Friday Free for All–End of Summer Style

Hi everyone! It’s Friday {woo-hoo!} so we’re popping in with several things that we thought were worth sharing with you 🙂

First of all–our annual Back to School Operation: Organization series starts Monday! You can see our previous series here for tons of inspiration to get your school year off to a great start. This year promises to be fantastic, some of our very favorite bloggers will be sharing their best ideas so be sure to stop by.

 

 

I always need to buy a new planner during back to school season–for whatever reason it seems like January used to be ‘calendar’ season but now everything runs on the school calendar. Anyway, I wanted to share two of my favorite planners with you and my thoughts on both the Day Designer and the Simplified Planner as I have now tried both. You all know from my line of paper organization products that I am old-fashioned and prefer to sit down and write things down, for those of you with the same inclination, I thought you might be interested in my take on the two.

 

 

For the last two years I have used the Day Designer by Whitney English and I really, really loved it. However, it is pretty pricey {your paying for all that style y’all!} and there were some sections on each page that I didn’t use. I also didn’t like that the weekends only had spaces for activities and no place to write a to-do list, as I tend to still have a list of things that need to be done on the weekends. Despite those small drawbacks I really loved this planner and will probably return to it next year. Both planners are all about planning your time intentionally which is paramount for me.

 

 

This year I decided to try the popular Simplified Planner by Emily Ley. This one is smaller in size than the Day Designer so that took a little getting used to. I do like that it has a simpler page design and each day only has spaces for daily calendar items, to-do’s, dinner and notes–that is pretty much all I need to organize my day. They also offer a coupon code for 25% off if you join their email list which swayed me to give it a try for this year. They have fun, colorful patterns too, the one I have is already sold it out but they have plenty of other cute ones.

If you don’t want or need a daily planner, Christy uses the Kate Spade Planner. This is a weekly planner, so great for people who like to see their whole week at one time and the least costly than the daily ones.  Clearly I am more of a day-by-day person, that way anything on my list that doesn’t get done gets transferred to the next day so I stay on top of things. I also use my Calendar Pad weekly system to coordinate our family activities and general ‘game plan’ too.  I hope these thoughts are helpful for those of you who still plan the old fashioned way 🙂

 

 

I also wanted to share with you my favorite new beauty find. Those of you who read us regularly know that I am a bit of a freak about using only natural and safe products on my skin {because of my lyme disease}. For years I have almost exclusively used Argonne and a few of the Honest Company products. I discovered this great company called 100% Pure recently and tried some of their make-up products and I am so impressed. One I am particularly hooked on is called the All Over Glow in SunKissed, it adds a tan-like glow to your face. I swear I look healthier and younger as soon as I smooth it on, it is a great find. I also like the Luminizing Cream, this is light-reflecting so you can apply places like under your eyes to really brighten them up.  The best part is that everything is totally safe, and most of it is fruit-based so if you are looking for safer products you might want to check it out! They have great specials, and I keep hearing raves about their mascara, that is on sale right now FYI, and I plan to try that next.

 

 

Don’t forget that you can still save $10 on your Glamour Farms purchase, we can’t say enough good things about the lovely ladies who run this company. I believe in supporting businesses who share my beliefs and values, that is always a priority in deciding where to spend my $ so I feel extra good about purchasing from them! Plus, the clothes are so cute–Christy looks great doesn’t she?!?

Speaking of modeling…we got new photography done a few weeks ago when we were together for the Haven Conference. You might have noticed our new sidebar pics?!? We had grand plans to photograph all these great new shots outside that day but right as we left for the photographers the skies opened into a torrential downpour…considering we had to have these taken inside they turned out nicely I think. If nothing else, we definitely had a ton of laughs together during our modeling session 🙂

 

 

That’s all! We have survived the first week of school and are celebrating by relaxing at the pool this weekend, we are absolutely trying to hang on to summer as long as we can around here!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone 🙂

XO,

 

 

Our posts contain affiliate links.  If you make a purchase after clicking on these links, we will earn a small commission, which helps to keep our content free.  You don’t pay a cent more than you would otherwise, since that would be tacky! Please see our full disclosure policy here.