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How to Fix Pre-Decorated Happy Planner Pages

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Whether you are a planner newbie or have been planning for months now, you will have at some point pre-decorated your planner pages. In your excitement to plan, you jumped right in and grabbed stickers, washi tape, stamps -oh my! And to town you went. September is done (and it’s only April). October is done. November is done. You get the point. You are feeling accomplished!

A few months into your new planner and you’ve discovered your planning style. That’s good news! But, it doesn’t look anything like what your current pages look like. Now you are regretting having pre-decorated your planner pages and you want need to figure out a way to fix this mess.

How to Fix Predecorated Happy Planner Pages

Don’t worry! All is not lost. And no, you do not need to go out and buy a new planner. There is an “easy” fix that just takes is a little time, creativity and well….more stickers! Let me share with you my experience with this and how I solved the problem. Looking for more inspiration on setting up your Happy Planner? Check out my 5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Happy Planner for You.

I purchased my first Happy Planner in April 2016 and immediately started decorating it. As the months went on and I did more research, I realized I liked themed pages. When I came across the monthly sticker sets from Jump to It Designs, I fell in love! I wanted to use the September monthly kit, but I had already pre-decorated my monthly page. Ugh! So, now I had to figure out how I was going to fix these pages -without ruining the paper and making things worse. Below was my pre-decorated September monthly spread (before) and here is how I solved my problem.

First, I had to figure out a way to work with or around the washi tape, stickers and even ink stamped designs I had put in my planner. It all started with adding washi tape to the months ahead. Then I added a few stickers here and there (mainly holiday stickers) and this progressed into rubber stamping designs. Perfectly concealed under a hodge-podge of stickers, in my September month layout, is a big bright pink ink stamped butterfly.

It was somewhat ironic (I think) that they only sticker I could find to cover that butterfly happened to read ‘What you create does not have to be perfect’. Oh, how true! In hindsight, I should have tested the stamps on test paper first. Rookie mistake.

Before I even attempted to deconstruct that corner (which seemed both monumental and intimidating), I was just too excited to get this sticker kit on my pages. So, I started peeling and sticking away.

Beautiful, right?!! Yes, but look a little closer (at the header specifically). I couldn’t figure out why the days of the week were off but just added blank box stickers and kept working away. As it goes sometimes, all was good until I got to that dreaded corner (notice the big honking bright pink ink stamp). It was then that I realized, DUH, I accidentally used the Erin Condren sticker kit instead of the Happy Planner kit! Ugh!! Now I had two problems to fix! Lucky for me, I had purchased the matte stickers which are removable. Whew!

Tip: If you can, always, buy repositional stickers. If you don’t get it exactly aligned where you want, you can always peel it off and restick it. Most times, the matte stickers are repositional. The glossy are not.

As you can see, to prepare that corner for the new sticker set, I had to first painfully (and very gently) peel away the permanent stickers from that area. I used an exacto knife to pick up the corners and expose a piece that I could pull away. Tedious, yes. But, so worth it!

In the end, it kind of worked out that I accidentally used the Eric Condren sticker set because there were wood boxes left over (that I hadn’t used) and that help to fill in the rest of that corner. I added in some leaf, autumn and pumpkin stickers and viola! Granted if you look real close you can still see some of the black ribbon stamp peeking through the fall leaf stickers. But, I’m okay with that because the overall end result is just to beautiful for words.

Clearly, I wasn’t able to remove the ink stampings. They’ve only been covered by more stickers. But I was able to remove all the washi and most of the stickers. As I removed the stickers I just had to be careful to not pull too hard or fast and remove any more layers of the calendar paper than was necessary. There are some areas where the paper is thinner than the rest, but with the new stickers placed, those spots are given back their sturdiness.

To me, all that hard work was worth it. Look at this monthly view!! I’m am so ready to plan out September now!! If you are interested in any of the clips or stickers, head over to my Instagram where I’ve tagged the shops.

This poor September monthly spread went through not only 1, but five changes to get to this point! But, it was 100% worth it to deconstruct the pages and get them to where they are now, I couldn’t be happier.

If you use the Happy Planner system for not only you personal needs but also your business needs, you’ll want to check out planner tip #4 in this series How to Use The Happy Planner as a Blog Planner.

Do you have a Happy Planner decorating problem or conundrum? Feel free to contact me with your questions and/or concerns. Better still, ask your question over on Creative Planning Expressions the Facebook Group for Behind the Designs.

Happy Planning!

If you are inspired to fix your pre-decorated planner pages don’t forget to share by tagging me on Instagram and using #btdinspired, I’d love to see your work (and I just might repost your photo)!

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Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post. I just really love the product(s) I’ve willingly chosen to feature. All opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.

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