DLP Planner - Ideas

I'm always looking for new ways to add dates to my weekly planner pages.  This time, I used ledger paper. Cut some strips, stamp the days... attach to the page. Easy and simple.

I have also mentioned before picking up these pads of paper at the dollar store.

This time of year, the calendars and planners are out for next year, and with that comes some new pads to look over.  I got this one recently, again, just a dollar, and more pages than I will ever need for my planner.

If they don't fit exactly, I can always trim them down a little, as I did for the daily blocks here.  And I like to start the week with Sunday, not Monday, which is another reason I usually cut them apart to use them.

These two weeks added a lot of color to my planner!

Purse Art

My to-do list for some time has included getting caught up on art card assignments for my Documented Life planner.  I liked the assignment for the first week in November - Add something from the bottom of your purse.  I don't have a lot of junk in my purse, but I almost always have scraps of lists..  I also found a bandaid, but I ended up not using that (this time).

I tore my lists into strips and collaged them to a piece of file folder that already had some paint on one end.  The file folder piece was a little narrow, so I painted an ATC and attached the file folder to it.

 I added a little stamping, stenciling, and doodling, and stitched around the file folder part.

 I added a little more collage

 I made a vinyl pocket that is big enough to hold several cards, and sewed it a page made from free art from Carolyn Dube (she frequently has her Art Sparks downloads available for free.  I always download them but never know what I'll do with them.  But they are on my computer when I need something quick to use.)

I had a lot of fun and like all the color I ended up with.

November DLP

The calendar on the wall is going a lot faster than I am! Here are a couple of recent planner pages.

Last 2 weeks of October... nothing really eye popping, just a couple of quickies.
Left Side, took a big tag, stenciled a background, stamped and stenciled the dates, used a little watercolor pencil around the border and to divide the days.  On the back of the page from the previous week, I sponged some black stamp pad ink around the border and attached the tag to it.

Right side:  Cut and folded scrapbook paper, attached ledger paper, marked the dates.  Done.

 Quick November page... I wanted to stamp the numbers in something other than black or brown, which I seem to always use.  I tested out colors on a piece of scrap cardstock, and decided I liked all the colors I tested.  So I used them all.

I added a touch of color with art stickers to two of the boxes on the calendar.  Okay, true confession.  what I actually did before that was stamp the number 1 in the wrong spot, so I used a sticker to cover it up!  Happy accident!

51 shopping days til Christmas!

October DLP

Where will I go in October with my DLP 2016 planner?  I have no idea.  It has been a month where I just needed to get my calendar and a couple of pages done.  Tomorrow, October will be half over.  Whut???

I have had this picture of the girl forever and don't remember where I got it.  She reminds me of Halloween, so she got sewn onto the divider.  I continued with the brown page for the monthly calendar.  I had bought the masking tape at the office supply store recently and it went so well with the girl picture, on it goes to the page, with a white gel pen used to write out October.

Sometime in the past few months, I had obtained these pens.  They are Sakura Decorese, and the package says they write on plastic, metal and glass.  The rest of the writing is in Japanese, so that's all I can pass along except they are a gel-type pen.  I just liked the slanted tops!  I got them at either Amazon or Jet Pens.  Since that happened before today, I don't remember now.

I tested them out on a scrap to see which one(s) I wanted to use on my weekly page.

 I used those pens, plus some white paint and stenciling on the left side page.

On the right, I punched out black ovals, then used number punches to punch out the numbers to glue down.  It got kind of sloppy, but it's done.

I was ahead at that point.  But like I said, tomorrow is the 15th, so I guess I'd better put on my thinking cap again!

DLP Planner Catch up 4

My last post ended with the manilla envelope page.  On the back of the envelope, I added some address labels I had received in the mail (ordered from Check Advantage, art by Dina Wakley).  The weekly page on the right side was printed on paper that already had a design on it.  To reinforce the spine, I stamped on yellow paper and folded the yellow paper around to the back side.

The base paper was not very sturdy, so the yellow paper is to help reinforce it.  Before I glued down the yellow paper, I used a half-inch punch to make holes down the left side.  After the yellow paper was glued, I stamped the dates.

The vintage Dennison clasp envelope will probably hold art cards.  It already had some holes with grommets on them, but I did have to punch an extra hole to match the rings in my binder.

The next page is a grid paper (double thickness), sewn around the edges.  Stamp pad ink was sponged  on to separate days of the week.  

 I used the Select-A-Stencil (Stampers Anonymous, Wendy Vecchi design) to add the dates.

 On to October!

DLP Planner Catch up 3

More from September

For the week ending Sept 10, I made a page from a manilla pocket.  It's a good place to put stuff... like the label from the big elastic bands I found at Staples.  My planners keep popping open and I had planned to make something to keep them closed.  But when I saw these staring at me from the store shelf, I knew that was what I needed, at least for now.  Putting that in the pocket will help me remember where I bought them.  Not that I'm forgetful or anything...

A vintage paperclip on the top right, a little more embellishment on the envelope...  And on the left side is a book page I just thought was interesting!

DLP 2016 Planner Catch Up Part 2

A few more peeks into recent planner pages for my DLP planner.

 One thing I've been doing lately is trying to keep up with the art card each week, seen in the pocket pages below.

My full size September calendar below is on the right, folded in.  I've loosely used back-to-school themed tapes and scrapbook papers.
When I needed something to sew down the side of the plastic pocket page (on the left below), I photocopied a composition book and used that black and white design for the border.

 Calendar unfolded.

DLP2016 Planner Catch UP

Just because I haven't posted my planner pages lately.. here's a little catch up of end of July and part of  August.  Mostly self explanatory.  I had previously posted a journal page where I had used all the stencils I bought at Stampaway.  I made a reduced copy of that to go in my planner, because it seemed to belong there, but I needed a smaller size.  

 More catch up to come....

Trifold Art Card

Time Marches On... and by that I mean, we are almost halfway through September already!

I have been doing things, just not getting my act together enough to take pictures and put a couple of sentences together.

Most of my time has been spent with the new job.  And having an internet outage during two of my first three weeks.  Not a happy camper here, as I work at home and depend on my internet to work.  The new company still lets me work there, so I guess it didn't scare them off  yet.

While waiting and waiting for a technician, I did doodle in my journal, depicting the annoying yellow triangle that designates no internet connection at the bottom of the computer screen.  I hope I don't see it again any time soon!

I feel a little guilty that my DLP planner is being neglected.  I did manage to get a fold-out September calendar in it (made from scrapbook paper that looks like distressed notebook paper.  For this week's art card, I followed the tutorial by Roben-Marie Smith.  I am not very patient with projects with a lot of layers, because if I have to wait for drying times, I probably won't finish.  But, this time I stuck with it and ended up with something I really like, warts and all.  The theme was to stitch your card.  Click here for Roben-Marie's blog post.

Front:

 Back:

August Stuff

It does not do for me to get out of my routine.  I seem to have a harder time getting back into one. 

I have been off work while between jobs, but it has not felt like a vacation in any way.  The time was mostly spent getting the new computer equipment set up in my home office, getting paperwork in, going through pre-training, etc.  A big part of all this was getting my internet upgraded and getting a new modem installed.

Last Monday was my first day at the new job, and it was mostly online training for the first couple of days.  Wednesday was the first day of going right into the work system and going full speed ahead.  And it went pretty good until I suddenly lost internet.  The rest of the week was spent trying to figure out what happened.  Long story short, we think a storm on Wednesday somehow damaged my new modem, and another new modem was installed which seemed to fix the problem.  By then, it was late Friday and I had lost half of my first work week.  I'm sure I made such a good impression on the new employer :(

Other than the new job, life goes on.  I had made weekly calendars for August for my DLP 2016 planner at the end of July, but haven't done much else with the planner.

I pondered why my box of freezer bags contained a lot of mutant bags, with parts of bags sewn into the seams of other bags.  It was quite bizarre.

I also enrolled in a new online class. I admit that before I left for Stampaway, I questioned my sanity in signing up for a new class that would start when I was out of town, and that would overlap with me starting a new job.  I must be out of my mind.

But, I did.  It is a Creative Lettering class with Andrea Joseph, taught through Sketchbook Skool.  I have been a fan of Andrea's work for a long time.  She makes amazing detailed drawings with just ballpoint pens.  She inspired me several years ago to make this journal page spread. The trick for me, which she suggested as a way to get a drawing started, was to trace around the object I wanted to draw, then fill in the rest.

When I was at Stampaway, I purchased a square Dylusions journal to use for the class (not required, but I had been wanting a square journal and this has nice pages to work on).  I decorated the front page with washi tape and a couple of stencils I also bought at Stampaway.

Some of my homework assignments don't look that great, but I'm loving this assignment and how it turned out! 

Since the class is about lettering to go in your sketchbook, I've been trying to do more sketching.  I was pretty happy with this one, which I drew with brown ink.  I then used a brush with water to wet the outsides of the bottle and make the ink run, spreading the ink around for a background.  That is, I did love it, until I wrote on the back side of the page with a marker that bled through.  But life is what it is, and I can't stress over it.  Just makes the page look aged or something.

 

I'll be catching up with my 2016 planner as time goes on and post progress here.  And I feel like I'm starting my new job again for the second time tomorrow, after not being able to work last week.  I feel like I'm in the movie Groundhog Day, where the same thing happens over and over! !

DLP Planner Weeks 29 and 30

On week 28, I had used a tan/beige tag.  The back of that tag is dark blue, so this is what I did for week 29, the week starting July 10.  I printed a collage sheet from Artstronauts onto sticker paper, and cut out a nice long border section to put down the side of the tag.  Then I used a white gel pen and stencil to mark the days of the week. And that was that! 

For the week starting July 17, week 30, I cut a section of watercolor paper from where I had played with some Koi brush markers and water a couple of weeks ago.

I took some white mailing labels and stenciled feather designs on the sides.  The labels were wider than what I needed, so I cut each one in half, then stamped the dates on them.  I placed them on the page, each one with the rounded edges of the label at the top and the cut part at the bottom (not that it's even noticeable!)

 I finished off that page with some washi tape on the left side where the holes were punched.

It still looked a little plain, and I ended up making scribble marks around the labels with a black pen. 

I might actually have all of the July weeks done before August gets here!

DLP Weeks 27 and 28

July has been pretty busy.  You would think I would keep track of things in my DLP planner.  Except I just got around to making the weekly pages.  I think starting July in a new binder threw me off.  I don't have any inspiration from the preceding week to jump start me!

For week 27, the week ending July 2, the first thing I had to do was cover the whole page, which happens to be the back side of the monthly calendar page from the previous post.  Although that calendar page is a gold color, the back is white.  I debated many options, painting, stenciling, etc... but decided to just print a weekly page onto a patterned paper.  This one with writing is a free insert from Somerset Studio magazine.  The paper was not quite long enough to cover the whole page, so I put washi tape around the edges.  I stamped the dates and days, and that one is done.  Not a whole lot left to say about that technique!

For Week 28, week ending July 9, I decided to use a tag from my stash.  I have these tags with a fold at the top, but I decided to cut off the flap and not add bulk to the planner.

I picked a light color as it looked best next to the preceding page.  I had some of the same background paper left over and cut it to size to fit the tag.  I used washi tape to divide the days, and stamped the dates and days.

 I wrote July at the top, and that one is now complete as well.  Not very creative, but it's okay.

After I made it, I discovered the light colored tag has dark blue on the back, so that will be my challenge the next week.