A little share...

Today I want to share my take on athomewithnikki 's home management system.  I absolutely loved her idea (even the way she organized it) that I new I had to come up with something similar.  Where I live, there isn't a Staples within 200 miles.  So I had to adapt and research where I could get my MS goodies.  I found this wonderful seller on eBay who sold most of the items I needed to duplicate Nikki's system in BULK!  It was amazing!  Not only was I able to get all my goodies, I was able to get enough to make 5 systems!  Ok, seems a bit much, right?  Well, it turns out that I shared this idea with a few of my friends and they also loved it!  We ended up changing some things a bit, but for the most part, we kept it just like Nikki's.

The only thing I wasn't able to get my hands on was a calendar insert.  So I had to get a little creative (my friends just went to our local Office Max and picked up an insert).  But, me being me, that wasn't good enough...  I had this calendar/smash/journal book/binder that my daughter found at Michaels by Recollections.  It was so cute (but limited) that I didn't want to use it.  The pages consisted of blank calendars, shopping list, contact pages, daily document pages and very cute graphics on all of them (so me!). Then, like lightening, an idea struck me.  How could I incorporate these cute pages into my management system?  I wanted to be able to use them over and over and not have to keep buying a new calendar every year.  So this is what I came up with...

The original pages were too big for the MS binder.
I ended up copying (not intended for resale - perfectly acceptable as long as I use it for personal use only) all the pages that I wanted/needed for my system.  I trimmed them down to a workable size for my binder.  Glued the pages back-to-back.  Inked the edges to hide the imperfections.  And then laminated them so I wouldn't have to do this every year.
Now all I have to do is use a dry erase marker to fill in my calendar and I am all set.
If anything happens to these pages, I still have the originals to fall back on to make more copies.

Here is a quick look at some of the sections in my binder.  It is almost exactly like how Nikki set hers up.  So if you want more info about a section, please watch her video.

I made several copies of the shopping list that came with the Recollections Binder to put in here.  I also added some of the pockets intended for the Recollections Binders.

My WONDERFUL friend is currently doing Project Life.  She came up with these amazing inserts for her filofax and then was nice enough to put them on her blog to share with the world!  Thank you so much V!!  And the dry erase markers work nicely!   I am loving this system!

I had an extra binder and some MS pocket pages left over so I am currently working on a system for the holidays.  Mostly so I can keep track of card-making/giving, gifts and events going on during those chaotic months.  I will share it as soon as I am finished with putting it all together.  Again, a HUGE thank you to Nikki for sharing her idea.  And thank YOU for checking this out!