Hi! I finally made my goal of organized planning/tracking of our life. Here's how I did it. I purchased the Mom's Home Journal from Mom's Tool Belt. [See the link at right to go there for yours after you see how great it is!] This product is FULL of planner/journal pages that you can mix and match to put together a planner that meets YOUR needs. There are calendars, lists, to do pages and more. AND, when you purchase the product you receive a 1 year membership to the site where you can find updates, fixes, and add on pages. There is even an option on some of these pages to add your own text!
I used the ProClick P50 desktop binding system to put my planners together. [Available at Amazon and check out Notebooking Pages for great pics & How To's for this tool.] This system has a zipper for punching the holes in the pages and the plastic spines can be opened to add or remove pages. We are a crafty family so I chose to scrap covers for my notebooks. [Mom's Home Journal has cover options you can print out.] I use different notebooks for family, school & business.
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| This shows the covers I scrapped. The pink one on the left has page protecters on the covers. |
Then, because I tend to make some changes before I find the way things work best for me, I use a numbered tab system for separating the sections of my notebooks. I created a 'contents' page with numbered boxes corresponding to the tabs for each section. It's easier to replace this one page rather than all the tabs if I want to change things a little. I chose to type in my categories, but you could leave these blank and write them in, also. On my contents page is a tab at the bottom, and behind this page I have a piece of cardstock just for holding my sticky notes, which I can't seem to live without. [They are just so handy! =)] Contents page and all divider pages are cardstock. All other pages are printed on both sides using 22lb paper. [I buy mine at Office Max.]
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| This shows my 'contents' page and numbered tabs. The tabs were made with the Stampin' Up Round Tab Punch, numbers printed on regular paper, punched out with 1/2" circle punch and glued in place. |
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| This is my sticky notes page. =) |
Now for the fun pages! I use a variety of these pages for different things. My daily 'to do' pages are in the family notebook as this is the one I use the most. School and business have their scheduled times during the day and those notebooks are taken out at those times.
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| This is a small sample of the pages in the Mom's Home Journal. There are many options for calendars, lists and journaling pages. AND there are four themed sets, one for each season of the year! |
Another nice thing about the Mom's Home Journal site is that you can connect with others through the site. There are places to leave comments and there is a section for tips and suggestions. Can you tell I REALLY like this stuff? If you are one of those who likes to be organized, or wants to be, I hope you will check out this site. I think it is the best out there for meeting your organizational needs. You can personalize the pages for YOU, and the pretty pages make a pretty planner. Very satisfying to use. =)
