That new year planning energy is everywhere again, and whilst some places go a bit overboard, I do love the energy and that sense of possibilities in the new year. This year certainly has more of a positive, leave-last-year-in-last-year sense about it, even if it's started a bit more like 2020 than we would have liked.
If one of your intentions for this year is to be more organised or more thoughtful about looking after yourself and/or your business, then one great way of doing that on your own terms is by tailoring a planner to suit you. Bullet Journaling is a trendy term for one approach, but more generally adapting a journal/notebook to becoming a planner for you is great fun and can be a really effective tool too.
And guess what can help you make those planner pages look and function beautifully for you. Yup, stamps (obviously!)! And to give you a few ideas and help you out here are some tips!
Stamping straight in your planner
There’s no limit to how creative you can be in your layouts – some can take hours of joyful preparation, but others you just want to get the framework down and start using it asap. Stamping into your planner can really help speed up some of this process and it’s easy to do. The key to it is the ink that you choose and making sure it’s compatible with your planner paper and the time you have to hand. Just like paper itself, ink can vary widely with different brands having different consistencies, depth of colour and how quickly they dry. If your planner has good quality paper then you will be able to get away with a slower drying craft ink but if you’re just using a basic notebook you will want one that dries more quickly.
The inks that I have online now are a slower drying craft ink (Versacolor). You can also find a new Ink to the shop called Sta-zon which dries faster and works on nearly all surfaces (including plastic envelopes!).
Once you’ve got the right ink it’s time to stamp in your planner! The automatic thing for many is to have the ink pad on the table and press the stamp down on it. But there’s another way, which is especially helpful if you want to use a few different colours – do it the other way around! Instead hold the stamp with the stamp face up, then dab the ink pad on to the stamp gently as this way you’ll have a bit more control over the amount of ink transferred too!
Planner layouts using stamps
Mix it up a bit! You can use your stamps as headers/footers and to split off different areas, and you can use different colours to fit in with any colour scheme you might have going too. What about stamping on to washi tape (or beautiful wrapping paper) to stick into your planner? You can use the more decorative stamps in many ways too to help theme and structure your layout. One piece of advice I would give is to do the stamping for your layouts first before adding other things in around them – it’s makes it easier to ensure you’ve got enough space and gives them a chance to dry if you want to colour them in too.
Minimalist spreads
If you prefer a simpler, quieter planner page stamps can really help you. One of the most effective methods is using Single letters/Numbers for headers. Alternatively, you might want a uniformed-font header stamped on the page and you could draw simple lines to give the layout a wire-like structure.
Nordic Folk Alphabet Clear Stamp Set
Using a Chronodex
Clear Bullet Journal Stamps - Chronodex and Goal Setting Words
Habit tracking
Keep it simple and they can be useful without seeming overwhelming. And they can look so lovely in your planner too. Whether you have a simple table for the week, use a calendar stamp per habit to colour in as you go along, or have a row of apples for every time you eat a piece of fruit, make it fun and seeing it come to life as you fill it in is great fun!
Clear Bullet Journal Stamps - Perpetual Calendars and Trackers
Hopefully this has helped give you some ideas and useful tips! I do have a Perfect Planners Pinterest Board full of ideas of how you can incorporate stamps into your planners, and of course it’s a goldmine of inspiration in all planner inspiration generally too.
And if you do find this useful and use it for pulling together your own planner spreads do tag us so we can have a peek - I do love a nosey!