Browse Tag For

free printables

Showing: 1 - 6 of 6 Articles

Scrapbook Product Review: Happy Planner by MAMBI

As you saw in my last post, I recently bought the MAMBI Happy Planner at Michaels (reg. $34.99 minus 30% off coupon = $24.49). It’s the 8.5 x 11 version, not the more popular smaller one that you’ve probably been seeing everywhere.

Not only are the binder discs my favorite color but they also have my favorite shape: HEARTS!

DSCN7658

The front and back covers are soft but laminated and very sturdy. The inner pages are about the weight of your average scrapbook paper, not thin like cheap paper but not thick like Bazzill or Carta Bella. This planner goes for 18 months, from July 2016 to December 2017. Guess I have about a month to decide if I’m going to keep her ;)

The first 2 pages are 2016 and 2017 year at a glance, then starts the 18 monthly sections. Here are a few of those intro pages, where you see a variety of designs on the right, from quotes to very designed pages to very open ones like the first one, where you can have a ball decorating or journaling. I really like the “Currently” section for each month, since that’s something I always mean to scrapbook or track but then never do. Here, it’s right in the day planner – can’t forget it.

DSCN7657

DSCN7656

After each monthly intro page, there’s a month-at-a-glance page with room for notes; in my current day planner, I used the monthly pages for bill tracking and budgeting and would keep doing that in the Happy Planner.

Then there are 4 or 5 of these week-at-a-glance pages, depending on how long the month is. I like that each day is sectioned into 3 boxes. You could use that for morning, afternoon, and evening. I’m thinking of using it for personal, work, and blogging/e-learning.

My hold-up is that I have large handwriting and this might be too cramped for me. Dang :( I’m not a “planner girl” who does this for fun and creativity. I use my day planner FOR REALS. Like, it gets down and dirty, people. Family events, business deadlines, client launches, sports schedules, and more.

DSCN7655

So anyway, that goes on for 18 months in the same format. There’s nothing extra in this planner except for a blank page at the very back for more notes.

It is quite hefty so I understand why there’s not more included, yet I want to add more pages to make it useful for me. I didn’t see any extra pages at Michaels that I could buy separately. When I got home, I checked online and nada. Lots of extra pages on the MAMBI site HERE but they’re all for the smaller sized Happy Planner.

So I did what any Scrapbook Obsessed girl would do. I Tweeted MAMBI:

@ScrapbookObsess: I just got the 8.5×11 Happy Planner. What can I use with it? Everything seems made for the smaller size. Punch, extra pages?

@mambitweets: All the CLASSIC sized accessories work inside the BIG planner, and NOTE: a bigger punch is coming. :)

@ScrapbookObsess: ETA on the bigger punch? I’d like full size pages so I’ll make my own or look for free printables. Thanks!

@mambitweets: No exact date as of now, but once we know, we’ll be sure to share! <3

So that’s another strike against keeping this planner, at least for now. My plan was to insert pages for notes, keeping track of blog and work goals, exercise and diet, and projects. Yes, it’s already bulky but because of the snazzy binder disc system, I can take out pages I am not currently using or am done with to thin it out.

Overall, I think the 8.5 x 11 Happy Planner by MAMBI is well-made, cute, and functional for the basics of life. It would be my dream planner if:

  • The week-at-a-glance pages had the days laid out horizontally instead of vertically so there was more room for my big handwriting
  • There were extra pages available to supplement what comes with the planner and/or …
  • A punch were available so I could make my own extra pages or utilize free printables

So I’m undecided for now if this is the planner for me. I may end up returning this one, then trying again in January when hopefully the larger punch is available. Thanks for reading!

Scrapbook Obsession: Update 07-03-15

It’s Friday night of a holiday weekend and, yes, I’m working. Sigh. But I wanted to do a quick update and say HI.

HOLLAH!

So first of all . . . HIIIIIII!!!! I miss you. I hope you’re enjoying your summer and have fun plans for the 4th of July tomorrow (those of you in America). We’re keeping it low key as usual. I think being a 9-1-1 dispatcher all those years kinda’ soured me on going out for July 4th. Lotsa’ baaadd things happen – plus I feel sorry for my doggie, LOL. Fireworks aren’t allowed in most towns around here and, especially with the severe CA drought, we have to be so careful. Do you set off fireworks, go watch a fireworks show, or what?

Where You Been, Guuuurl?

I’m still doing behind the scenes stuff when I have time between working. Everything’s headed in the right direction, even if it doesn’t seem like it when it’s so quiet here, LOL. I’ll give some specifics in a newsletter soon so sign-up if you’re interested (in the top right sidebar). Why not just share everything here on the blog, you might ask? One thing I’m loving about the newsletter is that I can get more personal and share more ‘real life’ details. Because I’m writing directly to you and just you, not to the whole world wide web. Does that make sense?

Team Lisa’s (Un)Official Song: “This is My Fight Song”

One exciting thing is that we’re gearing up big time for Lisa Bearnson’s new line, Anthology, that’s coming out later this summer.

lisa bearnson anthology

It’s getting closer and closer! If you’ve thought about – or want to know about – being a rep for her products, e-mail me, k? (address is below). The way to go BIG TIME with it is to become a CEO like I did. When I signed up in May, it cost me $500 (I’ve already made $100 of that back with very minimal work, btw). Lucky you, until 07-31-15 it’s $100 off – and you get all the same stuff I did! I’m not bitter or anything. I’m happy for you. R-E-A-L-L-Y! But seriously if you decide to do it or are just curious, please contact me. I’ll answer any questions and tell you how to sign up so I get credit and you’re on MY team! I want you to myself, girlie.

Noted: My New E-mail Address

Check it out . . . my new email is: erika@scrapbookobsession.com!

In business school this Spring, one thing I learned is that a biz lady looks more professional if she ditches the gmail address (I’ve always used scrapbookobsession@gmail.com) and gets one related to her domain. Always Sometimes one to follow directions, I did just that :) Now I’m all pro-like and stuff :P

Aw, Time to Go :(

In closing, I just wanted to say thank you to Ashley for becoming the 120th subscriber to the Scrapbook Obsession Free Newsletter! Love hitting those “tens” milestones and welcoming more peeps to the family.

PS:

I can’t leave you without sharing something scrappy so go get your FREE June 2015 printables from Simple Stories RIGHT HERE! Warning – the blog entry they’re a part of deals with loss and is sad so if you’re not feelin’ it right now, just go straight HERE.

Love you, luvs!

Scrapbook Obsession Weekly Round-Up 06-21-15

Hiya! Hope you’re able to enjoy and honor your fathers, brothers, husbands, and other men in your life on this Father’s Day.

– If you need a last-minute printable card, check out Etsy:

fathers day printable card

– Have you seen that Layle Koncar is offering a new monthly Class Kit on her blog? The first one is super cute and uses the new Simple Stories “Summer Vibes” line. My newsletter subscribers received a coupon code good until 06-22-15 (tomorrow!). If you’re interested, hurry and sign up for my newsletter, then email me so I can send you the discount code (scrapbookobsession@gmail.com). She only has a few kits left.

– Say what you want about Studio Calico but they give away some massively cute free printables.

studio calico free printables

studio calico free printable

– I made some small changes to my blog sidebar on the right. I condensed some titles to make more room and used a new Bloglovin’ icon they just offered. I also changed the little ad for Scrapbook Steals. Now instead of a static ad, it’s a text ad that automatically updates every day with their new deal. I thought you might find that helpful – you can just click if it’s something that intrigues you :)

miss your daddy

I lost my dad many years ago – we were both way too young. So this is always a bittersweet holiday for me. He was not a perfect man but he was mine and I miss the adult relationship we never got to have. As crazy as your Pops drive you at times, please give him a big ‘ol hug, breathe in his Dad smell, and cherish the moments you have left together.

Scrapbook Obsession Weekly Round-Up 02-01-15

I know it’s Super Bowl Sunday* but what I’ve got for you is scrapbooking-related, LOL. Speaking of which, I hope all you football wives and moms are taking lots of pics and making some rad scrapbooks after this! Super Bowl times make for some great memories.

Here are some fun finds and bits of news from around the scrappy interwebs this week . . .

– I know a lot of overseas folks will be so happy to hear that BeckyHiggins.com NOW SHIPS INTERNATIONALLY!! Although in reading the comments on the blog post, it seems that many aren’t happy with the cost. I personally agree with the comments that point out Becky doesn’t set the shipping costs. She was asked to make international shipping available and she did. She doesn’t control the price and can’t take a loss on each order by lowering that. What do you think?



One of these is gone but there are still three left . . .

– Simple Stories has another Simple Inspiration ebook out, this one for their new “Life Documented” line. It’s free and you can see it HERE.



– I absolutely love this page, both the idea and the execution!

BY SASHA FARINA for October Afternoon

– I’ll close with a little blog milestone: This weekend, I reached 700 subscribers to my blog posts! I’m so excited and grateful! I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to read and to support my blog. It truly means the world to me :) If you would like to subscribe, just enter your email address in the box at the top right of this site. You will ONLY receive an email when a new post is published. Promise. I do plan to start another mailing list but it will be separate from this one which is basically an RSS feed.

* Whoops! I had a busy weekend and thought I’d scheduled this post to go up late Sunday night but apparently not, LOL. Sorry ’bout that. To further apologize, I’ll add 2 more tidbits you might like:

Crafty Steals has a bundle today of October Afternoon Mini Market alpha stickers – only $12.99 for 18 packs! If you’ve never used these alphas, I highly recommend them. The rectangle ones especially are the perfect size for so many projects.

And Simple Stories released some free printables to go with their new “Life Documented” line!

They are made to be used with their planner line specifically but you can use them in your own planner, pocket page scrapping, or regular scrapbooking. Enjoy!

Project Life: My New Storage System for PL, Snap, MAMBI, and Other Scrapbooking Cards

Raise your hand if you’ve been collecting Project Life cards like they’re going out of style! MEEEEEE!!! ME ME ME!!!

I just jumped on the Project Life bandwagon this year. And the Sn@p! card bandwagon. And the MAMBI card bandwagon. And the free printables bandwagon.

Wow. That’s a lotta’ bandwagons! Must be why I have so many dang cards.

Here are the Project Life kits I have (so far, wink):

Blush
Honey {See why it’s my favorite Project Life kit HERE!}
Jade
Midnight
Slate
Wedding
Baby
Wellington
5th and Frolic

What I’ve been doing is buying partial kits, trading cards, and selling cards. I think the only kit I still have all the cards for is Baby and that’s because I’m going to use it for multiple baby books. Oh, and I have all of Wellington and Wedding but those are mini kits.

The large and small boxes that Project Life come in are very nice but they’re not a very efficient use of space, especially when you only own 1/4 or 1/3 of the larger kits. So I decided to throw away all the PL boxes and come up with a new storage system.

Requirements:

1. Easily accessible
Opening one lid is fine but I don’t wanna’ be opening cases inside of cases and I need to be able to flip through the cards.

2. Something I can label
I need to SEE the names not just SEE the cards. I’m weird like that.

3. Something I can keep on my desk
Another thing I didn’t like about keeping the cards in the original PL box was that they were too big to keep on my desk, so I had to go over to the bookshelf to get them every time I worked on my Project Life or a PL-type album.

One idea I’d thought about replicating was from LAYLE KONCAR at SIMPLE STORIES. She used one of those old cassette holders (in case you are disgustingly young, cassettes were music-playing things before iPods came along). She tilted it up and it’s genius how you can see all your cards so well with this system.

Alas, it didn’t meet requirements 2. and 3. above :(

I got this wild hair late Friday night so no time to go shopping for a storage system. I perused my stash and decided to use some plastic shoe boxes I got from Target awhile back. They were holding handmade cards I’ve received over the years and various mini albums, mostly made at CKU and such. So those things were dumped out and I need to find a new home for them now. Which is a pain.

But totally worth it because look how great my new Project Life card storage came out! All my PL cards are in there except Wellington which is on my desk as I’m currently working with it.

IMG_2496

IMG_2497

As you can see, the box on the left is for Project Life cards and on the right is for Sn@p!, MAMBI, free printables, and misc. cards like those calendar cards from ELLE’S STUDIO. I used lined Project Life 4×6 blank cards to create the dividers, along with washi tapes and my Brother label maker. No, I’m not super creative but it got the job done.

I’m so happy that all my Project Life, Sn@p!, MAMBI (can you say “Addicted!”???), and free printable cards are all in one place! Well, two places but you know what I mean. They sit to the right of my chair at my L-shaped desk. A divided tray with all my other Project Life-y type stuff sits to the left – washi, 6×6 pads, WRMK small pads, corner rounder, arrow punch, date stamps, ink, stickers, etc.

IMG_2498

It gets very dusty in my scraproom so I love that this is covered storage. When I’m actively using them, I can slip the shoebox lids right underneath the boxes so they don’t take up extra room or flop backward covering other things like the PL boxes do. And when I’m not using them, they seal on the boxes tightly and keep the dust out.

IMG_2499

Plus I {heart} hearts SO much! They just make me happy and I’m glad they’re now sitting so close to me at my desk instead of way across the room on that ol’ bookshelf like before. Now we can get to know each other better, maybe go out for a drink, play Scrabble, you know, that kind of thing.

So there’s my latest version of scrapbook storage for all those Project Life-type cards. What do you think? How are yours stored? I would love to hear!

Free Printables: “I {Heart} Summer” by Simple Stories

So you heard the EXCITING NEWS that Simple Stories new “I {Heart} Summer” line is coming out 05-20-13, right?

Well, if you can’t wait until then to see this SS goodness in person, check THIS out! Free printables from the “I {Heart} Summer” line! Yep, just click on the link, open up the .pdf file, and print ’em out on white cardstock for use in your layouts and Project Life albums.

Here are some of them – sorry they’re HUGE:

It don’t get much better than that.

Word.

PS: You can find a bunch of other Simple Stories free printables HERE.

Thank you Simple Stories!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...