{I Heart School Supplies}

I loves me some brand new school supplies, don't you?  I love them.  Fresh packages of pencils, pens and erasers ready to be torn open and placed in to zippered bags are all filled with so much promise.  So many new beginnings! Out with the old, in with the new kind of stuff.  Sometimes though these necessities can seem sterile and without life.   This year I was on a mission to put together some organizational tools that were also pretty to look at.

The first mission was my Planner.  I had a list of requirements as long as my arm! In order of importance:  8 1/2" x 11" (for more writing room), one week over two pages for easy "at a glance" summaries,  each month at a glance too with tabs for quick access, from July - June (academic months), soft cover, and oh yeah, it HAD to be cute!

So at first I tried to make this myself using some printables pages I found online and really loved.  I liked the idea of being able to totally customize what was in my planner, and even update it for each successive month, but alas, my printer ran out of ink and I really managed to screw up the replacement ink somehow and I had a mental breakdown. kinda.  I don't do well when my technology doesn't cooperate (and no, it hasn't been fixed yet. Oy.)

I gave up and went searching for the perfect planner in the marketplace somewhere.  I hit Target, Staples and Barnes and Noble but everything either was too small, not laid out right, or too juvenile looking.  I'm a college student, and I wanted cute not froo froo!

Then, with final desperation I stepped in to Office Max and it's like the heavens parted and light shone down on me!  I found a BUNCH of planners that fit all my requirements from the At-A-Glance brand and all I had to do was pick my favorite.  Here she is!!

A lovely shade of green, lots of writing space and the fun foliage design on the inside. SIGH!  I love the fun with the hint of sophistication. :)

Then on to my binder! I'm a little particular there too.  My binders need to have the locking rings (so they don't pull apart and all my paper fall) that are located on back of the binder, not attached to the spine, so that the front folds over the pages.  Is this making sense? Anyway, they're usually pretty expensive and pretty utilitarian looking.

So I dressed mine up with some scrap booking paper.

I trimmed some cute paper to fit in to the spine and the front as well as to work as dividers.  I went to one binder for all my notes last year and it worked out really really well.  No more forgetting the correct binder at home! I also prefer binders to notebooks because I loath loose papers everywhere.  I also carry a little plastic hole punch for all those handouts we get.

Can you read the titles of the classes I'll be taking?  International Relations, Matrices and Linear Algebra, Special Topics Geometry and Micro Computers for the Business World.  Wish me luck! At least if I go down, I'll go down in style! ;)