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All About Planners

Printable planners to organize your home, business and life!

August 31, 2018

Dabney Lee for Blue Sky Horizontal Weekly Planner Review

After posting this weekly spread I received a few emails from readers requesting a full review of the planner… so here it is!

Quick facts

  • Size: 8″ high x 10.5″ long
  • Wire binding
  • Softcover (no personalisation optional)
  • This belongs to page in case your planner is lost
  • Dates at a glance
  • Inside pages that match the color scheme of the cover
  • 2 page weekly spread (starts on Monday)
  • 1 Page monthly calendar (starts on Sunday) – landscape page orientation + lists page for each month
  • Extras pages – medical contacts, travel checklist, grocery list etc.
  • Lined notes pages
  • Tabs

Let’s take a closer look!

To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon).

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more planner videos!

Click here for my review of the Day Designer for Blue Sky Planner that is also in landscape page orientation format.

The Cover

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review horizontal vertical monday start wide columns colorful chevron wire binding pros and cons

Rather than laminate or a hardcover, the planner has a cover that is glossy but very thin, with this frosted cover to protect it.

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates australia all about planners

Very thin – just over 1cm thick.

If you like planning using stickers and washi tape you may have to rip out pages as you use them as the coil is quite small.

blue sky planner review horiontal weekly vertical wide columns thin lightweight landscape page orientation made in the usa cute functional affordable

Important Dates

With lined writing space! Because of the page orientation you could divide each month into 2 vertical columns to create even more space (and you’d still have a decent width to write in)

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates

Monthly Calendar

Week starts on a Sunday (not consistent with the weekly spread that starts on Monday)

USA holidays are pre-printed in tiny font so they don’t take up planning space.

All of the boxes have lined writing space!

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons monthly calendar

This planner does my #1 peeve – combining 2 boxes into the space of 1, rather than re-starting the numbering on the top row of the monthly calendar.

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons monthly calendar dates box

On the right page are 3 big, wide checklists with checkboxes <3

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons do call buy

Weekly Planner

Because this planner is landscape page orientation, the columns are wider than normal vertical style planners (which I normally avoid as they columns are far too narrow).

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons 2018

Each column is about 2.25″ wide. Saturday and Sunday get a full size planning space and there’s a huge notes sidebar.

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons large sidebar

Extras pages

In the ‘essential info’ tab at the back of the planner are plenty of extra pages – most of them are oriented towards a mum.

  • Medical contacts
  • Household contacts
  • On-the-go essentials (baby, school, in the car)
  • Party planner
  • Travel checklist
  • Grocery checklist
  • Contacts
  • Lined notes

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates on the go essentials

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates medical contacts

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates household contacts

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons grocery checklist

blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons checklists lined notes party planning blue sky weekly planner dabney lee review monday start vertical checklist functional list chevron landscape page orientation pros and cons important dates usa holidays list

blue sky planner review horiontal weekly vertical wide columns thin lightweight landscape page orientation made in the usa cute functional affordable notes

Tabs

Tabs for each month as well as a bit tab ‘essential info’ for the add on pages at the back

dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review horizontal vertical monday start wide columns colorful chevron wire binding pros and cons tabs

Pen Testing

I didn’t do a pen testing as the paper feels the same as a similar planner from Blue Sky, also in landscape page orientation, the Day Designer for Blue Sky Horizontal Weekly Planner Review

The paper feels quite thin so I was surprised when there was hardly any pen bleed through – even the Stabilo Pen 68 (marker pen) which normally bleeds through or has really bad ghosting in other planners.

day designer horizontal planner pen testing papermate flair inkjoy gell ballpoint ghosting see through paper quality

Back side of the pen test page.. hardly any ghosting! For a cheap planner this is better than I expected.

day designer blue sky horizontal planner pen testing papermate flair inkjoy gell ballpoint ghosting see through paper quality

Related: Planner pen testing in the Erin Condren Life Planner, Plum Paper, Happy Planner by MAMBI and Limelife Planner  

Pros of the Planner

  • Saturday and Sunday have the same amount of space as a weekday
  • Landscape page orientation gives you wider columns to write in for each day
  • Reasonably priced
  • Lined monthly calendar
  • USA holidays pre-printed on the monthly calendar
  • Doesn’t feel like it weighs much
  • Frosted cover to protect the pattern cover. Not sure what the material is but it feels like thin super smooth cardstock
  • Tabs for each month and a big easy to find and grip essentials info tab at the back
  • Lined weekly spread
  • Plenty of notes pages at the back of the planner
  • Laminated tabs

Cons of the Planner

  • Need a lot of space to lay out the planner
  • Not enough of the extras pages e.g. only 2 grocery lists is definitely not going to last the entire year – I really love the layout of the grocery list though so if the company made a tear off notepad I’d buy it
  • When you use the planner you’ll need to fold the pages back on themselves unless you have a large desk (i.e. you won’t be able to see the entire week at one glance)
  • The calendar combines 2 days into the one box rather than re-starting the date at the top of the next line
  • Can only buy from Amazon. Blue Sky doesn’t ship to Australia (I really love the style of their planners and literally emailed them to make sure it wasn’t an error on their website ☹
  • Too many contacts pages – medical contacts, household contacts and general contacts – bit of a waste of paper in my opinion since all of that is kept on my phone – would have liked to see more list pages similar to the 3 lists beside the monthly calendar
  • The coil snugly fits the planner so if you like to decorate using planner stickers & washi you might need to tear out weeks as you use them for everything to fit

Would I use this planner?

Yes, see how I tried it in this post!

More planner reviews:

  • Similar and Cheaper Alternatives to the Erin Condren Life Planner 
  • Using the Do It All Weekly Planner by Orange Circle Studio
  • Using a Kikki K Weekly Planner

Planning Tips:

  • Planning 101: Planner lingo (what does it all mean?) 
  • Finding planner peace: how to choose the right planner page size for you 
  • 10 ways to save money when buying planner supplies

Browse all posts

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dabney lee for blue sky weekly planner review vertical landscape page orientation functional cheap affordable chevron

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Posted In: Horizontal Weekly, Planner Reviews · Tagged: affordable weekly planner, blue sky planners, blue sky vertical, blue sky vertical weekly planner, bluesky planner, bluesky planner review, bluesky review, bluesky teacher planner, cheaper alternative to erin condren, colorful weekly planner, day designer blue sky review, day designer for blue sky, day designer for blue sky planner, day designer for blue sky review, day designer for blue sky weekly planner, day designer weekly planner, erin condren teacher planner alternatives, lesson planner, monday week start planner, pros and cons of the bluesky planner, review of the bluesky weekly planner, similar to erin condren teacher planner, sunday start monthly calendar, teacher planner 7 subject, teacher planner 8 subjects, teacher planner 9 subjects, teacher planner academic year, teacher planner and personal planner, teacher planner review, vertical hourly planner, vertical weekly planner

Comments

  1. Cori says

    September 1, 2018 at 00:03

    I love the idea of this planner, but it’s too wide for me. Thanks for the review.

  2. Susan says

    September 4, 2018 at 16:30

    Thanks for that good review Rach. I still love this planner & will be giving it serious consideration for 2019 as I don’t know of any other company doing the same layout.

    My Plum Paper Horizontal week to an opening just hasn’t got enough lines for each day so I have to go vertical for 2019 & this ticks a lot of boxes. Pity you don’t get any kickback for it.

    Thanks again 🙂
    Susan

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