Blue Sky put out heaps of affordable and pretty planners each year in various patterns, colors and layouts. I’ve found I prefer horizontal to vertical weekly planners so when I stumbled across one of their planners in collaboration with Dabney Lee on clearance on Amazon – I had to have it!

This is not a sponsored post. I paid for the planner myself and all opinions are my own. 

Features of the Dabney Lee for Blue Sky Planner

• Letter size 8.5 x 11″ (other sizes are available)
• Frosted protective cover (the actual patterned cover is a shiny smooth material similar to photo paper)
• 12 month planner
• Wire binding (approx 1cm thick)
• Double sided clear storage pocket that can fit a lot of paper
• For a large planner it doesn’t feel like it weighs that much
• No monthly dividers
• Tabs for each month
• No notes pages
• 2 page monthly calendar (starts on a Sunday)
• 2 page weekly planner (starts on a Monday)
• 2 contacts pages
• 3 lined notes pages at the back
• Dates at a glance

Price: Approx $20 – $30 for Blue Sky Planners (Depends on what size / style you choose)

Related: Day Designer for Blue Sky Horizontal Weekly Planner Review 

Setting up the week

The weekly spread has really big columns so I figured it was the perfect time to try using 3 sections per day. Not many horizontal weekly planners provide enough room to do this (or come with 3 sections per day already ruled up).

The large planning space meant I could choose column widths that suited my needs. I ended up choosing:

• 5.5cm wide for the blogging section
• 7cm wide for each of the middle and right columns

These were great column widths – the perfect size for each section.

I started out color coding, using pink (as I usually do) for blogging, then I ended up just doing different colors for the rest of the week. I was worried using so many different colors would end up looking a bit busy, but I don’t mind how colorful the week turned out!

Solid (1 color) stickers are ideal for making lists, color coding, adding the time or number for priority to complete by writing direct on the sticker.

I wasn’t sure about using the header stickers as I thought the page may end up looking too ‘busy’ but it ended up looking nice and colorful!

To keep track of blogging workflow, I used hollow square stickers I made and continued with the same codes I’ve been using for most of the year:

• D = Draft
• E = Edit
• F = Final
• I = Images
• P = Pinned to Pinterest
• V = Video recorded & uploaded

I trimmed the header stickers to fit. Love the navy & pink color combination <3

Although the weekend is combined there’s still a decent amount of planning space for the weekend days. There’s no sidebar in this spread though.

All of the Blue Sky Planners including their collaborations with designers are very affordable at around $30 USD each (for the large and about $20 USD for half page size planners + shipping). There’s various styles, sizes and colors to choose from. I did a review of the Day Designer and Blue Sky collaboration in this post.

Supplies Used

Planner stickers:

All of the planner stickers used were made by me and are sold in my sister’s planner supplies shop, Carefully Crafted.

• Blog headers
• Odds & ends headers
• Meal plan headers (learn how to make your own header stickers here)
• Business icons
• Square checkboxes
• Heart icons
• Plane icon
• Cleaning icons
• Weekend
• Work and vacation icons
• Colored circles
• Movie stickers
• Calculator / bookkeeping icon
• Celebrate icons
• Yay it’s payday (similar stickers here)
• Mini icons – parcel delivery
• Meal icon
• Exclamation mark mini stickers

Related: How to use functional icon planner stickers

Want to learn how to make your own planner stickers? Click here

Pens Used:

• Papermate Inkjoy Gel 0.7mm (yellow and teal)
• Pentel R.S.V.P (Pink, purple, light blue, dark blue)
• Staedtler Ball 432M (orange)

The Papermate Inkjoy Gel 0.7mm are my all time favorite pens for doing rainbow spreads. They’re pricey but they write so smooth and the colors are really nice – the best yellow and teal pens of the many, many pens I’ve tried over the years.

Related: Ultimate list of the best planner pen brands and how to choose colors for color coding 

The Pentel R.S.V.P and Staedtler are both ballpoint pens. The Pentel R.S.V.P are more expensive – the main reason being because the ink doesn’t skip. You can see in the photo below how the Staedtler (orange) ink skips a bit – sometimes I have to write over the text twice to get rid of the ink skips. The ink was also skipping more as it was quite hot when I was setting up this week (the Aussie heat tends to make ink skip more / dry pens out). Overall, the color of the Staedler pens was a lot more dull than the Paper Mate Inkyjoy.

Pros of the Dabney Lee for Blue Sky Planner

• Lined weekly spread
• Lined monthly calendar
• While the planner is large (letter size) it doesn’t weigh much
• The colors <3
• Plenty of cover designs to choose from
• Multiple sizes to choose from

Cons of the Dabney Lee for Blee Sky Planner

• Weekends share the same amount of planning space as the days of the week
• No monthly dividers – the tabs are stuck directly to the page. The tabs don’t feel very sturdy
• The monthly calendar combines days of the week rather than re-starting the numbering on the top row
• No add on pages such as monthly planning, goal setting, checklists etc.

Would I use this planner again?

Yes, I really liked this planner. There’s so much space to plan each day and the lines have really good spacing (not to close, not to far apart). Although the weekend is combined there’s still a decent amount of planning space for the weekend days.

Catch up on past week’s of the challenge:

• Week 29: Plum Paper Me Planner 
• Week 41 (part 3): Daily planning bullet journal style (using a Plum Paper grid dot notebook)
• Week 31: Using the Ashley Shelly Planner for weekly planning 
• Week 25: Using the Erin Condren Teacher Planner for weekly planner 

Related Posts:

• Favorite washi tape for planning, planner decorating & color coding
• 50 Tips for writing a better to do list that will make you more productive
• Choosing sections for your planner: what to keep in your weekly planner versus a household binder 
• 20 Productivity & Time Management ‘Rules’ I Live By 
• How to color code bill paying in your planner (7 different ways)