Each year I keep a diary, not a ‘dear diary’ type thing but more a record of what we have done as a family, where we went, who we went with, celebrations and details of them along with presents received for birthdays and Christmas.

I have kept this type of diary in a day per view layout since my first son was born 16 years ago.  It started as a baby feeding log and branched out from there as I added what we did and things he said day to day.

Prior to this I was always a diary keeper (more along the dear diary lines this time) and I have a wooden box full of diaries I have kept since I was 13.  To be honest I rarely look back on the old diaries as they are a little bit cringe worthy even the more ‘recent’ ones.

However the ones I have kept since we had a family have been invaluable from just browsing when my sons were young to checking to see what recipe I used for a Christmas item.  I tend to write things like recipe page numbers and the book or magazine it was from for future use.  Looking to see what presents I bought people is also helpful when trying not to buy a repeat!

I don’t remember all that we did and it is always a joy to look back and remember an event especially one I had forgotten all about.

This year I have my ‘Peanuts’ Limited Edition Moleskine large daily planner all ready to go, with January 1st and 2nd already started.

Alongside this book, I started two more planners last year and I am continuing with them both this year as they are both fabulous in very different ways.

I have a small day per view planner simply to write down what I need to do that day.  Yes, a book of ‘to do’ lists. This is so helpful for me to keep to deadlines and buy birthday presents on time as well as the mundane jobs like vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom. I don’t plan to keep this one as I do the aforementioned diary but I will be happy I used it to keep me on track and keep the floor clean!

Finally my beloved creative diary in which I use each page to create a piece of art every day.  It is a small piece of art and it is created on thin lined paper but look how full my book from 2017 is!  It is so lovely to see them all neat and compact at the beginning of the year and then watch them get fat with writing and art as the year goes on.

I decided in 2018 to make a sketch a day in my art diary to improve my drawing skills.  I am motivated purely by the fact that I want to see my book full of little drawings and sketches!

In addition to these I have decided to make a colour a day using watercolour paints.  Each colour will be mixed and recorded in a small sketchbook then the final mix will go onto a mini watercolour sheet with the name of the colour with the actual colour. I was inspired to do this as a yearly project by Courtney Cerruti who is one of the amazing instructors over at Creative Bug.  So far my colours are ‘vintage yoyo’ and ‘library leak’!

Are you doing a yearly project? I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew, I hope not!

Happy Tuesday x