Hello, Friends! In the last few years, memory planning has become a fun and easy way to document your weeks. Thanks to its popularity, there are now several types of memory planner styles out there (including the Cocoa Daisy Planner!) Like most planners, memory planners typically come with a weekly layout that can act as the template for building your memory planning spread. But sometimes, as memory planners, we want to mix it up go "off-grid" to create a layout that simply ignores the planner page provided. This can help keep the memory planning process fresh and give you the opportunity to use different supplies like pocket cards. In today's post, we've asked the Memory Keeping Team to think outside the memory planner box and I think you are going to love what they came up with. With a little pattern paper, Casie was able to make this spread all her own!   Natasha switch up her Cocoa Daisy Planner page to create a "project life" style layout. "It is no secret that memory planning is my absolute favorite type of memory keeping. And what do I love most of all about weekly memory planning, you ask? Mixing it up! Each week I love to play with the layout and create outside of the vertical or horizontal pre-printed planner lines. One of my go-to favorites is creating a ‚Äúproject life‚Äù style layout using journal cards. I keep of a sketch of this design to refer back to especially when I have only a few photos that I took that week. To start, I place four journal cards from the Poppy Fields Pocket Cards Kit on each page. For this week, which I expand upon more in my process video, I paid close attention to how the bold reds and oranges were scattered throughout my layout to create a balance in my design. Utilizing this type of sketch also helps out with balance as you can avoid your photos all being clumped in one place. For this style of ‚Äúoff the grid‚Äù memory planning layouts, I use the prompts of the journal cards to structure my journaling for the week. When selecting the journal cards, I picked cards that would create an outline for the different events I wanted to document, for example, the weekend journal card was a perfect find to list the events of Saturday and Sunday. I really love how this layout style allows you to go off the grid but still provides a structure with the help of the size and prompts of the journal cards. This is a great place to start to dip your toes into the ‚Äúoff the grid‚Äù crafty life." We love Natasha's "unpocket page" spread and how she creates balance on the pages with her photo and color placement. We also love that she dated her spread using a title card style. I typically stick to the grid in my memory planner, but I also like to go a little "rogue"! Sometimes, the only photos I have were taken over the weekend. This makes it a little challenging if I'm sticking to the memory planner layout provided. I know I don't have to have a photo per day, but when all the photos are on two days, it's time to switch things up! I went ahead and ignored the daily column as if I was working on a blank page. I also clustered several photos together with a similar theme. The photos are the highest quality, but that is ok! I punched papers from the Poppy Fields Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit and the Poppy Fields Classified: Memory Kit to give the cluster a little visual interest. To anchor my journaling, I used one of the cards from the Poppy Fields Pocket Cards Kit and created a title using the adhesive-backed alphas from the Poppy Fields Classified: Memory Kit. When I'm crafting "off the grid" I do try and stick to the rule of threes and focus on three stories in the spread. The left page holds my first story and the right page holds two stories. I have a few repeating elements including the pocket card foundations for the stories and the repetition of the bold red, blue-greens, and pops of black. Since I didn't need the days of the week, I decided to use the border stamp from Treetop Canopy Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit to cover the days. I am really loving those cute quote cards from the Poppy Fields Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit and used two of them to tell the stories of this week. You can watch me put this spread together in my process video on my YouTube Channel.¬†

 We hope you were inspired to mix it up and memory plan "off the grid". Share what you are making with the Poppy Fields Collection by tagging @cocoa_daisy on social media or posting to the Cocoa Daisy Fan Page.

Best,

Rachel, Memory Keeping Team Blog Coordinator