Brush Dance 2016 wall calendars

Last week I reviewed the 2016 weekly planner and date book from Brush Dance. Today I have a large wall calendar and a mini wall calendar to show you. Like everything from Brush Dance, these have gorgeous art and wonderful quotes throughout.

First up is the whimsical Silver Stars mini wall calendar.

Every page has beautiful artwork with a new quote every month. Holidays are printed on the day spaces.

At the back there are reference calendars for the first four months of the following year, and information on the artist.

The mini wall calendars are great for small spaces like above your desk. You can see the entire collection here.

Next up is the Hello Love wall calendar. This calendar has images of Paris and is great for anyone who is romantic at heart.

The images are decadent and beautiful.

At the back are forward-planning reference calendars and information on the artist.

The wall calendars are large and great for hanging up in the kitchen or wherever you want maximum visibility. There is a huge selection of wall calendars, you can see them all here.

Brush Dance has a great selection of calendars, planners, journals and other stationery items. You can see their entire selection at www.brushdance.com.

Many thanks to Brush Dance for sending me these gorgeous calendars to review!

Brush Dance 2015 Wall Calendars

If you're looking for a wall calendar, check out the Brush Dance wall calendars. They are absolutely gorgeous! They recently sent me two to review, the 2015 Hummingbirds calendar and 2015 Live With Intention calendar. Wow!!

Each calendar measures 12 inches square closed, so when it's open it's nice and big with loads of writing space in the day squares. Each month has a beautiful image and inspiring quote. The weeks begin on Sunday as is the most popular format in the US. Moon phases and holidays for the US, Mexico, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand are printed in the day spaces.

Below is November in the Hummingbirds calendar. The photography is absolutely spectacular! Great close-up shots of these beautiful birds. I especially love the quote this month:

Below is the June page in the Live With Intention calendar. The multimedia art is beautiful and the quotes are positive and uplifting.

In the front of the Live With Intention calendar is a page about the author Renee Locks, her experience with painting and calligraphy, and what inspires her art. Very interesting!

There are loads of themes to choose from in the Brush Dance wall calendar selection, you are sure to find one (or more!) that you love.

There are also smaller versions of their wall calendars, check out their selection.

You can find the entire range of beautiful Brush Dance calendars, weekly planners and datebooks at www.BrushDance.com.

Huge thanks again to Brush Dance for sending me these calendars to review!

Experiment revisited: Large Moleskine Day Per Page

I know what you're thinking: "How many times is she going to try (and fail) with a day per page planner?"  Well, follow me here and see what I'm thinking:

Back in December I tried using my large Moleskine day per page as my planner. I was extremely inspired by other people's usage methods of it, and even my husband suggested I use it (which you can read about here). Predictably, it failed rather quickly, which day per page planners tend to do for me because I have a hard time planning ahead effectively seeing only one day per page.

Then in January (in this post) I lamented the fact that I haven't kept a journal in a long time, but when I was doing my large day-per-page experiment I captured memories that otherwise would have slipped away. In that post I wondered if I should use the large daily as my planner and journal combined. But at the time I was gearing up for my big move from Scotland to Indonesia, and I needed a big weekly planner to get me through my move.  Now, nine months later and looking back at my question in January, the answer is: I wish I'd used the large daily as my planner and journal combined. If I had, I would have captured so many more memories.

As I wrote in my Consistency is Key post, I've finally realized it matters less whether I have a perfect capturing system. What matters is that things get captured. In an ideal world, I would have time each day to sit and write in my journal. But that requires me to get and open my journal and sit down to write in it. In reality, it's my planner that's in my hands throughout the day so if something's going to get written, it will be in there.

I went back through some of my old posts including Past vs. Future, Planner Permanence and Planning Tool/ Record of Events and noticed the theme. I'm craving the permanence of having a record of my life in a bound book. Since I can't seem to get myself to journal despite my desire to do so, I'm going to do a combined planner/ journal in my large daily Mole.  Plus my ever-wise husband has a great point: combining planning/ recording and journaling in one book will create a very complete record of my life at the time.

I was also inspired by this post on the Quo Vadis blog, scroll down to #6 where she talks about how she uses her Textagenda (day per page academic-year) as a combined planner and journal.  Also I looked back through my Textagenda from last year, and even though I didn't use it for very long the combination of planning and journaling it contains is now priceless.

I hear you: how will I plan ahead with my day per page planner? I have a couple of strategies.  In the front of the Moleskine there are monthly planners, and in the Large size planners the day spaces in the monthly calendars are big enough to write in a fair amount of detail. I also use my WeekDate Wall calendar on the fridge so my family can see it. Because it has weekly recurring events visible all the time, I can picture my week easily.

I'm using my beautiful brushed leather Success Choice cover on my large daily Moleskine, which fits easily with room to spare. Some people have asked me how I'm protecting the leather of this cover and the answer is, I'm not. In fact just today I got something sticky on it and so now there's a mark. I try not to worry about it, it just adds character and the fact is it's bound to get marks on it because my life is messy! The Success Choice cover has a fabric ribbon placemarker, so I use it to mark the current month and the Moleskine's ribbon placemarker to mark today, for easy access between my monthly and daily views.

Because I'm using my daily planner as my journal too, I use it to capture ideas, thoughts, quotes and other random things. One thing I am committed to doing is writing at the bottom of the page at least one positive thing each day. It will help me see the good in each day, which will be an especially useful exercise on those really aggravating days!  And it will be a great record of things I enjoy in my life.

I already have the 2012 large Moleskine day per page planner, so at the end of this year I can continue straight into it. 

So, please wish me luck in this new experiment! I hope it will be permanent!

WeekDate Wall Calendar

I'm so excited about this calendar! Let me be the first to tell you: you NEED one of these.

Those of you who have read my other posts about WeekDate products know I love the "Only Write It Once" format that allows you to see daily happenings along with weekly and monthly recurring items without having to rewrite anything, ever. This calendar takes planning one step further by allowing the whole family (or alternatively, everyone in the office) to see the entire month at a view, including monthly and weekly recurring items all at once so nothing is ever forgotten, overlooked or double-booked.

Below is the entire calendar open with the monthly recurring section at the top, current month in the middle, and weekly recurring section at the bottom.  Click on any of the photos for a larger view.

In the middle is the main section with the current month. Notice that holidays and moon phases are printed on the day spaces. Each day's square is a generous 1 1/2 by 1 7/8 inches (my measurements). There's also a lined space for Whatever: notes, reminders, etc.  There are also reference calendars at the top of the page for last month and next month.

The days are color-coded to correspond to the recurring monthly section, so you can see which week of the month you're in. This allows you to easily see what events happen on, for example, the first Monday of every month, the second Saturday of each month or the last Friday of the month:

By looking at the color for the current day then glancing up at the corresponding day at the top, you can easily see if there are any monthly recurring events today.

The bottom section of the calendar is the Weekly recurring section where you write your kids' sports and after-school activities, your weekly staff meeting every Tuesday morning, your weekly exercise schedule, rotating dinner menus, and anything else that happens every week or every other week. The weeks in the monthly calendar are numbered so you can note "Garbage pickup even weeks, Recycling odd weeks," for example, and know which to put out today without writing "Garbage" or "Recycling" every week in your calendar.

Each day you look down to the corresponding column in the Weekly Recurring section to see what's on for the day.  So for each day you look up the column to the corresponding color-coded day for monthly, and down the column for weekly recurring events to see everything that happens each day, without rewriting anything ever!

To the left of the monthly calendar is a place to write monthly set days like paydays and bills due, so that these are always visible.

Here is a view of the back of the calendar with details of how the calendar works:

The calendar comes with a magnetic strip along the top and another magnet in the middle of the back, so the calendar can go straight up onto your fridge (where mine lives). It also has a plastic tab with a hole to hang on a nail or thumbtack on your wall or corkboard.

I originally pre-ordered my WeekDate Wall planner from Amazon, but weeks later it was still listed as Pre-Order while it was already shipping from Barnes and Noble. I was very impatient to get it so I canceled my pre-order from Amazon and ordered this calendar from Barnes and Noble. Sorry Amazon!

Click here for the WeekDate Wall planner page to see purchasing options.

This planner goes from August 2011 all the way through December 2012, so it has you covered for the entire school year and upcoming calendar year too.  And I still can't get over the price, less than 15 bucks!  It's more than worth it.

You can see all of WeekDate's products at www.WeekDate.com, including this monthly wall calendar, the weekly planner (which I have reviewed here on Plannerisms), their undated dry-erase WeekDate White (which I have reviewed here) and other products.

I am really looking forward to using this calendar to keep me organized and to simplify my life all year long! I love not having to re-write recurring events over and over on my calendar. I write recurring items in pencil, then if something changes I erase it, just once (without having to erase pages and pages of re-written entries).

Congratulations to WeekDate on another extremely helpful product.  Well done!

Be sure to follow WeekDate on Twitter for time-management tips, and follow them on Facebook too.

WeekDate White wipe-off wall planner

Many thanks to Kay at WeekDate for generously sending me the WeekDate White wipe-off wall planner!  You might imagine just how excited I was to get this!!

This is an excellent companion to the WeekDate weekly planner (which I am currently using).  You can find the WeekDate weekly planner on the WeekDate website, read my review of it here and how I'm using it here.

This wall planner can be used with any planner system, or independently. It's great to use at home or work so that everyone can see the entire week's plans.

The WeekDate White wipe-off wall planner has the same design as the WeekDate weekly planner, with recurring monthly events on top, recurring weekly events at the bottom, and this week's specifics in the middle. 

**Above image copyright of WeekDate.

The WeekDate White also has a blank space at the very top for notes, lists and messages.

The recurring monthly section is color-coded to indicate what happens the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and last week of the month.

Each week you write in that week's specific appointments and events, without having to re-write your recurring events every week.

The recurring weekly section is divided into three sections so you can use it for morning/ afternoon/ evening (how I've used it) or use each section for a different family member.

This wall planner is an excellent way to keep the entire family informed of what is happening each week, and for keeping track of each family member's events.  And it's especially great when multiple people are scheduling events to make sure that no conflicting appointments are accidentally scheduled.  Because all recurring events are visible, there is no risk of scheduling overlap.

Something else the WeekDate planners are great for (both this wall calendar and the weekly planner too) is reinforcing routines.  For example, if your goal/ New Year's Resolution is to exercise and get in shape, you can schedule your exercise on the recurring weekly section so your workout schedule is fixed. You can set times so that everyone can see when your workouts are scheduled, enabling them to work around them easily.

Another use for this planner is menu planning.  You can either write that week's menu on the weekly section, or you can write two menus at the bottom of each recurring daily space and have a rotating bi-weekly menu!  Everyone knows what's for dinner, and you can plan your grocery shopping easily.

The uses for this planner are endless!

The WeekDate White wall planners come with either a magnetic backing to hang on your fridge, filing cabinet or other metal surface, or a plain backing to stick on the wall or anywhere else.  The WeekDate White I was given has a plain back, which was perfect for me to fix to the wall with some Blu Tack.

Because the WeekDate White planners are undated, you can use them any time.

WeekDate White wall planners can only be found on www.weekdate.com. 

Many thanks again to Kay for this awesome product!