American Crafts have a ton of cute planner & craft supplies, so when they bought out planners for 2018 I had to get one!

American Crafts Weekly Planner

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Quick Facts

• 8.5 x 11″ size
• Spiral bound
• Plastic vinyl cover planners with foil accents <3
• 144 dated pages (January 2018 – January 2019)
• 2 Page monthly calendar (starts on a Sunday)
• 2 pages per week horizontal spread (starts on a Monday)
• Plastic pocket
• Dates at a glance calendar
• Extras pages
  • Contacts Pages
  • Lined notes pages
• All pages inside in minimalist style & black and white
• Various cover options
• Tabs for each month plus a notes tab (with silver foil text)

The Cover

There’s a couple of different cover designs to choose from. Of course I picked the rainbow stripe! 🙂

The plastic cover feels sturdier than cardstock but still bendy.

The planner is quite thin (about 1cm thick) and feels light (weighs a lot less than other planners of this size)

At the front of the planner is a clear plastic pocket folder:

Monthly Calendar

2 pages per month starting on a Sunday.

The calendar has nice big boxes to plan each day (almost 2″ x 2″ in size)…

But it also has my pet peeve when it comes to monthly calendars. Multiple boxes sharing the same amount of planning space. Rather than re-starting numbering on the top row of the monthly calendar, the date boxes at the end of the month are split into 2 🙁

When planners do this I use whiteout to cover the divider line and use date dots to re-start numbering in the top row. These date dot stickers from My Prima Planner would go well with this planner.

Weekly Spread

2 pages per week in horizontal format. What drew me to this planner was the sidebars on each page – plenty of notes space and a big to do list. There’s also a dates at a glance calendar for the month with the current week shaded. When I use this planner I’m thinking of replacing the ‘weekly inspiration’ section with a habit tracking section.

The weekly spread starts on a Monday.

Like the weekly layout but need something smaller? The Penny Paperoni Planner is A5 size with a similar layout.

Extras Pages

Holidays list

The planner was made in USA so the holidays are for the USA. However, the holidays are’t printed on the monthly or weekly spread so you can live anywhere in the world and use this planner.

Contacts

There’s quite a few of these contacts pages. To be honest, I’m not sure why some planner companies still include these – I thought everyone kept their contacts on their phone?

Plenty of notes space. They label the page as ‘notes’ but there’s 2 columns per page making it perfect for to do lists!

Tabs

There’s tabs for each month plus a notes tab (with silver foil text). The tabs are stuck directly to the weekly pages – there’s no divider for each month (probably what keeps the planner so light weight)

Pros of the American Crafts Weekly Planner

• Lined weekly spread
• Weekly checklist
• Simple, minimalist, black and white layout so you can go crazy adding planner stickers, washi tape etc. without them clashing with the colors of the planner
• Feels like it doesn’t weigh much, especially since it’s a large planner (feels a bit heavier than a regular notebook)
• Plenty of lined notes pages
• Large writing space

Cons of the American Crafts Weekly Planner

• The sidebar columns of the weekly spread are a great idea but they’re quite narrow (approx 1.5″)
• There’s no dividers – the tabs for each month are stuck to the weekly pages
• The large size (8.5 x 11″) means it’s a bit bulky for your handbag
• Rather than re-starting numbering on the top row of the monthly calendar, the date boxes at the end of the month are split into 2

This could be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it: there’s a national holidays list for the USA but there aren’t any holidays printed on the monthly calendar or weekly spreads (a pro in my opinion as you can live anywhere in the world and use the planner!)

Pen Testing

I tried various gel pens, ballpoint pens, marker pens, fine tip etc.! I was quite impressed that none of the pens bled through the page. There also wasn’t any ghosting except for the stabilo point 88 (marker pen) and even then, you could barely see the ink. This would have to be one of the few planners I’ve tried that didn’t have any ink bleed through or heavy ghosting.

The paper of the planner feels quite thick and is really smooth to write on.

Price

This planner is very reasonably priced (especially since it’s a large planner) at $30 AUD (works out cheaper if you live in the USA give the exchange rate).

Would I use this planner?

Yes, see how the spread turned out in this post.

Interested in this planner? My sister stocks it in her planner supplies store, Carefully Crafted (along with thousands of other planner supplies)

American Crafts have a plethora of planner supplies including pens, stamps, clips, bookmarks and stickers. They’ve recently bought out sticker books similar to MAMBI’s sticker books.

More Planner Reviews:

• Day Designer for Blue Sky Horizontal Weekly Planner Review 
• Weekly Planners That Start on Sunday (Planner Roundup) 
• 7 Planner supplies I don’t regret splurging on
• How to make printable graph paper in Photoshop (perfect for habit tracking and bullet journalling!) 
• Arcing my Plum Paper Planner – everything you need to know if you’d like to try it yourself! 

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