Hi
everyone! I’m Cindy Guentert-Baldo (@llamaletters on Instagram and Cindy Guentert on Youtube) and I am so
excited to have been asked to write a guest post for Happie Scrappie today.
I’ve been a fan girl of hers for nearly a year now – her Happie Planner kit is
one of my favorite packages to get in the mail each month!
Because
I’m such a fan, I tend to talk about her kits a lot on Facebook and Instagram,
and when I talk about them, I tend to get lots of questions. See, even though I
receive the Personal size kit from Sam every month, my main planner is an Erin
Condren horizontal layout. This means that a lot of the planner girls I
interact with tend to also have spiral bound planners rather than binder style,
and since the kits I receive are geared towards the Filofax/Kate Spade/etc
crew, I often find myself explaining to the spiral bound crowd why I love the
Happie Scrappie kits so much. So, rather than showing a layout with all of the
Happie Scrappie stuff everywhere, I decided to show some of the ways I
incorporate the items in the kit into my every day spiral planning.
After
all, Sam’s stuff is so cute it should be used in every style of planner, ring
bound, spiral bound, or otherwise!
One
of the items that is almost always included is a set of adorable page flags or
sticky markers. I love these. They are probably the most used accessory for me,
not just in my planner, but in my everyday life. One of my favorite uses for
them is marking events ahead of time so that, in case times change, I don’t
have to do some fancy covering with washi tape or big old scribbles to cover it
up! The hedgehogs from this month’s kit are especially adorable, so much so
that I had to hide them from my 11 year old so she wouldn’t run off with them!
I’ve
been loving the stickers Sam has been designing for the kits lately – I tend to
use functional rather than decorative stickers in my planning and it is always
a treat to have such happy colors to go with the function. Most days I put the
top two “to do” items for that day under the date on my layout, and the
envelope stickers from this month fit perfectly and match the colors so
beautifully.
Generally
my monthly layout is pretty boring. I use it to keep track of appointments and
meetings, but I don’t spend a lot of time making it look fancy… Until this
month! I stamped on the fox labels from this month’s kit with chalk ink and
stamps from the studio L2e “list it” kit and put them in my sidebar to make a
list of priorities for the month. I also couldn’t help but add a little
decoration with the fox quote cards and owl stickers from August, as well as
the polka dot washi from a previous kit. It’s still not super fancy, but it is
waaaay more decorated than usual.
I’ve
been struggling to decide what to do with the monthly note pages in my new Erin
Condren… I was super excited to have them as a feature, but now that I have
them I keep drawing a blank. (Of course.) The little labels Sam did for this
month’s kit inspired me (side note: KEEP MAKING THESE I LOVE THEM) to create a
list for my Konmari project I am starting up next month. I stamped using black
ink with the studio l2e stamps and added dots from the previous month’s Happie
Scrappie kits to serve as check boxes. I also used one of the gel stick highlighters
from Sam’s shop to add some color to my lettering – these highlighters don’t
bleed, blend with water and work to add really cool effects. I love them. I
also can’t speak highly enough of the pens Sam sends in her kits. The fine
point and gel ink always write so well, I hoard these pens and save them for
special occasions!
I
guess the hoarding is another sign I need to Konmari. ;-) (If you don’t know
what it is, check out the book The Life
Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.)
For
the next couple of months I need to track work hours. In the past, I have used
a coil clip to add a journaling card into my planner for this purpose. This
month, though, the die cut animal cards from the kit were way too cute to not
use for this. Plus, the ears work as a great bookmark! I added a flag (with a
dollar bill stamp from Tiny Stamps Big Plans) and one of the doodle stickers
from this month to jazz it up. I also used one of the big sticky notes to hide
my info from all of you stalkers out there. (Don’t think I don’t notice you
looking! I’m kidding, I’m kidding.)
These
aren’t the only ways I’ve used Happie Planner kit items in my Erin Condren,
just some of the most recent ones. Believe me, her kit is so worth the (very
reasonable) price every month, even if you don’t use a binder system. If you
don’t use one at all I might recommend the Traveler’s Notebook insert kit,
since those inserts function just fine as a little notebook.
I,
however, actually do use a personal size Color Crush planner for challenges, so
I do have a use for the fabulous inserts Sam sends. The paper… I can’t go on
enough about the paper. It is so thick and luxurious, it is nearly cardstock.
Sam’s paper is a lettering girl’s dream. That’s why I’ve used the inserts in
the past as a base for my #listersgottalist challenge. The inserts and panda
stickers here came from a previous kit, while the page reinforcers come from
Sam’s shop. I just love her inserts, and each month the style is different
(this month’s kit was week on one page and a blank page, and I haven’t quite
decided how to use those yet) but the paper is always wonderful. Did I mention
I love the paper??
I
hope I have given you some ideas on how to use the items from the Happie
Planner kit even if you don’t do the ring binder style. And thanks Sam (and
Lucy) for inviting me to the blog today… Happie Planning!
Things that I have used in this post.
