Having a planner that is both functional and beautiful is all the rage right now, and for good reason! We’re upping the game with a planner party and giving you the lowdown on how and why you have to get in on this!

In the craziness of adulthood, it’s hard to get together with our friends. We’re so often running in 20 different directions and wrapped up in our own lives, yet we all love and miss those times that we can sit with our friends, talk and laugh like the old days.

I’ve found the solution:

Planner Party

Here’s how to do it, why you have to and some great new planner supplies!

How much time do you spend decorating and playing with your planner? How much money do you put into buying the cute stickers, colorful pens, and washi tape to make it just what you like? Personally, I spend a few hours a month at the least making my planner all pretty, drawing in it and adding stickers or other details. That’s not including the actual plans that I put into it. Those, I consider work and are therefore excluded.

I’m also not going to answer the money part, because from time to time my awesome and most wonderful husband reads my posts. I really, really don’t want to deal with that bombshell. Husband, if you are reading this, it’s all about the post. I spend nothing. I do not promise but seriously nothing…

Moving On…

After putting some thought into it, it occured to me that my friends do the same thing. We all have our own tastes, find our own deals and things we love. The collection can get a little crazy. The worst part is, we get new things and don’t often use up the old ones all the way. Oh and time, yeah that’s never on our side.

The photograph is a picture of my BFF and I. Like literally my BFF, since we were kids which was quite a while back when that little abbreviation was THE thing. This photo was taken at one of the 3 things we actually do together every year. Notice the scrubs? Yeah, she’d just gotten off work when we took off. That girl is busy. Husband, 3 kids and (currently) two jobs. We take whatever time we can get.

My genius idea:

I decided it would be more profitable for our pretty planners if we got together with all of our supplies and shared. Then, we have more pretty to choose from and we may actually use up that washi tape or whatever. After talking to my bestie, she agreed and the plan came together. We only have a few hours a week without kids or grand-kids or work or other obligations, so this month we met at a local restaurant with all our supplies. They did the cooking and the cleanup, all we had to do was pay for the meal!

In the future, we plan on having our Planner Party at different locations or even at our houses. So, in the spirit of getting that plan together I’ve decided the Planner Party can be planned right here so that we all have a valuable resource.

I’d love your input as we can make them absolutely epic!

Why you have to have a planner party:

1. It’s time we are already going to spend at least once a month and therefore perfect for catching up with friends!
2. Tagging off reason number one: we aren’t taking away from any other responsibility, we’re just moving the location of the activity. No reason for grown up guilt (we’re not all moms, so I’m going with grown up guilt).
3. We can share resources so we’ll all spend less money with just as much beauty in our planners.
4. Sharing resources also means we all have access to more things!
5. There are psychological studies that indicate that gathering with friends boosts our happiness, which in turn increases our productivity. SO, this means that we’ll be happier in general and, afterward the party is all said and done, we’ll get more done in our day to day lives!
6. It gives us a chance to plan and schedule some other time together, even if it isn’t next week! The calendar is in front of us, so we can write in whatever we’d like! No more excuses, we can just have it on the calendar and block off that time.

How to plan your planner party:

Here’s the best part: you don’t have to put a lot of work into it. You can literally send a text or make a call, find out what times your friend(s) are available, coordinate and meet at a local restaurant. Don’t want to go out? No worries, pick a house, a date/time and pick up a snack tray. But, for those of you who want a more thorough direction, here we go:

• Make a list of your planner obsessed pals
• Send out an invite, requesting that they come with planner and supplies in hand to join you for an epic planner party! Tell them to bring some of the items they are willing to share
• Find some great snacks or appetizers  along with drinks. Make sure you choose foods that are easy to snack on without a mess so that guests can eat as they work on their planners. Or you can do a potluck and spend the afternoon eating, planning and decorating!
• Gather small tubs or baskets for each guest to place their items in, that way when a person gets done using the supply, they can replace it and there’s not a lot of confusion when the fun ends and the packing begins.
• Have a collection of colored pens and rulers available for everyone to use, as well as your collection of planner decorating goodies!

Need Planner Supplies?

We had the opportunity to try out some awesome supplies from Ooly! They are amazing! I can honestly say that their glitter gel pens are brighter than the others I had and I absolutely love their products! Don’t worry though, we’ve got pictures to prove it! I don’t often share my planner with people, but Ooly and their great products really made me want to!

If you are new to doing a planner or are just getting started, definitely check these out. They are inexpensive and have an amazing selection!

I did February in my Carpe Diem Planner which is probably the only planner I’ll ever use again. I love it because it’s refillable, comes blank and they have a ton of different styles that you can insert into your leather planner. It’s the best. Like, for real. There is literally one thing I’d change about it: the weekly part comes pre-labeled with the day of the week. I don’t like that because sometimes a month begins on the last day of the week or you end up having to use another whole week for 1 stinking day. BUT if you prefer to have your whole week at a glance regardless of what day the month begins/ends on, then this won’t be a problem for you. But back on point…

See the pink colorful border? I did that with the On a Roll Decorative Owl Tape. We also got the Dog Tape. Both are absolutely adorable! With each set, you get 3 different tapes in one. My friend up there, she typically uses Washi tape and said that she liked this better because it was easier to keep straight. While I’ve never used it in my planner, I can say that I loved it too. It took some getting use to as I wanted to use it in a similar fashion to the white out tape and it’s better if you hold it straight up. We also managed to shoot a spring out when we were changing tapes, but that just made for good laughs. No harm done.

The stickers came from a few locations, the little rose and the candy were from the Itsy Bitsy Stickers Collections: The Fairy Tail Collection and the Sweet Treats Collection. They are little 3D stickers and stick up some, but not enough to hinder your planner. Or at least they didn’t ours. The larger stickers are from the Beary Sweet Scented Stickers and they smell wonderful! I’m hoping the smell will hold up til February rolls around, but of course I can’t tell you that right now.

I’m especially excited about the coconut scented ones, they take me back to summer in my youth in just one sniff! Makes me picture the lake with that BFF on one of our few family outings. Those yummy summer smelling stickers are  the Sleepy Sloths and oh SO adorable! They make my heart happy! While I didn’t use them on this page, we also had Girl Power stickers that  can’t  wait  to  use!

If you’d like to up your writing skills, check out this fabulous calligraphy book we reviewed. We got some calligraphy fountain pens from Ooly and we’ll be trying those out soon as well! Stay tuned for our mad skills or epic fails. I’ll be posting them to our instagram for sure. If they are really good, I’ll do a post here too.

This review is part of our Holiday Gift Guide

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