Heart in Hand printables

I remember the first time I saw the heart made from two hands, a photo of a mom with her hands over her baby-belly.  I thought it was so sweet, and as it was new to me, unique.  Now,  easily 10 years later, you can’t move for seeing it – everyone from teen pop-stars to eastern European talent show contestants seem to throw it out every 5 seconds. Still, it is a sweet image, and one that I still like.  Maybe you do too.  If so, these are for you. If not, move on – nothing to see here…

I thought you might find a shot of my “working file” of interest.  It is where I have all the various vectors, collected from a variety of files, edited, grouped in bits, with different effects and colours I am testing.

 

Out of that play, comes the actual file of printables

Here is the version you see here for download.

Note: I always worry I am cutting out a large percentage of the scrapbooking population by not offering things like this in different ethnicities.  So if you are a scrapper who would like a different skin tone,  feel free to comment with the RGB  of what you want.  I’ll have a go at changing the pale flesh-tone ones and add the alternatives for any who would like them.  You can see one flesh-theme here at Kuler – you can go to the main page and enter FLESH in the search bar to see lots more. See the RGB trio under the colour block?  That is the info I need.

 

 

Testing a compression method – pretty watercolour printables

A few things.  I have used many Freepic files when creating my printables, but I’ve always used them as a free user. Because they have been so useful, and I love so much of what they have,   I decided to buy a premium license.  It means I don’t have to remember to add the text to the PDF crediting them and don’t have to worry about copyright.  Much easier for me, which means I can experiment more, and that means more goodies for you.  Yippee skippy!

The one problem is that some of the files are massive.  Really, really big.  Depending on how I use them, I can sometimes, but not always, get them down to a reasonable size.  So for example, this set – it weighs in at a hefty 4.9 mbs.

I think that is big.  Takes up lots of space on my blog (which is generous, but still limited) so I sometimes make things, work hard to get them smaller without compromising on quality. USUALLY the Quartz filter works but not always.   If I can’t get it under 1 mb, with all the tricks I have learned, I decide if it is good enough that people might want it despite the big size, or shelf them till I have another idea of what might work.

I learned a new trick.  It’s a multi-part process.  I have to create it and save it as a PDF, then run a process on it and save as a zipped file, then de-compress it to get a quite small but good quality image.  At least I hope that is what happened.  It looks good to ME, but do you agree?

Download the PDF and print it and let me know!

note: I seem to be seeing the Dove ad phrase  “be your beautiful self” all over the place now.  I still like it.  Funny how commercial tag lines creep into your subconscious …. or not.  That’s why they pay the big bucks, isnt’ it?  It’d be weirder if it DIDN’T invade your brain.

Kids. DOH!

DS has been home for a bit, preparing for a number of things – some shoutcasting at Insomnia and a gig at a tournament in Transylvania (seriously – I couldn’t make it up)  in the short-term, job interviews and potentially getting his own business off the ground – so it’s been all about suit shopping and website building and (my part) business cards.

We had two designs.  You’ll see which we picked but curious – which one do you like better?

So having gone to all the trouble of printing and hand-cutting business cards, I had t then figure out some way for him to carry them.  I had made him a phone case so I went looking for a good business card case tutorial.  I found this one but as I had no fabric stiffener I had to alter it in a fairly major way to make it work and not be too thick. I managed it and really like how quick it is and how cute, but I am still trying to sort out the measurements.

The red and dotty one started as a 9 x 7 inch piece, the madras one as 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 and the green one 7 1/2 x 5 1/2.  They all fit a UK sized card but the green one not a US sized one – and it won’t fit many.  I am not sure I like the hair band as the clasp, since it is kinda bumpy.  And since making these I thought of a couple of modifications that will make it all a lot easier.  But I need some supplies.  Lucky DD and I are popping in to town for a movie and I can make a quick dash to the fabric store and get hat I need (I hope!)

So in the end we went with the left design, but altered to be on white (good thing too, cause printing a back background sucks printer ink like MAD) and I used a corner chomper to make them a bit more distinctive

 

 

I so wish I had a die to cut and emboss the edges rather than cutting by hand.  No matter how precise you try to be there are always teeny tiny variations.   I experimented with one of my oval dies and I like it, but DS thought it was a bit too artsy fartsy, and hard to fit in a wallet.  Lucky he only needed 20 to walk around with, in case he needed to hand out details.  Next time he can order them!

If I manage to decide on the perfect size and the best fastener I’ll share my version. Right now, the sunshine is calling for towels to get hung out on the line and DD and her movie-day date with Mom awaits….

Mini-planner

So this is something that I thought might be useful.  Basically, I had the idea I wanted a planner to fit in my purse.  But I didn’t want to go to all the work of making a whole new one.  All this is,  is a 1/4 page version of the original one.

That is 5 3/4 x 4 1/4 (approx.) which is a shame, as fitting into a 6×4 photo sleeve would be handy.  I would trim a bit of the border (in the centre below) so it is 4 inches wide.  I first tried a split ring as the “binder” but wanted something more “bound” but still changeable.

Too fiddly.

Instead I used something I have seen and always wanted to try, the paper-clip and rubber band binder.  Of course,  I have a million loom bands everywhere, and they are pretty and colourful so I used them instead!

So simple and the pages open flat

And on the back, you just see the bands.  I looped two together so it was long enough.

Is it obvious enough you don’t need a tutorial on it?

My plan is to retain the Covers and YaaG pages month to month,  swap the month one for the new Month as needed,  then swap out the daily pages each week.  Small enough to carry around with me, where the big planner is more for home.  The if I am out, making an appointment, for example, I can see if the day is clear, make a note of it, and add it to my desk planner when I get home.

Here are the files:

Months Only (Covers) – each “page” has 4 quotes, two with the wide border for the holes on the LEFT (front cover) and two with the holes on the RIGHT (back cover)  so there will be some that can only be Front covers and some only Back.  You can trim them close to the coloured area and mount that on another bit of card to change that if you want to use a particular quote for the front and the PDF doesn’t work that way.

Year at a Glance – 2015  and 2016 .  Both have YEAR at a Glance and MONTH at a Glance on the same side. Print NOTES on the back. (corrected and added the year so they are clearer)

Week at a Glance – Print the same on the back

Use EITHER Daily OR Daily Hour by Hour – print the same, front and back

All backs can be NOTES, if you prefer, so if you wanted to print the Daily pages so you had Notes on the back you could.

Here is a flip-thru.

Cover

followed by two NOTES pages

Year at a Glance

followed by two NOTES pages

Month at a Glance

followed by two NOTES pages

Week at a Glance

followed by 8 daily pages and a NOTES page

Back cover

Here’s an idea! By trimming the pages down to 4 x 6 you can slip them right into your Project Life sleeve.  I like the idea of people seeing what daily life was like in that amount of detail, right there with the photos.

 

Planner bits

I am still not able to figure out a good overall set of instructions for easily printing my planner.  But I will add the files and what I used as the basic guidelines.

Paper weight

I will first repeat that I used heavier weight cardstock when I printed mine – 160 gsm.  I like the look and feel of that weight.  I also used standard print quality.  Just for your info, I’ve printed a month divider on the back of the Year At A Glance sheet. I can see the text thru.

I would possibly test 90 and 120 gsm.  Either one might be just thick enough.

A4 versus US Letter paper

I’ve tried to make these usable on both A4 and US Letter. That meant some compromises.  This is how they print on A4 – the size I use:

 

There is some margin.  Not a ton.  Just printed front and back the sliced down the middle.  I don’t have any US letter paper, but here I have printed the pages on an A4 sheet, but set to US letter and Scale to Fit when printing.  The black line denotes the smaller length of US letter paper.  The width is slightly wider but only by 1/4 inch.

So a bigger border top and bottom, meaning less usable space.  I think you need to know this is you are using US letter paper, BEFORE you start printing!

Here is an overview of all the double-page spreads.  Any of them can be printed front or back of any other one, then sliced down the middle to produce two pages, with a border for hole punching. Click to see larger. You may be able to come up with combos I’ve not used!

Belongs To

Month at a Glance

Month dividers (12)

Daily x 2

Daily hour by hour

Sunday

Sunday Alternate

Notes Filler

End of Month

Month Tabs

Just months

 

Here are all the PDFs:

Belongs To – intro page with contact and emergency info

Year at a Glance (2015 and 2016 versions)  corrected  and added the year info to both

Month Dividers – quotes, incorporating Week at a Glance left page

Months_Only – to randomly insert inspirational quotes

Month Tabs – 12 with text and a few extra blank ones

Month At a Glance – to create a two-page spread

DailyX2 – print back to back to make four day sheets when cut apart

Daily HourByHour – daily variation.  Use EITHER/OR (they don’t play well together)

Sunday – Daily, incorporating Week at a Glance left page

Sunday Alternate – Notes, incorporating Week at a Glance left page and notes

Notes_filler – side by side Notes pages

End Of Month – use it if needed anywhere

I cannot stress strongly enough that you really need to know how the paper moves thru your printer before you begin.  When printing back to back, do a test sheet before printing a large number of pages!

 

A4 paper people – print as is.

US Letter people, select US Letter as your paper size and SCALE TO FIT

The simplest version.

Print  Belongs To –> Print Year at a Glance on the back.

Print the Month_Tabs

Print ONE Month Divider –> Print Notes_filler on the back

For a month, Print EIGHT Dailyx2 or Daily HourByHour sheets, same on front and back

Print FIVE  Sunday sheets –>print your chosen DAILY sheet on the back

Note: I realize I don’t have the Sunday sheet with an HourByHour version on it.  If you really need that one, drop me a comment and I’ll try to make one.  

CUT ALL SHEETS IN HALF

There will be some extras.  Set them aside and check before printing the last month or two you need.

To assemble:

Start off with the Belongs to and Year At a Glance pages

• Add the Month divider (Two Notes pages follow, then Week at a Glance)
• Add six Daily sheets followed by one Daily sheet with Week at a Glance on the back.
• repeat
• Add the month tab on the daily sheet that corresponds to the 1st of the month

You can print as many Notes_Filler sheets as you like to mix in

Another addition: print a Month at a Glance for each month with Notes_filler on the back (or even leave blank on the back) and slip them in just before the 1st of the month.

The slightly more complex version:

Print  Belongs To –> Print Year at a Glance on the back.

Print the Month_Tabs

Print Months_only –> Print Notes_filler on the back

For a month, Print EIGHT Dailyx2 or Daily HourByHour sheets, same on front and back

Print FIVE  Sunday sheets –>print your chosen DAILY sheet on the back

There will be some extras.  Set them aside and check before printing the last month or two you need.

To assemble:

Start off with the Belongs to and Year At a Glance pages

• Add the Month divider (Two Notes pages follow, then Week at a Glance)  for the first month
• Add six Daily sheets followed by one Daily sheet with Week at a Glance on the back.
• repeat
• Slip the Month_only quote pages in randomly, wherever you want a quote and a notes page, or place them as closer to the beginning of the month and add the tabs to them rather than to the page for the 1st of the month.

Note: this might send things a bit skewiff, where you have a week with one day in it at the beginning or the end of a month, but if you are ok with shifting things slightly, it works OK.  

As before, you can print as many Notes_Filler sheets as you like to mix in

Another addition: print a Month at a Glance for each month with more Notes_filler on the back (or even leave blank on the back) and slip them in after the month dividers

The Crazy person Version (i.e. Mine)

This is what I did – but then I don’t mind the amount of crazy it takes to assemble this.  I am actually not really expecting too many people will go to the trouble of doing it this way, but  I am really happy with it, it suits my needs perfectly. Making it was both a solution for ME as well as a learning experience.  Now, if I decide to make one that I DO think might be useful to lots of people, I think I know what I would do.

You will need to print each of these ONCE

• Belongs_to  –>  print Year_at_a_Glance on the back
•  Month_Tabs

For each month you will need to print:

a Month_Dividers –> print Month_at_a_Glance on the back

That is the easy part.  If you print the entire Month_Dividers 12 page PDF, with the Month_at_a_Glance single page printed on the back of each of them, you will have, for each month, the divider, with a quote on the front, flip over for Week At a Glance sheet.

Now for the daily sheets.

For the days: You can choose to print the Daily_x2 file OR the Daily_HourByHour.  They don’t really mix.  Print the same one front AND back.  That give you four Daily pages when cut in half.

This is where it gets dodgy.  Because of the Week at a Glance sheets and the Monthly dividers, it isn’t as simple as just printing the number of days.  Printing double-sided means multiple options for left-side holes and right side holes are required.

I found that the best thing to do was print EIGHT of the Daily sheets (either one) and FIVE of the Sunday sheets, for 32 days.  Have the Year at a Glance calendar handy.  Start building your weeks. Use the Sunday, Sunday_Alternate, End_0f_Month and Notes_filler sheets to make everything work out, according to where the days fall.

Honestly? Writing it out makes it seem like a lot of work.  Maybe it is, but I didn’t find it that difficult.  Yes, it takes more time, but it needed to, for me to get the planner I wanted.

 

I hope the sheets are flexible enough you can print them to create a planner that suits YOU.  And at some point I’ll probably go back and use what I learned to create a version that is easier to explain!

Oh, and if you are keen on an A4 or US letter full size version, drop me a comment.  I have the files and it should be easy enough to add them as a single PDF so you can print as you like.

Does your head hurt?  I know mine does…..

{wink}

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finished my planner!

Finally.  I had to wait for the right weight printer paper (I like 160 gsm, but might try 120 and 140 at some point to see how I like that) and took time out to buy a car (mine had been in the shop on and off since the end of last year, over 2 months in total) and now have to dash off to collect DS after taking DD skating.  Busy Sunday, but I thought I would add an overview.  Pictures suck, sorry, but I am rushing to get something up before I have to bolt.

The Belongs to page opens it.

Luckily it’s pretty bog-standard so not missing much.

The I move to a Year-at-a-glance spread

The a Month divider page

and then  Month-at-a-Glance and Week-at-a-Glance pages

I always want the WaaG page on the left, just how my brain likes it to be.  Then the Daily pages

Each week ends on a Sunday so the flip over to the WaaG page on the left works out.

The month dividers arent assigned so I can pick the one I want for the month

It’s still overcast and a bit dark here this AM so the colours are not right, but you get the idea, I hope.

I would share it, but I have yet to figure out a simple, straight-forward explanation of the printing.  It will vary from month to month!  A month that has a one day “week” at the beginning or end?  Makes sense to group it with the following (or previous) week cause you really don’t need a WaaG page for one day!  Odd number days may need a “filler” sheet to make the WaaG page fall on the left.  The full, Monday to Sunday weeks are easy to explain.  The other ones?  not so much.

That is a weird contradiction.  I always use a printed calendar in the Sunday to Saturday format.  Planners, desk calendars, etc, I always think of the first day of the week as a Monday.  Monday to Friday is the week, Saturday and Sunday the weekend.  Like I said, just how my mind works…

Anyway, I may still share it if anyone is keen, cause I made it and I might as well.  But I might have a further think on what to add to accommodate those who want a more standard planner, without the At a Glance sheets (or with fewer of them)

Any and all comments on the design would be great to hear.  What am I missing that I need?

Planner/Smash book flags cutting file

I’m interested to see how this works. I made a set of tags and flags for planners, etc. Well I went ahead and made a cutting file (.svg) for them.

 

To be honest, I don’t have the kind of cutting machine that lets me scan and cut or alight printed papers with the cutting lines.  I can sort of make these work but it’s a bit hit or miss.  Inserting the carrier ever so slightly to one side or the other and it isn’t a very close cut.  But I had two thoughts – first, there will be those who can make the file work with the printable sheet, and second, the shapes themselves are cute and useful, so just using the cutting file to cut them out of patterned cardstock or paper would be fine.

The OTHER thing I wanted to test is to see if I can add a link to the file here by hosting it on UKS and doing that rather than using Dropbox.  So I’m going to try it.  THIS is the UKS hosted file.  and my goodness!  It seems to work! Astonishing.  It’s always annoyed me that I had to send people to Dropbox for downloads.  I don’t do many that aren’t in a format that WordPress allows, but I would rather have them downloadable from here.

So I’ll be curious to know if it works for you so LMK.

Quite a bit going on today.  I decided to re-design my planner, for a few reasons.  This is what I had yesterday:

This is what it looks like now:

 

I am happy with the layout but not with the colour. It might be a little too bright.  I’ll have to print it and see….

But for now I’ll have to put it on hold as there is a car that needs replacing. {sigh}

WOYWW 324 – long time missing

Happy WOYWW, all!  Wow.  It’s been WEEKS since I was able to join in.  My desk is in a shocking state.  That much hasn’t changed!

That sheet in the front?  Math. Ugh.  I have been trying to work out a printable planner thing and I am trying to figure out some rules.  The thing is, I want to create one that can be printed two-sided without jumping thru hoops (think I got that figured out) but I am also trying to figure out how to print the right number of pages in the easiest way!  I want to have the week begin with a “week at a glance” page, then be followed by seven DAILY sheets, then another WaaG sheet, etc.

That is a single page.  You can see that if you cut it down the middle you get two A5 sheets, with room for punching the holes to the left on one sheet and to the right on the other.  Printing double-sided give you three Daily sheets her printed page and one WaaG sheet.  What I want is the WaaG page always on the LEFT with the first week day on the right.  I calculate 53 Sundays in 2016 so what I think I need is 53 pages like the above (with two side-by-side Daily sheets on the back) then 52 pages with 4 Daily sheets) and I’ll get what I need.  This is the sort of planner I used back before I used iCal and I miss it. I’m not one of those people who use their phone for everything.  I like the comfort of pen&paper so am keen to get this sorted out so I can use it along with the online shared calendar.

 

Also a few knitted baby beanies, some loom-band stuff for DD, and some 2016 calendar stuff.  first task is to excavate down to some clear space!

So that’s me this week.  Lots of craziness on all fronts at the moment, including some dodgy internet issues (AGAIN – damn you BT! just dig up the line and replace it, what’s £20k as long as I have a good connection LOL!) and probably shopping for a new car (mine’s been in the shop for a month and still no resolution) and DS coming home for a visit.  But I have been missing WOYWW so much I had to make the time to join in, just for me.  Can’t wait to catch up.  I think I may be browsing back a LOT so it’ll take some time….

 

CD Calendar – updated again, by request

I have had two requests from commenters/followers for this CD calendar to be updated for 2016.

 

A commenter found that the September month for some reason (probably my fault) retained the 2015 date arrangement.  It doesn’t happen often but it aways chills me to the bone when I find I’ve made an error with the dates.  I always try to be super careful in checking again and again but occasionally I mis something.  I am so grateful when someone else notices and lets me know so I can correct it.

Here is the corrected PDF

The worst of it is that the new printer driver doesn’t allow me to say PRINT, then create a PDF of the 1/2 and 1/4 size calendars with a click. It will only do the 1/2 size by duplicating the image on the page, rather than doing two pages on a sheet.  So while I can produce the 1/2 and 1/4 size PDF, they will have either 2 or 4 of the months and be 2 or 4 times as many pages.

 

I’ll have to re-post this very annoying lost function and see what people think – would you want to be able to print multiple calendars in the smaller size? I wonder….

Pretty printables for Project Life – and smaller, for…. you tell me!

I’ve added these for the UKS Project Life challenge today, but as usual I will also add them here.

The two-page PDF has the lined version for journaling, if you prefer to have a guide for your writing, and a sheet of the same cards, no lines.  They can be used as a base for your own creations or as a filler card, and a few could easily fit a small photo.

As I have been doing a lot recently, I will also add the half-sized version.  All 10 cards on a single sheet.  This size would be fine on a 12 x 12 layout, used as a card topper, as Smash book addition, or in a planner.  The edges of the motifs on many of them are quite simple and easy to cut.  There are some interesting possibilities there.

Have fun with them.