Friday Five! {and a freebie!}

We are linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk.

1. Rolling out our custom planner. This has been a real labor of love for Shannon and we are so proud to offer it to you!



2. Chemo treatment #6 for Niki! We are halfway there!

This is from my first chemo treatment. Can you see the terror on my face?

3. Niki's baby is officially potty trained! Way to go!

4. Shannon is almost done with her coaching classes. We are so proud of the extra work she is putting in on top of a full time job and a part time job.

5. Participating in our first linky with Jen at Iheartorganzing! Here we are-- Number 197!

Hop on over and check out her fabulous blog and link party!

Is anyone else starting their spring cleaning??

We are trying to!

I created a simple cleaning template to help keep us on track.

We are sharing this basic template with you, for FREE!

Custom cleaning templates will also be available in our etsy shop.

{download your copy here}

We'd love for you to leave a comment if you download. {enjoy}

Have a great weekend!

THE NEW LIFE PLANNER

The 2012-2013 Life Planners are {almost} ready!! 

Here are a few examples of the covers we have:

The front covers will be printed on cardstock and laminated for durability. 

We plan to add a pocket inside the front and back cover.

In the front of the planner we will have a two year at a glance calendar.

Followed by a place to list all of your special dates {birthday, anniversaries, etc}

Each month, has a full calendar with a notes page.

Each month has a different color scheme. 

In this planner I combined my goals and to do lists into my weekly calendar. This leaves me with only one place to look. much more efficient.  Each day is divided into morning, day, and night. 

Prices of our new planner have yet to be determined, but we will be offering one for free to one lucky reader soon! 

Check back soon for the giveaway!

a teacher's plan book

You already know that we have a dissatisfaction with store bought planners, but we are also dissatisfied with store bought teacher's planners!
I made my own planning template during my student teaching, which worked pretty well. But while I was student teaching a got a few tips from my cooperating teacher and a few others, which helped me to come up with this!

Creative Life Design's: ATeacher's Plan Book

We have come up with the following pages so far, but we are open to suggestions from our readers, especially teachers before we make the final changes.

Check out what we have so far:

 Year at a glance pages- for your long range planning

Happy Birthday pages- for tracking student and faculty birthdays.

Especially important for elementary teachers

Student Checklist pages- for everything from grades to permission slips.

There will be several of these pages included.

Monthly planning pages- A calendar side and a notes side.

We have not decided if we will place all of the month pages at the beginning or spaced out within the weekly planning pages. We would love your feedback on this!

The monthly pages will go from July to June of the next year.

Secondary Planning pages- Our secondary, or upper elementary planning pages are designed for different class periods throughout the day, with a space for notes at the bottom. Each day is a different color, so you can easily see what is on the schedule for today.

We can customize the headings to fit your class schedule, if you like.

Elementary Planning Pages- Our elementary planning pages will be customized for each teacher's schedule.  These pages leave enough room for an outline but not a complete lesson plan. We are considering including complete lesson plan pages- suggestions?

There will be notes pages throughout the plan book, with extra's in the back.

We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions before we make our final decisions! If you are a teacher, or know one, leave us a blog comment or send us an email! We are very excited to launch our teacher plan books! Niki will be coming out with some cover ideas soon, so check back with us!

shannon.creativelifedesigns@gmail.com

niki.creativelifedesigns@gmail.com

my life planner

My sister and I have both struggled for years with finding a store bought planner that we love and that really works for us. We may even be guilty of switching planners mid year out of frustration. But finding that perfect planner that really works for you is a must! Especially when, last year we had  lives  that involves two jobs, full time college classes, and student teaching or three kids (all under 7), full time college classes, and a house in the remodel process.  This year I've just got two jobs, one full time and one part time, online coaching classes, junior class sponsor (prom coordinator), and coaching middle school softball. So I decided I was going to make my own planner, I was fed up with lame store bought ones.
I came up with this:

My 2012 life planner. 

I put it in one of those durable binders from staples. I think it was around $6.00.

I made the cover in word, with one of my favorite fonts, smiley monster.

This is what it looks like when you open it up:

On the left is a clear pocket that holds my "perpetual to-do list", courtesy of the nest effect.

And a clear pocket, also from staples. There are usually unpaid bills here when I receive them. They are filed as soon as they are paid.

I decided on my categories {time management, goals, meal planning, and notes}

First is time management.

 The first page of each month is an appointment calendar, followed by a birthday calendar

I got these off a blog last year, but I have no idea where now, sorry.

 Next is a monthly calendar. There's not much that gets written on here, I mostly use it for reference.

Next are the weekly pages:

By the end of the week, these pages are filled with scribbles, lists and checkmarks.

  The next section is goals:

I have not used this section as much as I thought I would. I've found it too hard to keep things in different places. I think I will exclude this section from my next planner.

 Next is meal planning:

 This section gets used quite a bit, but not as much as it should.

On the back side of my meal plan is a grocery list for the week. If I have things planned, which does not always happen, then I can get the extra things I need for meals for the week. 

The last section of my planner is notes:

These pages are just blank for scratching down whatever I need to.

In the back is another folder, just for extra odds and ends.

But, alas, this planner has not been as wonderful as I expected it to be. [very sad face]

So I have pulled inspiration from all of the internet and am creating another! Hopefully new and improved! It will be available in our etsy shop as soon as it is finished!

I am feverishly trying to finish up the layout and Niki is hard at work on some beautiful covers.

Stay tuned for a sneak peak at our NEW AND IMPROVED LIFE PLANNER!

fifteen minutes of {organization}

Are you joining the spring cleaning bandwagon??
We are! Next on the list is my closet!
Check out this terrible before picture {I'm actually embarrassed to show it}

This disaster comes from just tossing things in the door and slamming it shut…mainly shoes on the floor, but still a disaster!

But the "after" is much improved. I added a few tubs from the dollar store. I added labels to them after this post but didn't take another picture.

Everything has a home now. In my bins are workout clothes (brown bin), pajamas, tank tops, and undergarments (even though my label says lingerie, because that sounds fancier!)

The boyfriend's jeans have a stack, my sweats and a few of his shorts, and more of his sweats.

Underneath are my high heels, displayed like they should be!

The rest of my shoes are divided into 3 tubs, flats, tennis shoes, and sandals and flip flops.

So far it is working great!

UPDATE: Since my closet clean out, I have also started using days of the week labels to plan my outfits on Sunday nights. This has really helped the digging through my closet, half-dressed, for 20 minutes and ending up with a pile of clothes that I considered and then decided against, only to have to put them away again later. So they have turned out to be a super time saver, in the morning and when I put laundry away.

They are super simple! Check them out in our etsy shop! I just printed them, cut them out, laminated, and cut them out again. Easy peasy!!