2 is $2, etc.)  It ends up only being $78 dollars less a year, is simpler, and I can always add extra if I want.

 So then there is my fitness planner.  I have the stickers for this one also, and found some others in the other sticker packs that I have.  

 I found the idea on the web site for the Happy Planner.  Then did some Pinterest searching and made up this 30 day challenge page.  I am going to do a different challenge a month.  I am also going to get on that stationary bike and so more walking at work during my lunch hour.  

Here I am going to write down my diet, weight, blood pressure, etc.  Everything in one spot.  

 This planner is going to be my "4 Year Diary"  I did a 5 year diary in card form. It is so fun to go back and look at what you did on a particular day for the last 5 years.  But this was my last year and I needed a new book.  I decided to use this extra 2017 planner I had.  (Because I just couldn't resist buying the kit at Costco).  The monthly page will be a sentence entry for 2017.

Then I decided that the three columns will be for subsequent years.  This is why this one will be a 4 year diary.  One sentence about the day.  It's easy and fun, and sometimes makes me laugh out loud!

This is going to be my blog planner/craft planner.  I just did it a little different for this year.

 I just put in the month tabs and then note pages.  I am going to try to write a post weekly.  I will be able to plan, write notes, make lists, etc.  Again, all crafty stuff in one place.

I think that the month overview page will be good for future planning.  I will let you know how it works.

 I finally made a sticker book!  I decided to get all of my alphabet stickers in one spot.  I used old pages from my Happy Planner to be the base of the sticker pages.  Cut them to size, adhered them, and taa daa!

I had this band to keep it closed, and this pair of pick ups for getting them off of the sheet and placing them easy.  It works wonderful!  I think after I write this post I will make one for my fitness stickers.  

Well that's it for the planning!  It looks overwhelming, but if you put all of this stuff in one book it would be way to big!  Please let me know what you think!!!

Have a wonderful and crafty year!!!

Michelle💖

My Blog Planner

Hello, and welcome to my post on my new "Blog Planner!"  I am so excited about this project.  I am a planner person and it is only natural that when it comes to blogging, I'd want to plan that out too.  

I searched all over the net looking at various planners.  It came down to a couple of key points for me.

1.  I am not doing this for a business, so it didn't have to include financial information.

2.  I share on Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube, so I wanted to make sure I could include information and checklists to help with that.

3.  It had to be simple and flexible so that I would use it, but also have enough space to plan, make checklists, etc.

This is what I eventually ended up with.  I will include information on where I found all of these free printables so that if you want to check it out, you can.

I started with my Arc notebook, that I purchased at Staples.  It is a full sized 8 1/2" by 11" notebook.  I bought a zippered pouch that I put on the OUTSIDE of the planner, and I also used a Smash Book elastic band to hold it all closed.  

 I put the pouch on the outside because then I can just remove it when I am working on my planner.  The Arc system allows you to remove and replace all of the components with ease, and I love that.  I filled my pouch with multicolored pens, some highlighter tape, a correction tape, and some binder clips.  There is plenty of room to add more things if I need to.  I suppose I could put it in the planner, but the bulkyness of it bothered me, so the outside seemed the best place for it.

 Inside the front cover, some sticky notes, and some mini note pad papers that I got from Levenger.

 I printed off the first page of our blog and put it in the book, just because I could!

 The first section is the monthly section.  I added a yearly calendar I got from Calendarpedia.

 Then, I printed off these lovely monthly calendars and wrote in my dates.  I used month stickers that I had in my stash from Boxer.  The calendars came from The Mac and Cheese Chronicles.  I am just putting the basic information about the posts here.  This way, at a glance, I can see what I did, or what I am planning.

 That same link above is also where I got these lovely weekly pages.  Here is where I am going to put more information.  What the post is about, checklists, to do's, links, etc.

 I found these quarterly planners At Template Trove.   I'm not sure what I am going to do with them, but I thought they were cool, so I added them.

 I found this "Blog Post at a Glance" at Living Live Brightly.

 And this page for planning an marketing here at Oh My Handmade Goodness.  I thought that if a daily post was super detailed that I could have a whole page dedicated to it.  The beauty of this Arc planner is that I can add or subtract pages anywhere in the book with ease.  (Gotta love that!)

 I thought this "Blog Post Checklist" by Girl Loves Glam had some great information, so I included it in my notebook as well.

 These are "Ideas and Notes" pages, and I got them from Ironic Adventures.  I am jotting down ideas I have, blog to do's, etc, on these pages.  I covered them up because I want you to be surprised.

 This is a lesson plan.  I was thinking that if I was to do some sort of series (like a several part tutorial) this grid might come in handy.  I got this form from "Printable Paper".  They have an amazing assortment of papers you can print.  This link takes you to just the "teacher" section, there are other sections.  If you haven't, you should go check out this site.

 This last section is in progress.  I want to create some sort of simple index of the blog posts.   Jackie and I tried to use a lot of tags to help categorize things, but it is long.  I am going to simplify it for my own use.  I haven't started yet, we will see how it goes.

 Last, but not least, the catetories of my tabs.  Blog Posts, Craft Groups (information about the group I am involved with "Sassy 6" lead by our awesome Stamp-Master Elsa!), Post Ideas, Post Index.  I have one more tab, and I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet.  I also have some Arc Pockets in the back to hold stuff as I need to.

That's it, my planner.  I hope you liked it!  I have just started using it, and so far...I love it.  Hopefully it will keep me more on track with writing posts more frequently!  Maybe I'll be so organized I can have themes!  Maybe, just maybe.  :)

Stay Crafty, My Friends!