Monthly Planners–let the creativity flow!

One of the fun things many missionaries do each month is decorate their monthly planners.  When you live out of 2 suitcases for 18 months or 2 years, and wear pretty much the same clothes week after week, you crave a bit of variety in your lives.  So, many missionaries decorate their planners each month and add a bit of individuality or inspiration.  I love looking at their planner covers and hearing about their decor.  Many have photos of their families or stickers or quotes with inspirational pictures carefully cut from church magazines.

Here are a few:Here’s what the planners look like before they are embellished:    Today at the office, Elder Taele was carefully adding some pictures to his planner.       Here are some more covers I’ve photographed the last few weeks:Elder Pulman assured me he turns this one around when he goes out.  He didn’t think about what would show above his nametag when he made it!             Sometimes I sneak a peak at the planners of our departing missionaries.  I smile when they are a little trunky, as seen below: Here is my favorite from a departing Elder, who told me, “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”  Here’s his reminder of that:

If any of you are interested in joining in with the decor fun, here’s an idea for you sent from Sister Wilson’s Mom:

Sister Lewis – – Quick question when you have a minute (do you ever have many free minutes?)… Could you please share with us the size of the monthly planners that the missionaries decorate? We loved seeing all of the personalized planners that you pictured and thought it would be fun to include some potential decorating images In our next care package. Thank you so much! 🙂

So here you go:  The planner is 6″ tall and from edge to edge it’s 3 5/8″ wide.  If you don’t use a hole punch (many have them so they can punch and re-do the spiral binding), you can cut the picture 3 3/8″ and it will fit right up to the spiral holes.

I’m sure your missionaries would LOVE photos of the family, or thoughts and inspiration from you to include on their covers.  They get a new planner every month and love individualizing them.