One day after the other

Haven’t forgotten about this blog, just had my hands full and haven’t prioritized blogging.

I just finished updating SweetieS and BabyLs calendar books. Ever since SweetieS was born I have written down stuff that has happened. Be it from her first steps, tasting new foods to who visited her with gifts. Stuff like that. While being pregnant with SweetieS I had just printed a bunch of calendar pages with space to write down notes. The pages worked fine but sometimes I felt they were too generic, boring and in need of some color. I tried adding color using different pens…but still not happy with the lack of personal touch.

full of colorful text…but boring

After seeing the life planners of Kristina Werner and Erin Condren I’ve been wanting to have one similar. I tried looking at a customized planner on the website, I just couldn’t find one just like I wanted. Being an IT person and knowing the inner workings of Microsoft Word - I figured it couldn’t be that hard to make my own, so I sat down and started creating my own planner pages.

I looked for hours at others planners to see what I needed on my pages. There is a lot of inspiration to get from Pintrest. Here is Erin Condrens Life Planner Wall of fame.

I created both girls pages as two page calendar spreads with a lot of space for taking notes. Both have the similar layout as I found it works for me. I made the calendar with undated monthly spreads and found out I needed to add the name of the month and year. For easy look up of current month I laminated a small yearly calendar as an oversized book marker. As both my girls are born in May, both their books start with the month of May – I just printed May to May instead of January to January.

A5 binders with SweetieS and BabyLs calendar book

I’ve been using Pilot Frixion pens because of the erasability and colors. But after reading about the pens fading over time I think I have to go over my pages with an permanent pen. I’m hoping to save these books for my girls when they are all grown up.

Another thing I’ve discovered for my binders are small post-its. Super cute and available in a gazillion designs. Adds a pop of color and easily highlights things/events. I bought mine on Ebay (duh) from this seller: Ginger Jujusmile

In between the calendar pages of SweetieS binder I’ve saved the information that SweetieS kindergarten emails us. This way it’s all stored in one place.

An afterthought, I wish I had made this calendar book while I was pregnant. That way I could have written down all the happenings during my pregnancy. But for my girls those notes are written in their Svangerskapsboken – I posted about that one here.

- do you write down the happenings of your children?
- what does your life planner look like?

If you would like a copy (pdfs) of the calendar pages I’ll be happy to share them.
- Made them to fit A4 or A5 binders.
- The week starts with Mondays
- The months are undated
- It’s in Norwegian. (If you want it in another language. Please send me the name of the months and weekdays)
Just drop me an email.

It’s free…

Don’t know how many of my readers watch(ed) the Matt Groening series Futurama. but just have to share this little youtube clip when talking about free stuff

It’s free…

Being pregnant I have gotten a few tips from friends and family about the free stuff I should sign up for to the baby. So I thought I would share them here (sorry, but I think these are only available in Norway):

• Svangerskapsboken (I’ve mentioned this ‘journaling’ pregnancy book in an earlier post)
• Rimi barnepakke 
• Vitus apotek babypakke Babybaby
• Apotek1 babypakke Babybox
• Babyshop Sangenic nappy disposal system (you have to register in a Babyshop store as website is no longer available)
• Barnas hus Angel Care nappy disposal system
• Libero startboks (you need to register for the their club, but in return you get a starter package, @6months  you get an Up&Go starter package and @12months a birthday package)
• BAM trial package
• Goboken welcome package

Well I think that is it…I’ll do an update post as I receive my packages.

A dash of creativity

A few posts back I recommended Svangerskapboken to all pregnant women who wanted to a book to save all pregnancy-related stuff in one place.
(You can read the earlier post here)
After the book started to become filled with “information” I realized that it was hard to find chapters (months) in the book if I didn’t know the exact week of the pregnancy it was in. (the book it sorted into the different weeks thru out the pregnancy) After seeing a few pregnancy journals/albums posted on TwoPeas I wanted to make one. But soon I realized that it’s too big of a project to start for me now. I’m already way backlogged on my general scrapbooking. So I got the idea that I would combine Svangerskapsboken with the pregnancy journal concept.

I cut out pages fitting into the binding of the book, one for each month of the pregnancy. I tried to put in journaling that wasn’t already in the preset journaling pages, combining it with a little scrapping. Just don’t add to much bulk (dimension) to the pages, or you’ll have problems closing the book

The result…

For those of you who feel that a whole scrapbook album about your pregnancy it a little much, I can recommend doing this. Adds a dash of creativity…

A walk down memory lane

Finally got my copy of Svangerskapsboken on my last check up at my midwife. Being this is my first time pregnant I got this book recommended from my sister-in-law (though she did recommended just about a library of books – this was just one of them). Svangerskapsboken is in Norwegian (so sorry to my non-Norwegian followers). In addition to giving information about what happens during a pregnancy week by week, it also has pages for filling in information acquired during check-ups/follow-ups and journaling pages.
So far I’ve written “everything” in a plain journal. By using this book I’ve noticed it’s way easier to track my pregnancy thru the weeks, connecting my notes to the information pages.
Today I started writing everything from my plain journal into Svangerskapsboken. And I realized that a lot has happened/changed with my body during these 29 weeks of my pregnancy so far. And according to all my friends who have been pregnant, more is yet to come…
Ole was nice enough to provide me with a little music while I wrote in the book. Using Wimp he shares music playlists with me. So I get to listen to music I haven’t heard in ages.
Remember this one?

RollerGirl–Dear Jessie

For those of you how want to get your own copy of Svangerskapsboken, it can be ordered here: http://www.goboken.no/Butikk/Produkter/Id/GBN80026783/ The publisher is out at the moment, but should get it in stock any day now (according to their customer support) PS: the publisher only ships to addresses in Norway.