Post Script

P.S.
I figured out what I'm going to do with my planner I made. I'm going to make an altered book out of it with a LOVE theme. I'm going to put in it love quotes. There are a bunch of good ones from the book, "and they were not ashamed" It's going to be a, "I'm sort of obsessed with my husband" type book. TMI? find another blog.

Planner Peeks

OOOOKKKKK

So I did a little searching and stumbled across Keri Smith again. I found, "wreck this journal" in Barnes and Noble about 2 years ago and thought, "I HAVE to have this book". Did I ever get it? Nope, but my mind blunders upon the memory of it from time to time. Today I found her website and her blog and found that she had several more books. If I could make my journals like hers, I would love myself. (Not EXACTLY like hers, It would have my own flair- but I LOVE her style).

Here are her websites-
http://www.kerismith.com/
http://www.kerismith.com/blog/index.html

She has written a planner that I MUST see. I might just have to take a trip to the book store.

Never Ending Se-arch!

Alright- refering back to the last post- my book.

I made it to be my planner for the first six months of 2010. Hold on- I'm getting ahead of myself.

I have been on what I call, "The Endless Search For the Perfect Planner" since about 2006. I used to try all the different types of formats of planners that you can buy.
Buuuut
Franklin Covey was too constrictive, and didn't have enough empty space. (as in-NONE)
Barnes and Noble planners weren't bad, but again- no empty space.
Walmart planners had the same problem.

So last year, I, at long last decided that the only way to have my own planner is to MAKE my own planner. Little did I know that I would still have to test out a seemingly endless amount of formats.

My planner from the last 6 months of 2009 worked out pretty well but didn't quite work. I'll have to put in a pix of it later. I don't have it now. The first section I did was just a calender. and then there were about 6 other sections entitled things like, "Ooooh, Baby", "Shopping, Shopping", "It's all about ME", "Gifts: the Forbidden Section"... I don't remember the other two.

The bad part was that some of the sections were filled within 2 weeks, and others never filled up. Well, that drove me nuts. So I decided that this planner was going to have the first section be the calender, and the rest would just be blank for my journal. Actually, for EVERY journal- my daily journal, my scripture study journal, my sketching book, random notes, etc. Then I was going to make a table of contents at the beginning and color code each type of journal. That way I wouldn't have to precount and preguess how many pages each one would take. Sweet. I thought I had it solved.

I made my new planner out of 28 lb. paper, and by the time the calender section was done, I was like, " Oh crap! The book is going to be too fat to fit into my purse!" So I thought, "ok, no problem, I'll just make two books. One with a planner and one that is blank."

(Oh, I failed to mention before that the reason why I am combining all my journals into one and with my calender is because it's driving me crazy that my life history has to be referred to by reading 3 or 4 or 5 books!)

So I used the Calender for about 5 days to see how I liked it before making another book and I came to this conclusion-

I HATE it.

-Not enough blank space (That is ALWAYS the problem)
-Because I made it I can't just toss it about and abuse it. You can already see by the pictures that it's starting to wear.

So I did a google search on
"Best Planner ever" and found The Planner Pad.

I thought I could replicate it in a simple notebook. I haven't tried it yet. I still need the perfect notebook for the job. AND notebooks are lined. Which won't work. I enjoy too much the freedom of clean paper.

Ok, I think My ranting and raving are all done for now. For those of you who were bored enough to read this whole thing, I will update you shortly.

Until Then, the planner saga persists.

productive peeks

I made a book!

I've been wanting to do this for.....let's see- YEARS. Not sure how long exactly. But anyway, I did some research on the internet and learned from a good video how to do the coptic book binding stitch

Ok- here's the video link. It was BY FAR the easiest tutorial I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHAJyzzb4EE

Aaaaand here's the book-

Here's the front


And the back-


the details-




the inside back cover (which is the same as the front, but it had stuff taped to it)-


OH MY HECK it posted sideways. How annoying.

Now for the embarrassing part. sigh.

So I thought that hemp would match the book the best for the binding thread. BAD IDEA. Hemp could have been cool but the make of it was much too inconsistent (you'll see when you look at the up-close of the binding). Some parts of it are fat and some are skinny. It was also kind of harsh to the paper and caused it to rip easier as I was sewing.

Other mistake- I forgot to test the grain of the chip board (which was too thin in the first place) that I used for the cover so THAT was a pain.

Oh yea, and if you look at the second detail picture, you'll see newspaper print. When I was mod podging the paper onto the chip board (I did it over newspaper to protect the table) I left it on the newspaper while it was still wet and there you have it. Newspaper remains. grrr.

So here's proof of my learning curve-





Next post- a "kind-of" part two about the book. not about the making of the book, but it's purpose.

Picnik Peeks

Hey, here are some of my picnik playings:

Sleep?

Today I put Teague down for his nap and went in a few minutes later to check and see if he was asleep, like I always do. He was WIDE awake. So I went in about 20 minutes later and...he was still awake. So I left and got involved with whatever the heck I was doing and forgot to check him again. About an hour later, I went in, expecting to find a sleeping baby and this is what I found:



So I went in to talk to him and my word he was in a chatty mood! SO I tickled him and played peek-a-boo. He's got the most precious little giggle. I layed down by him and stared at his beautiful little eyes and looked at his perfect little lips and realized that I'm not over the miracle of who he is and that my body gave him what he needed to form his body- his lips, his nose, his fingers, his blood... It's so incredible.
And so humbling.

Daddy and Teague

Teague is six months old today!

We started him on cereal about a week and half ago (much to my sleeping pleasures- YAY for 8 hours in a row!) This is going to be slightly out of order- SORRY- because I'm going to put pictures on later of his first time trying cereal. However, I just couldn't wait getting this picture on here because it's so dang cute.

Here I am again!

Alright- the purpose of this entry is to let you all know that I'm going to catch up- so to speak. The next few posts are to inform the world of what we've been doing lately.
So here goes: