Tag: happy planner

Happy Planner Squad Class of 2020-2021

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Today, May 2nd, 2020 The Happy Planner opened applications for the 2020-2021 Squad! All the nerves have come alive, as well as all the excitement! I’m going to share with you all about the squad, and then some of my opinions about it!

First, The Happy Planner Squad is made up of planner babes and planner dudes who totally love and radiate all that The Happy Planner stands for: positivity, encouragement, inspiring, uplifting, kind, and of course happy (this was taken straight from The Happy Planner website)! They are also looking for individuals who will exclusively use their product and share it on their social media platforms, namely, Instagram. You will also have to submit two projects a month and keep new product confidential until it has been announced! The last is to, of course, be creative and original in the way you use the product (there’s more in depth on their website!)

The application process is fairly simple. Go to their website https://thehappyplanner.com/pages/squad-applications-now-open and click apply now! There is a short form to fill out that includes your name, email, phone number, address, and links to your social media accounts. The new fun twist is that you will have to film a one minute video of why you think you would be a good fit for The Happy Planner Squad! Simple as that, yet so nerve-wrecking!

Now lets get to the meat of what I want to talk about! This community needs each and every person in it. No matter who you are, your planning style, why you plan, or if you are apart of The Happy Planner Squad or not, YOU MATTER! You are valuable for this community, and without you, it wouldn’t be the same. I love everything I see in the community, and feel inspired by each and every person I come across in some way or another!

Whether you make the Squad, are applying or not, keep doing you, keep creating and using your planner. Remember why you started planning in the first place. It most likely wasn’t to be a squad member! It was probably to help you plan a life you love, to become organized, to have a creative outlet, or any other reason you may have started. So focus on that if you don’t make it, there’s always next year! Keep doing you, because you rock!

Good luck planner babes, and remember, the Squad doesn’t define who you are, whether you are valued in the planner community, or a “good enough” planner or not! You are amazing just the way you are!

Remember to check in with yourself throughout the process, check your heart, and if you ever need to reach out, I’m here! You can always email me at amberplansherday@gmail.com or message me on Instagram @amberplansherday! Never stop being you planner babe!

Much love

💜Amber Thorne

Why I Started Planning

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My most recent planner pic! I am in love with my Happy Planner

I’ve always been some sort of planner. Whether I used to free planner my school gave me for the year, or a cheap one my mom bought me, I always wanted to write things down. The earliest memory of this is from elementary school and it was required by our teachers to use the planners they provided. Little did I know that I would forever use a planner, and it is now a creative outlet for me to be organized and create.

My mom knew I would need a planner for college, but unfortunately, college doesn’t have free planners like high school and before does, so we started doing some research. I didn’t really know what I needed in a planner for school so I basically trusted her and her thoughts. We landed upon a Plum Paper Planner. It was a really cool planner. She customized it just for me. She put my name on it and was able to customize the layout to include all of my class names. I used it for my entire freshman year and was so glad to have a planner in my life for balancing being a freshman in college, being engaged to my now husband (yes we got married young), and having a job. College was different than any other schooling I’ve experienced and without a planner, I wouldn’t have survived.

Honestly, I didn’t make a lot of friends freshman year of college, and I got really depressed. I remember one weekend my mom drove over 4 hours to pick me up so I can go home for one day. Anyway, the summer after freshman year, I got married and that made school life even harder since I was balancing being a newlywed and a sophomore in college. I didn’t really my first semester of sophomore year out, and I could tell the difference in me knowing what was going on. I knew I needed something different for second semester, something that worked for me.

My first planner in 2016 that I found at Hobby Lobby

I still hadn’t found anything by the time Christmas break was over, so I started the second half of my sophomore year without a planner, and without a “life”. I was still depressed even though I had mostly everything I could want, an amazing husband, and attending college for my dream major. I still had no friends, and I was struggling to make any on campus because I was never there and I was struggling to make any at church because, well, let’s be honest, I suck at starting a conversation. I finally started talking to a person from church and she mentioned The Happy Planner to me. She showed me hers and she showed me them online and the next day I was at Hobby Lobby with her buying my first planner, the botanical gardens 2016-2017 Happy Planner.

I bought it in March of 2016 and I wanted to start right away, so I made my own type of extension pack on the computer and printed it to start using. I noticed a difference from mid-terms on that semester, and a difference in my overall demeanor. I had a different outlook on life.

Well, there were still a couple girls at church that I knew who used The Happy Planner, but I didn’t have the courage to talk to them. One of them was pregnant, so I just went for it, I told her when her baby was born I would love to start hanging out with her weekly and crafting. And she introduced me to washi tape and stickers and another friend at church who started coming to our weekly crafting sessions after her baby was born a few months later! I was finally getting friends and I was finally seeing a light at the end of my depression tunnel.

My best friends and I at a crafting session. I love these girls!
Planner meet up in Denver, Colorado. So blessed to have met some awesome planner babes! The Happy Planner has brought so many opportunities into my life.

Those two girls are still my best friends, but we don’t craft nearly as often as we should, and I’m not in college anymore. So why do I plan now?

For one, its a much needed necessity in my crazy life. Being a foster parent requires a lot of appointments and scheduling that I wouldn’t be able to do without my Happy Planner. My work schedule is crazy and changes every week. My pregnancy appointments need to be scheduled well in advance. My errands need to be tracked or they won’t happen. My dates need to be scheduled or they won’t be a priority. Church needs to be scheduled or I might not make it to a Sunday when I’m serving. I wouldn’t be memory keeping about the foster children we have had. I wouldn’t be faith journaling. My list can go on and on, but the main reason I plan is because it is NEEDED in my life. Without my planner, I wouldn’t know what was going on. Without my Happy Planner, I wouldn’t have much needed encouragement daily to keep me going on the right track.

I’m so thankful for the organization that The Happy Planner has brought to my life as well as the friendships that have been enriched because of it. I’m also navigating living with depression and anxiety, but it has been so much better with everything that The Happy Planner offers.

When will you start planning a happier life?

💜 Amber Thorne

Tips for Being Behind in Memory Keeping

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Memory keeping has quickly became one of my all time favorite ways to use The Happy Planner, although it may not seem that way with how far behind I am. Let’s just say that I’m still working on 2018 memories! I keep telling myself I will get caught up and I will not fall behind again, but then life happens and it doesn’t work out. I love seeing memory keeping spreads on Instagram, but when you’re as far behind as I am, you can’t have the same lofty expectations to have a perfect memory keeping spread each week. Here are some of my tips to get caught up if you are behind on memory keeping.

I use a big Happy Planner for memory keeping and these are my monthly pictures sorted out in baggies.
  1. Don’t have too high of expectations on yourself. The best thing you can do is to get caught up and then make it a habit so you don’t get behind again. In order to get caught up, sometimes you just don’t use stickers and you just put the picture down and write a caption, and that’s okay because your memories are still down on paper and it will still be fun to look back at. If you go into it with the expectation that you are only going to glue the pictures down and journal a quick caption, than you will be so proud of yourself when you finally are up to day.
  2. Print all your pictures at once. I had to print six months worth of pictures, and that took me a while to put them all into a collage and sort through, but getting all of them printed at once prevented me from going back and forth to the store to pick up each months photos separately.
  3. Once you have the printed pictures, sort the photos by month. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit down at one time and glue 8 months of photos down so I chose to label baggies and put the months pictures in there. This helped me stay organized and not have pictures all over the place when the time came to glue them down.
  4. I chose to glue down one month at a time so when it was time to do that I took the pictures out of the baggie and sorted them into the week. I am well known for printing way to many pictures or multiple pictures of one event. For example, when my foster kiddo plays with the dog, I will take about one million pictures until I have that perfect shot! I’m sure you’re not like that at all right? 😂 Well, if you are like me and you print about four-five of the same picture, now would be the time to decide which one you actually want to glue down and put the rest in an extra pile, maybe you can use it for a monthly memories page, or in your monthly spread, or if it is a really special picture you can hang it on the wall in your craft room or put it on your desk! Sometimes I do end up throwing pictures away, but I would rather have too many options than not enough.
  5. Start by gluing all the pictures down then going back to journal. To me, this is a better way to start so that if I don’t end up journaling about the pictures until later that week, or even month if you know me, all the pictures will be down and you won’t have stacks of pictures laying around while you take the time to complete each week.
  6. After you are done with gluing the pictures down and journaling, you could flip through some sticker books and see if your want to add some embellishment stickers, but there is no pressure to do that, because at least your pictures are down and you have a little reminder of what that picture was about! You could also add a colorful box to journal in which will add some color and flair to the spread.
  7. Don’t over think it. Getting caught up shouldn’t be a chore. Do it because you want to and the memories are more important than the time it takes! It doesn’t have to be perfect by any means! Once you are caught up you can make it a habit and work towards finding a style that you love best!
  8. Have fun! Looking back at your memories should be fun and it will be even more fun to have them all down on paper and in your memory planner. Then you will be able to look back for years to come and see all the fun you had! Memory keeping isn’t always about the big events in life, they are the small daily details. Those small moments will be what you love looking back on over the years! I know I will when I have pictures of all my foster children to look back on, and all the sweet small moments we had with each of them!
I’m working on gluing my pictures down! I have to cover up my little loves face for confidentiality, but I’m glad I have these sweet memories to look back on!

I hope that this post has encouraged you to catch up, or even start a memory keeping planner. They are so fun to have so you can look back on all your years of memory making. It’s never too late to start and there is always a way to get caught up, no matter how far behind you are.

💜Amber Thorne