Hello Daisies! Can you believe it’s 2021? Sometimes it really seemed like 2020 would never end. I know it was a rough year for many of us – I’m praying this New Year brings a lot of good and happy changes for us all!
In my last post, I shared with you all the many (many, many) planners I used throughout 2020. Switching planners is a lot of fun, especially with Cocoa Daisy! There are so many kits offered that work with so many planners, but the magic of Cocoa Daisy is that even if you switch mid-month (meaning mid-kit), it’ll still work with your new planner. It’s so flexible!
This year, I plan to be your resident “Simplified Daisy Team Member” You all have seen the absolutely amazing creations the other Design Team members come up with each and every month. If you’re like me, you’re awed by their creativity. And I’ve talked about them in basically every blog and video I’ve done since becoming a DT member – because I am not creative. I have moments of creativity, but for the most part, I am a functional planner who loves the beauty and color that Cocoa Daisy adds to my planner. But now, I’ll be taking it even a step farther.
If you saw in my last post, the last few months I’ve been using a Wonderland 222 planner. It is a bound book – which means no dividers, no dashboards, no pretty papers punched in for decoration. At first I wondered what I was going to do and how I could use Cocoa Daisy with that -and then I realized what a ridiculous question that was. Didn’t I just say Cocoa Daisy works with every planner?! Yes, I did! So I’m going to show you how I’ve used Cocoa Daisy in my planner so far, and how I plan to use it in the future.
Since I’m using a bound planner, I now subscribe to the “No Insert” kit. This means that I get all of the goodies that come in one of the planner subs (stickers, die cuts, pen, clips, etc) – just not the insert itself. I also get the Add-On, Planner Classified, and several of the sticker subs. This gives me more than enough material to make my planner colorful and gorgeous. Here is a picture of my monthly setup:
In this picture, you can see that I’m using stickers from several kits. (I also included my Erin Condren in this picture so you can see how flexible Cocoa Daisy is!). In this picture, I am using stickers from the No Insert kit, the Planner Add-On kit, the new Daisy Add-On kit, and the Calendar Daisy Weeks kit. I’m also using washi. All of these together created a beautiful, colorful, and functional layout.
The weekly view of my planner gives me a ton of space to lay out my schedule, appointments, to-dos and more. Due to the holidays and COVID, my schedule has been a bit lighter than normal, and I’m looking forward to trying out many different ways of setting this weekly view up when the days are busier:
In this layout, I used stickers from the Daisy weeks sticker kit, the Planner Add-On kit, and the Bible Journaling sticker kit, as well as the gorgeous floral washi. Oh! That’s another thing I did: I Washi’d the edges of the month in my favorite Washi from the current month’s kit. I’ve seen other Daisies do it and I think it’s brilliant. It makes it so easy to quickly flip to the current month, and I love seeing my favorite Washi peeking out of the edge of my planner. It will be awesome to look back at the end of the year and see a year’s worth of Washi!
So, those are my monthly and weekly layouts. But what am I doing with the papers and other things that come in the kit? Keep reading to find out!
One of the fun things about planning is switching up the covers of the planner – even if the planner doesn’t change. I have a couple covers that are super simple, and I have other covers that just cry out for decoration and color. This month, I’m using a black Moterm cover – the gorgeous, vibrant colors of this New Chapter kit just pop against the black, and I couldn’t resist using the colorful papers to decorate the front part of my planner. I’ve talked before about not being a pocket decorator – I’m still not. I don’t stuff my pockets with clips and deco and other things – I’m usually a sticky note, functional sticker, Washi card person. But this moterm had so many pockets, and with simplifying my planner comes simplifying what I carry in my planner – so these pockets were a bit bare. So I used a decorative Fiskars punch and punched the edges of some of the papers and put them in the front pockets. I also cut paper and slid it into the front of the clear cover I have over my planner, so it would match! This is such a fun way to still be able to decorate my planner and include some of the decorative elements that I used to use for dividers and dashboards.
I also tucked paper (and my Simon card of course) into the back of the clear jelly cover on the inside.And if you look closely, over there on the right side is a journal card that has been present in my planner every month since last January. I have moved it from planner to planner, until I got this one. I finally laminated the card because it was starting to get beat up!
I want to show you a few other things I use the kits for. This planner has a habit tracker for each month. I’m trying to get better about tracking things, but right now I’m truly terrible at going to the page and checking something off every day haha. But it’s still fun to use the kits and add a pop of color to the page every month.
There is a monthly overview page before the monthly page view. I use it to tape in the Challenge prompts, which day my blog is due, as well as a quote I’m loving that month and some fun deco. This has been super handy because I would previously stick the challenge prompts in random places within my planner and I’d forever be searching for it to see what to post – this has kept it in one place and I love it.
The back of the planner has about 80 notes/daily pages. I have a couple permanent notes I need to keep with me on the first few pages (medicine lists for all the kids, emergency contact info, etc) but then I’m just going to use the rest of the pages however I want to. I’m not a huge daily planner person, so this will be filled with a bunch of random bits and bobs. I decided to do some of the Journal in January prompts, so I created a cover page for that, and did the first prompt.
I’m planning on doing some of the prompts throughout the month, and then I’ll do more if we do more throughout the year, as well as using these notes pages for whatever else is needed. I love the thought that at the end of this year, there will be an entire book filled with me, my thoughts and activities – my life!
The last thing I want to show you is something else I’m super excited about. I took one of the notes pages in the front and turned it into a Book Challenge list. For this, I pulled leftover stickers from one of my favorite kits of all time: Book Club. Reading is such a vital part of my life. I read about 200 books a year, but I’ve never done a reading challenge before, because I never wanted to feel pinned in on having to read a certain book or genre. This is an Alphabet Challenge, so I just have to find a book that starts with that letter – any genre, any author, anything. So I created this page to track my books. I’m not sure what I’ll do once I get through these 26 books – I guess we will see when I get there! But I love being able to use past kits to include in my planner and make it a part of my story.
That is a wrap for how I have things set up so far. I’m looking forward to getting more kits and seeing what else I can use to plan. Not having the type of planner where it’s easy to add a bunch of things means that I have to be more thoughtful and intentional on what I want included in my planner – and the way I want to include it. I’m so looking forward to going on this journey this year with Cocoa Daisy! Don’t forget to follow along with me on Instagram and Youtube! I’m going to share pictures on there of my simplified setup and how Cocoa Daisy is helping me achieve simplicity and beauty and function in my planning! I can’t wait to connect with you all over there!
Talk to you all soon!
xoxo,
Jenn
Tags: Monthly Kits, daisy day planner kit, planning, Cocoa Daisy, planner kit, Cocoa Daisy kits, #cocoadaisykits, YouTube, Daisy Day Planner, Planner, Cocoa Daisy Day Planner, Planner Setup
