NDIS & Disability
Spotlight on a Planner featuring Nancy AKA Stationery Happiness
Welcome to Chasing Planner Peace's 'Spotlight on a Planner' series. We aim to show the world how planning has changed lives and showcase the different methods people use when chasing planner peace. This month, November 2020, we chat to Nancy, the lovely creator of planner Instagram page and YouTube channel Stationery Happiness and take a tour through her stunning planner imagery.
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Tell us a bit about yourself
Hi! My name is Nancy. I am a 40 year old married working mum of 2 girls from Adelaide. During the week life is a juggle of work, school, after school activities and mum life! And I am a self-confessed craft and stationery lover!!!
In my spare time I love decorating my planners, making cards, ordering more happy mail, baking cookies & cupcakes, watching YouTube videos, watching The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills and Orange County on TV, watching the series Good Girls on Netflix and spending time exploring our beautiful state of South Australia with my hubby and kids Miss 9 and Miss 11.
How did you get into planning?
I have always loved stationery! As a kid I collected stickers, cute erasers and pens. Going ‘Back to School’ shopping each year was my favourite time of year because it meant I could stock up on lots of cute stationery supplies. I also remember as a tween in the 80s/90s being obsessed with Dinky Diaries (does anyone remember those???) and at the Adelaide Royal Show every year I would buy the Sands & McDougall Stationery showbag which was filled to the brim with pens, pencils, erasers, notepads etc…it was every stationery lover’s dream come true!!
In my mid 20’s I thought I was too old to love cute stationery and I threw away two big boxes of stickers and cute erasers I had collected all my life! I wish I had never done that…sigh!!!
4 years ago I injured my shoulder and had to have surgery and a few months off work to recover. During that time I watched a lot of YouTube videos and discovered decorative planning. It reignited my love of stickers, cute pens, stationery and introduced me to washi tape! I bought myself a Kikki.K planner along with a sticker book and a paper lovers book, (thanks to Ash from @plum_mashable for making me fall in love with Kikki.k), and before I knew it I had a lot of planners, a crazy amount of stickers and over 400+ rolls of washi tape!!! LOL!
What products are you currently loving?
Wow, where do I start?!!
Most of my recent purchases have been The Happy Planner products. I recall 2 years ago buying the Memory Keeping planner with 6 sticker books and I told my hubby at the time that I wouldn’t need any more sticker books, haha!!! How wrong I was….I fell deep into the rabbit hole and now have close to 40 of The Happy Planner sticker books!!! They are great value for money, great quality and the designs of the stickers are so awesome and fun. I am currently obsessed with the pastel and the Stick Babes stickers!!
At the start of the year I was chosen to PR for the Beehaven Designz Buzz PR Crew Team. I am a big fan of their sticker kits and planner girl stickers, and I absolutely love the monthly Plan Bee Sticker Subscription that she offers. The quality of her sticker paper is one of the best I have come across and the vibrancy of her stickers makes them so stunning. I am very thankful that Melanie has chosen me to PR for her store for 3 terms now and I am thoroughly enjoying it!
One of the first sticker shops I discovered as a new planner was Tickled Pink Planning. I instantly fell in love with the adorably cute Primrose and over the years I have accumulated quite a collection of Primrose stickers and washi tapes from her store! I can’t get enough of Primrose, she is just so cute!!! Last year she released a washi tape advent calendar and it was honestly one of the most fun advent calendars I have ever had… Fingers crossed there will be more in the future!
Earlier this year I discovered rainbow planning in my Amy Tangerine The Happy Planner, and since then I discovered a store that sells the biggest range of rainbow planner stickers I have ever seen, Oh My Fangirly. If you love rainbow planning, you need to check out her stickers!!!
Another of my favourite stores is Washigang. I have been a customer of theirs for a few years now and the thing that blows me away about the owner of Washigang is that she has this amazing ability to source just about anything I find online that’s not available in Australia. I have sent her many product requests, especially this year. Her customer service is outstanding and she always surprises me and makes it happen!
When I first discovered decorative planning I subscribed to The Planner Society’s monthly planner kit. After subscribing for 3 years I changed to an Aussie planner subscription box, Planners Anonymous. I love getting a big box of goodies each month to decorate my planner with and the products in her kits are great quality and the art work is just fabulous!
I also subscribe to a digital planner kit from an overseas shop called CraftieliciousLoves and you know I really love her products because I don’t have a cutting machine yet so I cut everything by hand every month. It's very time consuming, but it’s so worth it…her kits are so adorable and the character Daisy she draws is just so cute!
What are your best tips for achieving planner peace?
The first planner I bought was a personal size ring bound and I quickly discovered it was far too small for me. I then tried a A5 ring bound and loved it. It gave me plenty of space to decorate and left me plenty of room to write. I love that ring bounds give me the flexibility of making my own custom inserts and allow me to move things around as often as I need to make it work for me.
I have found planner peace with A5 ring bound planners (mostly from Kikki.K but I also have a few Aldi ones) for my day to day planning, a Happy Planner Classic Vertical for my social media planner and a Happy Planner Memory Keeping planner to memory plan in.
I currently have the following planners that are in regular use:
- Day to day planner
- Health tracking planner
- Meal planning planner
- Budget/finance planner
- Holiday planner
- Christmas planner
- Birthday party planner
- Washi tape collection planner
- Social Media planner
- Memory planner
If you haven’t found planner peace I highly recommend looking on Instagram and YouTube at the types of planners other people use. Think about what you want from your planner - do you want to be able to remove pages or are you happy with fixed pages? Do you want a plain background so you can decorate it yourself or do you want a pre-decorated planner? If you are still unsure, look for second hand or out of date planners in destashes and give them a try. You will soon realise what works for you, and what you do and don’t like.
Most importantly, have fun!
For me planning is a fun, creative outlet and it allows me to relax and do something fun just for me. It’s been great for my mental health and it has made me realise that even though I am a mum, it’s okay to have something enjoyable to look forward to that is just for me. Not everything has to be about the kids (even though 99% of the time it is, lol). Planning has helped me to find myself again and has also given me the chance to meet so many wonderful, kind, like-minded people who share my love of all things planning and crafting! I am so thankful for all my planner & crafting friends!
You can find out more about Nancy via her Instagram page and YouTube channel:
Instagram: @stationery.happiness
YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCy3ChpraRQfGH7E-8bxy3kg
If you want to see happy mail unboxings, decorated weekly planner spreads and planner set ups, flip throughs of my planners, plan with me videos, stickers and card making…make sure you are following me on Instagram and YouTube.