Good Monday morning!
Am I a bit too chipper for you? The truth is, I love Mondays and I love snow, and today the two make quite a striking couple from where I sit.
I'm feeling very grateful and content, which is an ideal way to approach this Thanksgiving week and beginning of the Christmas season. And it's also a great way to start off my focus for the next few days: creatively chasing the joy-killers frantic and broke from the holidays. My goal is to send you off with all sorts of free and easily-accessible resources that will save you both time and money as you move forward with all of the things you want to accomplish over the next month.
This is a busy week, so I'll try my best to keep things short, sweet & simple. Here's the basic outline:
- ORGANIZATION
- GIFT PACKAGING
- CHRISTMAS CARDS
- RECIPES
- LAYOUTS
Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A-B-C, when you plan you begin with O-R-G... Okay, cheesy. But admit it--you were at least tempted to sing along.
If you're not organized to some degree, there will be no avoiding frantic and broke. So I would like to share some ideas and printables that you can use to get plans down on paper and keep track of all the details.
This is a mini accordion file I decorated and labeled last year to help me keep track of gift receipts. There's a section for each member of my family and one in the back for everyone else. This was a lifesaver. Notice that I didn't put a year on it. I will reuse it until it falls apart.
And this year I'll be printing off a few of these to tuck inside, courtesy of Atypical Type A.
Remember last Monday's WCS feature by the sisters of eighteen25? On this guest post at Under the Sycamore, they offer a free download and step-by-step instructions for how to put together this cute and practical planner.
Giver's Log offers a very thorough Ultimate Holiday Checklist (both a filled-in and a blank version). Jump in on Week 4 and fight that tendency toward procrastination!
If you're anything like me (i.e., you consider organization to be a worthy form of recreation), you may swoon at the sight of the Christmas planning ebook and slew of printables over at Life...Your Way.
Forget plain white scratch paper. Allsorts gives us a much more cheerful way to create our to-do lists this year.
And team member Celeste Smith not only offers a free to-do list download, she explains how to make those sheets into a pad!
Perhaps you have the desire to do Ali Edwards' December Daily, which is very feasible now that you're taking the steps to plan ahead ;) That link is full of information and resources. And our own Karen Grünberg provides this free download of adorable Christmas tree days which can be used as layered templates.
I hope you're inspired to get a handle on your plans as you utilize some of these free resources. Please leave a comment and let me know if you do!
