Erin Condren Life Planner 2014-2015

At long last my wait is over! 22 days after submitting my Erin Condren Life Planner order it has finally arrived! I did pay the extra $2 shipping to get it here a little faster and I must say it was worth the wait and extra money. I did use a $10 off coupon code which basically covered my shipping charges. If your interested in purchasing a planner or anything else from the site you can also receive $10 off by signing up with this link.

As soon as I opened the tissue and bubble wrap, I was greeted with a $10 off and a $15 off coupons, a Reach for the Stars sticker and my elastic bands I added to my order.

I chose the classic style life planner with the 18 month option which will run you $50 plus $5 for the extra months. This is the Fleur Feliz cover in Splash. There are tons of different covers to choose from and all of them are interchangeable and can be completely personalized. I decided to wait on buying extra covers until I could see how I would like it considering this is my first Erin Condren.

This is the inside of the front over which has space to put your personal info in case you ever leave you planner some where. Both the front and back covers are heavily laminated and seem to be very durable.

This is the first page you'll see when you open the cover.

Next is a two page quote that I love.

Then is the 2014-2015 months at a glance. Mine goes from July '14 through December '15.

Another quote on some really cute paper.

Now we are on to the good stuff. This is the monthly view. I love the fact that it is a two page spread and has a notes section on the side. Every month is color coordinated and has a life quote at the top of the page. I anticipate this is where most of my planning will take place.

I absolutely love the weekly pages in this planner. You have your entire month at the top left and goals & notes under that but the best part is how the days are laid out. They are broken down into Morning, Day and Night and also extra lines at the bottom for additional notes for that day. I'm actually thinking of purchasing another life planner to use strictly for diet and exercise. The page layout would be perfect for meal planning.

Every life planner come with a clear removable ruler to mark the current week. From my understanding, the ruler used to be laminated and would block your view of the days. This one is made of thick plastic and is extremely durable.

After all monthly and weekly planning pages, there is a notes section. You get 20 lined pages and.......

10 decorative unlined pages. All of the unlined pages have different designs at the top, this was just one of my favorites.

Next, she has included a year at a glance for 2016 and 2017.

Then comes the free stickers. These sell for $5 for a sheet of 60 if they are printed from her website but they are customizable and repositionable. I already ordered a few extra sheets for myself. Included you get 60 Birthday stickers.

You get 6 Game, 6 Day Off, 7 Hair Appt., 2 Dentist Appt., 3 Sale, 6 Doc Appt., 6 Concert, 6 Mani/Pedi, 6 Party, and 12 Vacation stickers.

You also get 120 blank repositionable stickers to write in whatever you need.

Toward the back of the planner is a removable Perpetual Calendar & Contacts booklet and a double-sided Keep it Together folder. They have made the perpetual calendar & contacts removable this year so it's easy to move it from planner to planner year after year instead of having to write birthdays and anniversaries over and over. Nice touch.

And at the very back is a clear zipper pocket to store your pens, stickers, post-its or whatever you may want to put in there. But inside the pouch was yet another surprise. She has also included 2 Lets Get Together cards with 2 spiral paperclips and.......

12 beautiful gift labels. I'm only showing 6 of the 12 because the other 6 are personalized with your name and match you planner cover. Privacy and all that.

Overall, I'm extremely excited to start using my planner. It's exactly what I've been looking for. It is a bit heavy for some but I like a good substantial planner. There's plenty room for planning your day to day, making lists and notes or whatever you hearts desire. I love the heavy duty lamination on the covers, the clear bookmark and the attached pouch so I can keep everything in one place. Shipping is slow. I wish it was faster but thinking about it, it is a custom made planner just for you and I would assume takes a fair amount of time to make and put together. As I mentioned above, I did pay an extra $2 for shipping. Regular shipping is through the postal service, costs $7.95 and will take 8-12 business days to get to you after you planner is complete. So, for $9.95 mine was delivered through FedEx in 3-5 business day. Totally worth the extra $2.

I plan on posting an update in the near future with how I use my life planner and hopefully some tips and tricks. And in case you missed it before, HERE is the link for you to save $10 on your first Erin Condren order.

Free Blog Planner Printables

Over the past six months or so I've decided to start blogging but I wanted some way to keep my ideas and blog info organized. Being a planner addict I figured what better way than a blog planner. I searched the web and local stores for some sort of planner I could convert to a blog planner but couldn't find anything that would suit my needs. Then I looked into planner printables and found a ton. I saved some of my favorites and when I went back to decide on one, I still couldn't find one that had everything I wanted in it. I wanted something colorful, so I would be drawn to use it, a monthly calendar, weekly plan pages, note pages and trackers. This is what I came up with.

I ended up with three different planners that had all the properties I wanted, so I took bits and pieces from each one and created what I wanted out of a blog planner.

I definitely wanted a year at a glance. So I printed one on the back of the cover on cardstock.

Next came an undated monthly calendar. I wanted undated so I could use it year after year without having to find a new printable since I really love the design of this one. Another great attribute to this one is the focus for the month at the bottom.

Then came the weekly plan pages from a completely different set of printables. I especially like this one because it's undated, there's room for three post ideas a week, a to do list, weekly stats and room for future ideas. This works for me because this is pretty much my weekly plan schedule anyway.

This is one of my favorite pages also. Here again I have a notes section with a contact check list. There is room for my three weekly posts and info on each with check boxes to make sure the images and links are done and also doubles for giveaways.

The next page is for my extra info. Here, I can track my weekly or monthly stats, websites & inspirations, tweets, pinterest and again....more note space.

This page is strictly dedicated to notes. Yes, I like plenty of room to jot down ideas and scribble them out if I like. This is were I can do that and then put my final ideas on the previous pages. I created five sets of these pages, printed double sided, for each month. I know each month doesn't have five weeks but I don't like my months to run over to the next week.

In the back of my planner I printed one double sided Income/Expense page. We all know it's going to cost something to keep a blog running especially if you have giveaways and possibly can make some money from it one day.

After the Income page, I printed another double sided giveaways page. With six spaces on one side that gives me enough room to track one giveaway a month for the whole year, which is what I'm planning. Each section lets me track what I'm giving away, start and stop dates, the cost, the winner and so forth.

The Website Analytics page allows me to have an overview of all my stats at the end of the year.

And lastly, is the Website & Blog password tracker. I don't know about everyone else but I can't remember my login and passwords for every site I go to, so I thought this would be handy to have at the very end. I gathered all these pages and put them in the order I wanted them and had them bound at Office Max with a clear frosted front cover and black vinyl back for around $5.00. I like the spiral binding they do because it lays flat when it's open and I can fold it back on itself and use one page at a time.

Now, as I wish I could take credit for fully designing this planner, I can't, I'm not that talented. As I found all the printables I was choosing from these three were my favorites and came from different blogs from ladies who were gracious enough to have free downloads. The majority of my planner came from Jolenthe at Home School Creations and can be downloaded here. My weekly plan pages came from Beckie at Infarrantly Creative and can be downloaded here. The extra info, giveaways, and brainstorming pages came from Confessions of a Homeschooler and can be downloaded here. These are extremely talented women and have wonderful blogs that are definitely worth checking out. Each planner is great all on it's own but just works better for me all put together.