Where Have I Been? & What Have I Been Doing?

I can't believe we are now only 10 short days away from Christmas! This also means its been almost two weeks or more since I sat down and wrote, edited and published a blog post. While there is not excuse for not doing this, I do want to update your all on the things that have happened, are happening and will continue to happen in my life. The first big obvious thing to talk about is Christmas, and how 10 days is not a lot of time and I still have so much to do. I'm not doing shopping or decorating or making holiday treats. The second struggle the past few weeks as school, if you follow me on twitter and instagram you might already know this. The last week of school was crazy for me with two large 50+ page formal reports due on the same day and then presentations of the reports following those due dates. I also had many other assignments and tasks to wrap up before last Friday and because I wanted to do my best on those, blogging came as an after thought.   In struggling with school and really thinking about my organizational abilities and my planning skills, it was obvious to me that the system I had just wasn't working. I purchased a small $7 planner from Wal-Mart and there was just no room to plan, write notes and keep all important pieces of information in one place. So I started doing some digging around, I discovered of course the famous Erin Condern Life Planner but wasn't about to shell out $50 for that bad boy. So Pinterest became my best friend, I searched up planners, ideas, designs and organizational tips and when all was said and done I started to DIY and create my own personal life planner. This design process took me days to complete and because it was something I wanted to be functional and work in my everyday life I designed everything from scratch using Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop! I will post a picture of my pretty new little planner below, although there will be a more in depth post on the pages, design process and inspiration coming soon! Below you can see some of the pages that I have created and what my planner currently looks like!  

  This leads me perfectly into my next kind of big and exciting news. While designing this planner and searching up the endless amounts of pages, stickers, designs and so much other stuff you can put into a planner, it became obvious to me that many other girls and guys may be looking for the same things I was. Free, easy and printable planners! In saying this over the past week, after creating my own planner, I have been doing some small DIY projects and designing my very own PDF, free, downloadable version of a 2015 planner! I have also spent some time making some sticker and other design elements to me placed into a planner. And while you might be thinking, why are you doing that?, the answer is simple! I will be posting these planner pages and add on's to my blog for all my viewers to share and enjoy. This has been a journey for me and something that I really feel like so many people could benefit from. My plan is to start with the basics of a yearly, monthly, and weekly planner. I will then build a blog checklist and blog planner and go from there. The most important part of all of this for me, is that it is going to be 100% FREE to all my viewers and readers! And hopefully this project is something we can enjoy together!  

  In saying all of those lovely little updates, I will still be posting some reviews this week as well as some beauty related posts, but look out for some more design and DIY related posts as well. This blog will still be a beauty blog but I just want to add a little bit something different to my blog and because I love doing design work I really feel like this could benefit so many people. If you have requests for anything you'd like to see my design, please let me know as I would love to make customer designs for you guys as well! Stay tuned for the next couple of weeks to see when my designs go live on my blog and social media and for all download information and instructions as well!   I do also want to thank every body who has supported me and visited my blog and social media over the past few weeks. I know things have been slow and lackluster but things are really going to pick up now that I have some time over the holiday break to do everything I've been wanted to do. I really hope that you guys will enjoy the upcoming content as well as the designs and new elements I want to add to my blog! Be sure to also check out my social media to see more updates on what I am doing and what's coming up on the blog!