Once again I invite you to join me for
If you joined in last year, ‘welcome back’. . . if you are here for the first time please play along with the rest of us as we simplify this busy season with a little planning and put a homemade touch on everything we do.
To help us celebrate I have invited some wonderfully talented guest posters to share in this event; Clare, Becky, Fee, Christy, Vikki, Kris and Linda will be popping in to share their creative talents with us. Each week during ‘Simply Christmas’ there will be free craft, baking and decorating tutorials. . . And, keeping with the spirit of giving. . . there will be exciting GIVEAWAYS for my followers to win too.
I’ll be encouraging lots of reader participation this year with ample opportunities for you to join in and link back to your own Christmas posts. We all like to see what everyone else is putting together for Christmas, how they decorate their homes and what they are making and baking. . . so be sure to join in when the Simply Christmas Inspiration Party begins in week 2.
There’s a button on my side-bar if you’d like to help promote Simply Christmas. . . make sure you let me know when you have added the button as I will be out in blogland looking for them so I can surprise someone with a GIVEAWAY giftie.
I don’t want you to miss out on one iota of this fun Christmas experience, so make sure you are following my blog to catch each instalment and enter the giveaways.
Okay. . . right now I’m throwing on the apron and getting warmed up for what is going to be a really super old fashioned and simple Christmas. The best way to simplify what is traditionally a chaotic period is to be organised. . . and to be organised we need a list. . . in fact, lots of lists.
That’s why I’ve put together a new Christmas Planner for 2011. It struck me last year that I needed a planner that was portable. . . one that was big enough to hold all my plans and lists, but small enough that I could throw it in my Christmas shopping bag. So, this year I have designed an A5 sized Christmas Planner. . . and once again I have designed all the internal pages for you, so all you have to do is download, print them off and paste in your book. It has a calendar, weekly/daily planner, lists for all sorts of necessities, plus places to store receipts, online order tracking and ideas. Now when you are out shopping you can simply open your planner and check your diary, plans or lists!
For my planner I used a spiral bound A5 visual art diary (available at newsagents, discount stores and stationary suppliers), but any A5 sized book will be fine. To make my planner more festive I used some pretty scrapbooking papers for the cover and some of the internal pages.
I also downloaded this gorgeous Victorian Santa from the Graphics Fairy. He just seemed to be the perfect symbol for Simply Christmas. I love his vintage look which takes us back to an old fashioned era when the holidays were simpler and you have to commend his BIG list. . . yes, he’s the perfect cover model for our Christmas planner full of lists and plans.
Here’s how I made my planner:
I cut my paper to fit the front cover by tracing around the book cover, directly onto the patterned paper. I trimmed it so it edged the spiral holes.
I attached a strip of ripped music manuscript horizontally using red cotton and a zig-zag seam on my sewing machine (totally optional). Through the centre of that I adhered some red ric-rac and a pretty button sticker.
I printed my Santa on matt photo paper and trimmed to size (6 cm x 9.5 cm) and mounted on blue and then red paper. I wanted a vintage look for my planner so sanded the edges of my paper with a little sandpaper. You may prefer to use ink.
For that extra bit of festive pizazz I attached an assortment of ribbon ties in red and green to each spiral. My ribbons measured 10 cm each and were trimmed to size after the were knotted.
I always divide my planner into 4 sections: Planning for calendars, diary dates and budgeting; Giving for card, gift and shopping supply lists; Home for all the decorating and baking pages; Receipts for record keeping and order tracking. You may prefer to use different divider headings that better suit your style of Christmas.
To make my dividers I used more of the coordinating paper and cut rectangles 5 cm x 4 cm. I scored a line across the centre on the longest side, so when I folded it in half it measured 5 cm x 2 cm. I headings are hand written with a black felt tip pen and I attached them to the book pages with double sided tape.
My planner will be out and about with me over the next couple of months, so to keep my lists private and to safeguard any loose papers, I made an elasticised band to hold it tightly together. You will need about a half metre of elastic lace to make this band. To measure length, wrap the lace around your book and stretch to tighten. Trim off excess and stitch the ends together (hand or machine sew). Now you can slip it on and off with ease.
Okay. . . that was a pretty basic design and just one option. I’m sure many of you will create gorgeous planners and I look forward to seeing some of them next week when we begin sharing our Christmas creations.
I’ll pop back tomorrow to finish the planner and provide the internal pages download link – so see you then.
Festive hugs ~ Kerryanne
