Live Simply Setup and Spiral Planner Hacks and Tips

Is there anything better than a brand new planner to set up? It’s Cara here today and I’ve got the gorgeous Live Simply planner all set up for August.

I started with the birthdays for August, I created a bookmark that I punched and added in. I stuck a few sticky notes to it so that I can jot down the birthdays and important dates for each moth and then take that and copy it into the monthly and weekly spreads. Or I can remove the bookmark itself and flip to the current month.

For the August dashboard, I wanted to add a little something extra so I made a little flip flap tip-in from one of the 4x4 elements! It is also punched in and it’s backed with the pretty floral Gather Beauty patterned paper and then decorated. The front has stickers (of course!) and the heart is fussy cut from a 2x2 element.

The label on the back is from the bits and pieces pack and ‘enjoy’ is on the big combo sticker sheet.   

The monthly spread is filled with some of my favourite stickers from the Live Simple sticker tablet. I used some washi to mark off events that run over a few days. I love the soft colours here contrasted with the pops of that almost-black grey.

Next up is the weekly spread. I’ve added lots of labels and boxes from the 4x6 stickers and the sticker tablet. They are a fantastic was to highlight things that are important or just make them look fancier than simply written on the page. The floral washi makes a great border along the bottom and that cutie pie bow is the perfect finishing touch!

I made a cute pocket from paper from the 6x8 pad. It’s simply folded and then hole punched with a notebook punch. I can put the 4x6 sticker sheets in here, a card wrapped with washi and some spare cards for planning on the go. The pocket can be moved into each current month (or week!) as the year goes by.

I’ve also added an elastic to the inside of the back cover of the planner. This will be great to keep my planner closed when I throw it in my bag and take it along with me.

So I have added a few things to the coils of this planner, as I’ve said, so don’t ever feel restricted by the spiral binding. It’s easy to add pockets, flaps and bookmarks as you’ve seen and even extra pages in the same way. The extra elastic to keep the cover closed was super simple and there are even some book mark ribbons in there too. If you’d like to see the tutorials for these additions, pop over to this video: Spiral Planner Hacks and my process for this setup is coming to my YouTube channel on Monday.

Happy planning!