If you are a paper-oriented person, maybe you already have a planner.
I have two in everyday use. One for my lists which I call my “book of lists” and there I jot down every craft idea that comes into my head, every “coin” I earn with my small business, every little thing, which needs to be fixed around my home or even in my life… The second one is my yearly-monthly-daily planner, in which I put the ideas from the first one that I am actually implementing and for organising any other tasks. Now, I have three, after I recently created my special Flower maker’s planner.
The precious art of craft planners
Craft planners are a great way to organise your ideas, projects, materials and finances. To keep track of all payments in and out so you know if you are earning or losing money with your small business. A craft planner is like a home budget, which every self-respecting housekeeper should have. I created my craft planner when I first realised I had become a craft hoarder and something need to change. You can find my craft planner in my book, “The healing of a craft hoarder”, but you can also create your own. Just follow the simple, well-known steps of planner creation: lists with needs, wants, ideas and then – tables and lists to organise them on a weekly and daily basis.
My Flower maker’s planner
As you know, I prepare and publish tutorials to share my ways of creating floral decorations. These sometimes include more than 200 photos for a single project and creating them involves a lot of moving between my materials area and my working area, with a camera in my hands. And even though I am sure – when starting – that everything I need is right there in front of me, there is always something missing which stops the process and I have to go and find it.
So, first I started making lists for myself. Then I started making drawings for my readers or clients. After that I realised how wonderful it is to have these drawings for myself, especially when I am trying to find the best way of making a new “design”.
Here you can see some of my “raw” drawings done in my own flower planner during the process of working. They are for the Amaryllis plant.
This is how it is actually organised:
Why a printable Flower maker’s planner
The photo above is the answer. If you are a person who makes perfect planners, with decorations, washi tape elements, beautiful stickers and keep the planner pages clean and beautiful all the time then you probably don’t need a printable one.
But if you are like me, writing and drawing and after that drawing and writing again and changing the idea many times, it will be much easier if you have some pre-printed sheets at your disposal. I made the printable tables first for myself, because I want to keep my finished projects clear and well organized. They give me new ideas and also help me to remember some steps when maybe I’ve had to backtrack if something has gone wrong with my work.
So, I can change the pages easily and, in the end, still have a beautiful, clear record of my paper flower projects.
This flower planner is easy to manage
So the whole idea of using printable sheets is that it is easy to change them if you make a mistake with your drawings. Of course, you have to rewrite the list of materials for the previous drawing if you scrap the new drawing because your material list will be on the back but you’re not scrapping a drawing!
My secret is: I print the cover (and its back) on hard paper and then print the inside covers (the ones with empty labels) and the pages on normal office paper. And using a loose elastic band I just wrap all the pages and covers together.
The hard paper of the outside cover keeps the structure straight and I can remove sheets or put new sheets in as and when I want.
The Flower maker’s planner main page
In the left page you have a rectangle with a very light greyish colour in which to draw the flower you want to make. And then, around this, are sectors where you can describe the different parts of your flower and do drawings of how to make them. On the facing right page you can make a list of the materials you will need. Before I started using only white paper most of the time, it was very difficult for me to remember the colour codes and the paper weight for all the different papers. Using this planner, it would be easy to write them in the material list and even glue in small pieces of paper as an extra reminder.
And that’s it – a simple table, organised drawings and list of materials for a real blooming project!
If you feel too lazy to draw your own Flower maker’s planner, mine is in my Etsy shop:
Enjoy your flowering time!
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