I <3 planners

Hi, my name is Sheila and I’m an planner addict. First step to recovery is admitting I have a problem right? My last post about updating my two girls “life calendars” has lead my into the colorful world of planners out there. When I started looking for inspiration on how I wanted my calendar layout to look like I never expected to find such a creative and fun way to use planners/organizer/Filofaxes. The expression ‘planner porn’ is very descriptive.

A “life calendar” fits my need for writing down “history” and being creative at the same time. Since starting to update my two “life calendars” from this…

the word “stale” comes to mind…

I have found a whole world of ideas of stuff I want to put in my “life calendars”. Lots of fun DIY projects and ways to add color. I have since my previous post ordered a bunch of diary stickers and washi tape. I look forward to getting them and adding more color to my “life calendars”.

I should be concentrating on getting my Christmas shopping done…but I’m having too much fun playing around with these “life calendars” of mine…

so much more fun and colorful

Got the idea for a name divider on Pintrest, here. Made mine in Microsoft Project. Print, cut and laminated. Voila! a cool, colorful and unique divider.

The blue folder you see in the background is a DIY folder, to hold my growing amount of stickers.I got the idea to make one here (also from Pintrest). Mine is made of a blue plastic folder as that was what I had at hand when I wanted to make this. An added bonus, it’s VERY sturdy. As I made mine to open from both sides (like in the linked DIY video) it’s good to know it won’t come apart anytime soon.

Time to call it a night….

- do you have a colorful way to pimp your “life calendar”/planner?
- I love Pintrest, do you? why?

Better late than never

I've finally taken the time to take pictures and write a few words about my knitted sleeve for BabyLs strollerbag. The one I wrote I was gonna make here and here
Sorry for the late post. This knitted sleeve has been finished for months and used frequently now that the days have become cold, wet and windy. How I envy BabyL when she's sleeping nicely snuggled up in the stroller with me pushing her up the "mountain" we call home. Don't get me wrong...love our little outings no matter the weather (atleast most of the time). It just looks so warm and cozy in the stroller...compared to the outside...

There is no pattern for this sleeve. Just out of my head after a lot of inspiration on Pintrest and Google. Contact me/leave a comment if you want my notes on how I made this sleeve…I feel I can’t call it a stroller bag as this is made to fit outside an old stroller bag I had.
It’s knitted using Drops Alaska in brown (color code 23) I bought during the last Drops yarn sale. Alaska is a 100% wool yarn, but feels nice and soft.  Did you know that Drops is having a sale lasting until December 31^st 2014? On all their alpaca yarn, more info here.
As Christmas is right around the corner I’m off. Have planned a few knitted Christmas gifts and if I’m to finish them in time I need to put in as much knitting time as I can….
- have you knitted anything for your stroller?

A trip to the library

A while back my good friend Lexipo told me about the option of lending knitting books at the library. So with this new information at hand I did a little research and found that the Deichman library has a ton! of books on knitting.
There has been a few books I’ve been drooling over, and these where available at the library!
When my friend Cl8 told me she was pregnant with a girl I knew a few patterns I wanted to knit for her little girl. BabyL has more than enough clothes, both inherited from her sister and gifts from family and friends. So I felt knitting clothes for her first months just would disappear in the mountain of clothes. But will be knitting more for her as she grows bigger.
Well my latest two knitting projects are gifts for Cl8 baby girl.
Note: this post was written and put up for a scheduled publish – so Cl8 didn’t see her gifts before she got them, so sorry if the past/present-timing is a little off  
My two gifts are both knitted bodies. One is from the knitting book Myk Start: strikk til babyen (author: May B. Langhelle) and is called Fuglemammas omslagsbody. I love these wrap bodies – and have a ton of these. Great for small babies – when you feel the baby is so small and fragile a warp around body makes dressing those small little bodies so much easier.

a book available at my local library (picture borrowed from Gyldendal)

en fuglemamma

This body is knitted with a yarn I found on Ebay (shocker!) It is a bamboo and cotton blend and SOOO soft. At times the yarn was so soft I had a hard time holding the yarn while knitting. It just melted in my hands…The yarn is in the color 941 – with white as the main color with pink dashes of color. Here is a listing for the same yarn. I used about 2 skeins for this body. I used both heart shaped wood buttons and snap buttons for this body.
The second body is from the newest collection by Drops for babies. Found in the catalog Drops Baby 25. The body is called First impression. The pattern is free at the Garnstudio/Drops website, link to the body here. I made a few personal touches to this body. I used snap buttons instead of the pearl of mother pearls in the pattern. I love the bodies by Lilleba. Especially how their bodies are made to fit two sizes, due to an extra row of buttons. So I thought I would try this on this body. I dropped the knitted edge – mostly because I didn’t like the edge..Lastly I knitted with very broad stripes instead of the thin stripes the pattern suggests.

first impression by Drops (picture borrowed from Drops)

first impression

This body is knitted in Viking Babyull yarn, in the colors 307 – light brown – and 302 – offwhite. Didn’t keep count, but think I used about 1 skein of each color. On this body I also used snap buttons, in baby pink. Bought from this Ebayer.
- have you knitted these bodies?
- do you visit and borrow books at your local library?

Losing Buster

Last week SweetieS lost her beloved plush toy Buster. She had brought it to kindergarten in the morning and he was lost when we picked her up in the afternoon. The employees have search high and low the last week – still no trace.

If he was lost inside the kindergarten shouldn’t he have been found when we posted Missing flyers all around the different activity rooms?

My biggest worry is that she left it outside and during the weekend someone “found” him a new home. So tomorrow I’m posting up Missing flyers at the kindergartens exits. Here’s hoping…

- Is all hope of getting him back lost???
- have you ever lost something important? did you find it?

Now starts the job of finding a substitute…so far Jellycat Bashful Lion has not been good enough, neither has Toys’r’Us mascot Geoffrey…

Let me know if you have seen a similar toy sold anywhere

Update November 3^rd: Buster has found his way home! Call off the search party! After hiding out in a backpack under some pillows in one of the playrooms in SweetieS kindergarten, he got tired of not playing with SweetieS and turned up.

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.