During the beginning of the year, I had not been able to go out to buy a new planner for this year. This is because the area which I am staying in was (and still is) very badly affected by the pandemic. Hence as I am caring for my mom, I did not venture out much.
By early this month, I finally found time to visit a bookstore and was not able to find any planner and monthly spread to my liking. There was one that was plausible but very expensive! I came back empty handed and also ran out of time to visit other stores.
Then I thought of since I am not able to find something to my liking, why not create a monthly spread of my own? I have an account with Canva.com and using Canva, I decided to create 3 monthly spreads to test it out. Below is the pdf version. Basically I took a blank calendar template and added my own icons including the unicorns, teddy bears and flowers. Yes, I am still a kid at heart with soft spot for pastels and purples.
Above: Digital planner spreads and template for sticky notes which I have created and saved in pdf
Originally I wanted to make some memo pads but eventually decided to try to make some sticky notes which is shown in the bottom right. But when printed out they are actually too small so I eventually made a new template with 6 boxes.
Below is how it looked like after I print out using color ink. It was a really fun project to do. One thing, there were not enough rows so I had to add a new row for each of the month. And I had to manually fill in the dates, which is similar with the monthly spread planners that are being sold at the store (as it is now April, hence the dated planners have mostly been removed from the shelves and the undated planners are sold instead).
Above: The monthly planner spread that I have printed out.
Making my own sticky notes
Sticky notes are useful when being used in planning or to stick as a reminder to family.
Personally, I feel sticky notes sold in bookstores are really overpriced even with the plain ones. And I could never quite find exactly the design or colour that I like. Below is my first attempt in making my own sticky notes (haha, I know it is not perfect) which I use Canva to draw out my borders and add some florals to it. I use a lot of my favourite colour, lilac when it comes to making my own sticky notes.
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Above: Sticky notes that I had made.
Once I printed out the template, I was able to cut out the boxes and folded the tape on both sides. All within the hour while sitting with my mom and waiting for her to have her meal (my mom takes an hour to finish her meal). I had originally printed this on 70gm white A4 paper. It is more suitable to use a heavier paper or thicker coloured paper to print out the notes.
In case you wish to try making sticky notes, I have watched some videos and find the video below to be one of the best. Most YouTubers would recommend putting cellotape (like what I did above) on the sticky note. But the YouTuber under channel “Country Morning Creations” actually recommended using the Scotch double sided tape. She emphasized that we need to ensure the label ‘REMOVABLE’ tape is there. Don’t buy the permanent double sided tape or else we would not be able to remove the sticky note once we stick on one something.
