National Organization Month and what are you doing to re-organize your home, life, and studio?
I am an avid cook so drawers that are completely unusable and crazy messy drive me crazy! So the first place I start with organization is in my kitchen. This baking drawer was such a mess I didn’t realize I had purchased several identical items! Now it’s labeled and things that go together are side by side.
I wish I had a before picture of this. You wouldn’t have known even what this area was for. AND I threw out spices from the Jurassic period! Oy! Now it’s a pleasure to open this space!
You couldn’t even tell what this area was for before I started! Plus I threw out spices from the turn of the century! Now it’s a pleasure to open this cupboard.
How many crumbs can there really be in any one spot? This is my bread baking area…yes there are two bread machines. As a side note I bake all of our bread products from scratch. No more preservatives or hidden GMO for us! May sound crazy but it has solved a couple of health issues we had going on. AND it tastes delicious this way!
But..back to organization! With this many things on one counter area it easily gets out of whack. This is how it’s supposed to be!
Next organization project? Besides the entire house? Pieces of the studio…stay tuned!
Until next time,
Susan
P.S. Please hop over to my collaborative blog for some other organization tips from the studios of the girls!!
So I would bet by now that you’ve seen some edition of the Arc Planner System from Staples around the interwebs…no?
I’m here today to give you a peek inside my own and how I got into it.
So I was wandering around Staples looking for nothing in particular when I happened upon this Arc planner system. I looked it over for quite awhile while my daughter shopped elsewhere and decided to try one notebook. Just to see if I liked it.
I comes with blank lined sheets. (you can see two Arc planners in this picture because one leads to two leads to three…you get the idea)
They are hooked together with these multiple discs. Normally they come with small discs which I knew immediately wouldn’t be enough so I bought some larger ones from the Martha Stewart collection that also has a few disc based items.
I also prettied up the edges of the pages with colorful washi tape.
 I also made a can of goodies that I knew I would want to use with the planner. Things like colored pens, large and small post-it notes, graph paper post its, mechanical pencil with eraser. (yeah, I know. I’m getting obsessive) And it’s portable so I can take it from room to room as I jot down thoughts and ideas.
Then, because enough is never enough, I designed some pages for the Arc planner as well as made some downloads from the internet work for it too. This meant that I take trip number two to Staples and buy the punch plus additional inserts. Now I knew what I would do with it I could better accessorize it…ha!
Yes…there are page dividers, pages with pockets, some of the post its are heavier paper and make great tabs.
I designed my own calendar.
That’s right…just use the punch to put holes in the side and it fits right in! This is on legal paper so I just folded it over so it wouldn’t stick out.
I also used Passion Planner weekly calendars. (if you haven’t seen a Passion Planner you really need to) You can only see the beginning of the weekly version here on the left side. The right side is a sheet I designed so I could have all my Etsy product notes available. Now I can photograph, jot down measurements, prices, and whatever else I need to know when I’m putting items into my shop. All on one page.
 Here’s the other side. You can see with the Arc planner punch I did both sides of the Etsy sheet. That way if I’m not finished, but the weekday has changed or I printed another copy of it on the reverse, I just flip it to continue. No fuss, no muss! No more ugly rings to wrench open…and how many times have you had a ring binder close on your finger? Ouch! Never again.
And here is the illustrious Arc planner punch!! Yes…that’s a plastic page cover and it will punch for you! Any kind of paper you want can be customized for this system.
 So there you have it! Now I have the book shown here, a custom recipe book you can see on January 7 over at the Cre8ive Klatch blog, my daughter will be here posting about her Arc planner on Thursday January 8, and there are some great posts by fellow artists and friends.
Lori Leissner of Leissnerart shows you her intro book planner here and her creative idea for tracking her health here.
Cindy Jones Lantier tells about how she was hooked into the system here.
You might be next to catch the Arc planner bug!!
Until next time,
Susan
