Magnolia Monday - The Card Maker Recycle

There are a number of crafts that I love to indulge in. Card making is one of them. I think I attended my first Stampin' Up! show more than 5 years ago.  I was hooked and started attending workshops every weekend. Occasionally, I would make a batch to send out for Christmas or as thank you cards. My problem with card making, like with so many of my crafts, is that I tend to make more than I send. I have also been given many, many cards from friends. Because I don't believe in wasting, all of those gems have gone into the basket of "do something with me one day" items. 

As much as I would like to be that person who remembers every birthday and holiday with a card, I am just not that woman. These cards, from people who do remember, are just too beautiful to get rid of so I need to find a way to use them. Recycle, April?

I don't send cards every day, but I do use my planner every day and it's always in need of a bit of decorating. I chose this card with a fall theme to insert for the first day of fall, which also happens to be my birthday. 

Rather than run the card through the printer, I glued a planner page to the back. I hope to do as little regular work as possible on my birthday. My plan is to use my special day as art journaling time. Maybe, I will record my goals for this new year of life. Now, that sounds like a plan for a Sunnyside Sunday workshop.

Promotional to Useful

I often get these small promotional calendars in the mail at the start of the year. Sometimes they get stuck on the fridge and ignored. 

When watching a YouTube video, I noticed a vlogger using a project life calendar card to track her no spend March. It occurred to me that these small calendars could similarly be used to track a daily action over a month.

I tore off April and cut it down and clipped it into my planner and used it to track my blogging over the month.  Now that I am using

DIYFish planner pages

, I have a monthly sheet that is used to track a host of activities, but I still love this solution.

This is a good way to track those resolutions I'm sure many have forgotten. I don't set resolutions but I do choose a focus area or intention. This is my year of discovery and I am determined to discover myself through more consistent writing. I'm finding that the only way I will get to the more consistent writing is to implement some more consistent planning.

Free Planner Pages

I hear a lot of Filofax users complain about how expensive planner paper can get. There are endless comparisons between the different types of paper and what pens work best. Honestly, I love good paper but most of the paper that cycles through my planner will just end up in the trash so I don't bother with quality so much.  And because I change my pens so often, I will drive myself crazy trying to match up the perfect paper with the perfect pen.

All that said, I still need paper.

This is a snapshot of the "next steps" portion of my planner.  This is where I'm tracking all the project steps for myself and for my work group. With all of the projects we have going, the pages in this section will get filled up, marked up and tossed out quite often. As you can tell, this first page is yellow, reminiscent of the yellow legal pads. And that's exactly what it is.

I admit I have a problem...a big problem. I have piles of notepads, notebooks and tablets that I have collected overt the years. And this is just a small portion. What I can say is that these are probably the oldest. Some are even of college vintage. As I caught up on the latest shows on Hulu, many of these have become perfectly sized planner pages.

This is such an easy solution for both my growing collection of paper and having a steady supply of paper for the planner.

So, to all of you struggling with your paper supply, give this a try.  Use it, mark it up and then toss it away. No reason to stress about the cost.