Inside My Erin Condren Life Planner // My First Spread

Over the past year planning your daily life has changed significantly. What once was a mundane task completed on a late Sunday night, is a crafty and therapeutic activity that involves much more than just a pen or pencil. Stamps, stickers, ink pads, washi tapes, you name it and these self-proclaimed "planner girls" are adding it to their spreads. As a crafty girl myself I can't say that I'm complaining, I just wish I had jumped on the bandwagon sooner! That being said, it's never too late to start getting crafty and, today, I'm going to share my first spread with you in my new Erin Condren Life Planner.

Below is an overview of my first spread. This is from the week of Thanksgiving which was the last week of November in this planner. I kept to the color scheme of the page which was blue and taupe. I added in some orange for a pop of color and to bring in some of the Thanksgiving-themed stickers I had on hand.

I started off this spread by stamping the "week" image over the little list column on the left side. That stamp comes from this Simple Stories stamp. I have a feeling I will be using this one a lot. I added in some to-do's underneath that I wanted to make sure not to forget.

Next, I moved on to things I knew were definitely going to happen this week such as my blog post series with Holly, Thanksgiving, and work. I marked those off with washi tapes and stamped "blog" and "work" above the strips using my stamp. As the week passed I added in little notes and other stamped images to fill up the boxes.

For the right side of the spread, I started by decorating the Thursday column. I stamped "happy" and "Thanksgiving" from my Fall Sentiments stamp and added the little cooked turkey from my planner stamp right above. I think that little arrangement may be my favorite thing on the whole spread. I also used a few of the stickers from my sheet throughout the spread to add some more texture. I also used these printable stickers to fill in the bottom boxes and the weekend banner.

I knew I wanted to add in some thoughts on what I was grateful for so I stamped "thankful" and "for" from the same Fall Sentiments set and used a pen to write in my journaling. I also wanted to add a to-do list on the right side in the Sunday column, so I stamped the little banner and "to do" from my planner set and wrote out some tasks I wanted to complete.

My first spread was definitely a learning experience as far as what products I could and couldn't use. Specifically, I noticed that the inks I used (Hero Arts Dye Inks) bled onto the pages before and after this spread. It wasn't too bad, but I know now not to use such a wet ink. I also found that some of my cardmaking stamps had some awesome little images that could work for planners as well. I can't wait to see what other ways I can stretch my stash!

Do you love decorating your planner? Let me know your favorite products in the comments below!

Nicole