DIY Planner with Printables

Being a mom means you have a super busy life that you have to deal with after you lost about 30%* of your smarts after making, birthing, and beginning to raise a baby.  Being a mom who is also involved in lots of activities makes it even busier.  Being a mom who has a husband who is ALSO involved in lots of activities and/or a crazy schedule....well, you get it.

(*not an exact science)

For a while now, I've had real frustration with my iPhone calendar and my Gmail calendar (#firstworldproblem, I know, but seriously).  I'd be at the end of a meeting, putting in the next meeting's date and time RIGHT THEN, only to have it disappear only a few days later, for no apparent reason. 

ALSO, I was really growing tired of asking my husband over and over what his (varied, ever-changing) schedule was and what time he'd be done that day (he was getting pretty tired of it, too).  I honestly just couldn't remember from day to day.  So I started thinking about getting a planner.

The Erin Condren planners were the first ones I wanted to look at, but....L O L at spending $50 on that when there are other things to buy right now (and never enough money to spend it on).  Sure, I could have gotten a cheaper one (they're still like $15-20) at Target or Staples, but I wanted it to be pretty.

So, I like to have my cake and eat it, too.  Sue me.

Then Heather totally saved me by tweeting this link yesterday and using some printables there, along with some Pinterest and some creativity of my own, and VOILA! My very own DIY (pretty!) planner!

and it IS a crazy life...

At-a-glance calendar for the year

Full month calendar; different color/patterned washi tape to indicate my commitment/husband's commitment/Z's appointments

Weekly plan after each month (I can tear them out once I'm done, or keep them all!)

Menu planning/shopping list

Bought a post it/stick-on thingy to go in the back.  It folds into the planner when it's shut, and I can refill it with other post-its when I run out. 

I used the "Blog Planner" template to keep up with my social media postings for different organizations for which I manage pages. This is one area where it'd be nice to make it customizeable, but hey...it was free.

Task/to-do lists for the shows I'm directing. The washi tape came in handy again because, unfortunately, the guy at Office Max bound these pages upside-down. Grrrr.  

Who knows if this will actually help me out (I'm really great at starting planners...) but I'm excited about it!  And it was WAY cheaper to print all of this out on my own and then have it bound.

Cost Breakdown

Printing: Free (ink, of course)
Binding: about $5 at OfficeMax
Washi tape: $2 x 3 rolls = $6
Post-it thingy: ~$6

Total Cost: less than $20

Thank you HEATHER!  Here's to getting organized.

First Halloween - Little Shop of Horrors!

Z's first Halloween was a pretty huge success, considering that most Halloween activities are at the absolute worst time for small children.  Our family costume was a Little Shop of Horrors theme!  I was Audrey, Michael was Seymour, and Z was (the small version of) Audrey II, the man-eating plant!

Yes, those are lipstick marks on his head...I can't help myself with that sweet face.

This costume idea was planted (heh) in our heads way before I even got pregnant!  We are huge fans of the  movie/musical, and we knew that, little boy or little girl, this was going to be the first Halloween costume for our baby. 

I was very pleased with the result! 

I made Z's costume myself, because I had a feeling there wasn't a huge market for infant man-eating plant costumes.  It was pretty easy and only took me a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, and there was NO sewing involved!

I found a green thermal body suit from Old Navy at a wonderful secondhand store called Once Upon a Child, and then I went to a craft store to get red and white felt (this particular felt had a bit of glitter in it, which I thought was fun), yellow paint, green bias tape, and some artificial leaves and other plant accessories.

I lined the inside of the hood with the red felt (I just used hot glue; fabric glue would also work), and then used the light green bias tape and small triangles of white felt  glued around the outside of the hood to create Audrey II's "lips" and teeth.

Then I used bits of red felt and yellow fabric paint to create the outside "shell" of Audrey II.  This was the most time consuming only because it took about four hours for the paint to dry.  Then I just pulled bits of leaves off of the artificial plant and glued them to the arms and legs of the costume.

Our costumes were easy.  I borrowed the wig (it's nice to have theatre friends with a stash of wigs and costume pieces!), the dress/belt/shoes were all mine, I got Michael's sweater vest at Goodwill and the rest of his costume came from his closet.

My shoes were leopard print, too!

Z looked adorable,and he was such a sweetheart at the Fall Festival where we took him to show him off! 

It was so much fun to enjoy Halloween with a baby, and to see our vision realized! It would have been so easy to just buy him an infant costume from a store, but this was so very us and now we have such awesome memories of his first Halloween!