The Year of Dreams 2022 Weekly Planner, Visioning Journal + Creative Dream Playbook is here!
It's available as a full colour printed book from Amazon worldwide, and as a printable planner. (Details on both are here)
I am using the printable version, which is a little bigger and offers a TON more space for customizing.
I CAN'T WAIT for 2022 and to start using this planner.
It's got MORE open space than any planner I've ever used.
Once I printed it and held it in my hands it felt like such a gift. SPACE and SUPPORT for a much deeper process than just planning my weeks. It feels like exactly what I need for 2022.
Plus it will be RELENTLESS about reminding you about what's most important to you.
You can't forget your new year's goals when your planner keeps reminding you!
I just can't wait to use it.
I wanted my planner to be strong enough to paint on and bound in a way that makes it easy to use.
I always paint in my planners and they never hold up well to the paint and I wanted this to be paint-worthy paper. Also I like the idea of a HEAVY weight planner that can stand up to all sorts of creative play.
And I wanted it coil bound, so I could flip it over to make it easy to write in AND ALSO I want to be able to move pages around and especially ADD PAGES anywhere. Some weeks I need more planning space. And with the visioning journal at the beginning, I may want to add more pages there as I go through the year and my plans unfold and dreams grow.
So I used a disc-bound system. If you haven't tried it - it's a miracle!
I started with this paper punch from The Happy Planner - doesn't matter which brand you get, but you do need a "mushroom punch" and not a hole punch.
And then I got these discs, also from the Happy Planner, to bind it. You need to make sure you are getting the right sized discs - too big or too small and the pages won't hold together as well. Since I used such heavy paper, I needed the largest discs.
You could also just us a binder, or get this printed at a copy shop where they can coil-bind it for you.
The paper:
I looked around - A LOT - for paper that was the same texture on both sides and MUCH heavier weight than regular printer paper. There are a LOT of options out there - especially when you get into cotton and linen papers.
The options available will vary depending on where you are. So I'll share what I used, but know that maybe you can find something better where you are. You can also get actual watercolour paper in letter size to use - though depending where you are, that can get really expensive since you need almost 150 sheets for this and probably wayyyy more than you need for a good, sturdy creative planner.
I got Accent brand 100 lb paper.
Normal printer paper is 20 lb. My Staples has printer paper up to 32 lb.
100 lb is a LOT heavier. It might not work with all printers - on mine it did get jammed a few times.
If it gets jammed and you have to stop and re-start the printing - you have to be especially careful about where you re-start the printing, since it needs to be 2-sided printing and a lot of the pages are printed on the wrong side. I made a few mistakes when mine jammed, but only ended up wasting a few sheets of paper.
Still to come: Laminating the covers
I just started painting the covers and there's lots more I want to do still before I can laminate them. But it's an important step to make the whole planner sturdier to bringing around with me. I loooove doing my planning in a coffee shop (when we're not in a pandemic lockdown)
But honestly, it's so big and heavy I am more likely to take the week's sheets out, tuck them into my big journal, and bring that to the coffee shop, and then put them back into the planner when I get home. I do love that the sheets came come out and go back in like that.
Once they are decorated I'm going to laminate the covers really thick and 1" bigger around so that the covers protect the paper inside.
So far from what I have read, the easiest way to do this is to get self-lamentation sheets at the dollar store, or I may just take the pages to a print shop and have them do it.
