I’m Courtney, the owner of The Order of the Planner Stencils. I’m from metro Detroit, Michigan and went to school at The Ohio State University for Biology. I have a full time office job in addition to my shop which helps with the planner and book buying habit! I also love to travel, love Harry Potter, Disney, and Taylor Swift, and really love being the cool Auntie to my sweet (and honestly sometimes really really gross) nephews.
After college I came home from OSU and didn’t have any local friends, which put me into a funk for a long time. Discovering planning, and more importantly the planning community, helped me to start living my life to the fullest again. A random comment in a facebook planning group led me to start the Harry Potter and the Order of the Planners facebook group, which was absolutely life changing for me. The group grew to over 10,000 people and resulted in an invite to the facebook headquarters. More importantly, it introduced me both directly and indirectly to the best friends that I could have ever asked for, both locally, and all around the country. My shop name resulted from a play on the group name after I made a stencil for someone as a gift & someone else wanted to buy it. I panicked when I was making an invoice & it was the first shop name I could think of. Thus the Order of the Planner Stencils was born.
When I started my planning journey, I remember standing in Michaels for over an hour looking at every planner and insert they had available, wondering how I could ever choose. I ended up with a Happy Planner that I cut out magazine pictures and used Happy Planner Sticker books in. Once I discovered etsy and the planning community, I spent a *lot* of money ordering stickers and then having a lot of anxiety about when to use them in the “right” way, oftentimes waiting for the perfect week–only for that week to be comically awful and the stickers to be wasted. I also found myself wishing I were being more creative than simply filling up my pages with as many stickers as I could. When I finally saw someone using inks and stencils it sparked something in me, which resulted in making some stencils for myself and then for others. Someone posted a picture of one I gifted them in my facebook group & OOTP Stencils started after others wanted to buy it. At the time I didn’t have a full time job, so my business was a lifesaver.
Learning to use stencils in my Happy Planner, and subsequently my bullet journal has been the most creatively challenging but fulfilling thing I’ve done in a long time. Allowing myself to step outside of what others were doing with their planning and embrace my own creativity has been so gratifying. I feel like I will forever have planner peace in my A5 bullet journal because I can change it up to meet my needs whenever I need to. One of my favorite things about stencils is that I can stretch all the gorgeous stickers I get across multiple spreads and still have a vibrant, colorful, and original planner. It’s also fun to challenge myself to use the same stencil in different ways.
I think the biggest roadblock in my business has been finding a good balance between a full time job, living my life, and being fully present for my business. I struggle a lot with posting on social media consistently. I’ve been fortunate to have some amazing people in my life that support me, as well as shop owners that have mentored me and given me amazing advice. Monica from Peanut Butter Taco is a local friend that I had many conversations with at the beginning of my shop (and still do now!) that helped me avoid some of the worst stumbles I would have made otherwise.
What I love most about what I do is being able to teach others to embrace their creativity and stretch their planner budget by using stencils. It’s so fulfilling when people tag me in their spreads and use the things I create. I *really* love when parents let their kids try stenciling too and a multi generational love of crafting is born. It’s so interesting to see how different people can take the same stencil and make things so different and so beautiful. I try to go live in my shop facebook group once a week to plan and demo stencils, and I’ve had the time of my life doing make and takes and sessions at planner conferences. My shop has given me the confidence to put myself out there and step outside of my introverted self when I’m around planner people.
For someone starting out with a planner, my best advice is to put ink to paper (in whatever form you wish). Embracing the mess and the imperfection is so important. It’s easy to feel like everything needs to be perfect, especially when you’re bombarded with staged social media portraits, but a messy planner is a used planner. There are so many ways to cover up or fix your mistakes, but not using your planner doesn’t help you. If your child scribbles in your planner? You’ll always remember them for that day/age. A pet nibbles on it? One day you wont have them, but you’ll have that memory. If you spill some wine on it while having a glass with your best friend? You’ll cherish that on days when you feel disconnected from them. It’s taken me a long time to let go of the need for planner perfection, and I think a large part of that is discovering my planner style, learning to use inks and stencils to cover things up, and a really good sand eraser, haha. For a new business owner, I think learning from other shop owners is something that isn’t mentioned a lot. This year one of my goals was to stop being an introvert and meet other shop owners. It’s taken me places I never thought it would, and I’m so excited to learn from and collaborate with others. The mutual understanding is invaluable.
I’m really looking forward to next year for a variety of reasons. I feel like a fresh blank notebook is just rife with possibilities and I’m always excited to see it get filled, chunky, and stained with ink splotches. I’m excited for next year both personally and in my shop. Personally, I’m taking my dream trip to see Taylor Swift in Italy. My maternal grandparents were from Italy, so it’s always held a special place in my heart. When I got the chance to grab tickets to a show there, and to go with one of the people that has supported both me and my business for almost 10 years, I couldn’t pass it up. I’m really looking forward to setting up and using my Italy travel planner! Shop wise, my biggest goal is to (finally) launch my youtube channel to do more stencil how to-s, as well as to continue to teach others how to use stencils in any planner, and for a variety of crafts like scrapbooking, cardmaking and more. I’d love to teach at more and larger events, as well as online. I just launched my new website, ootpstencils.com and I’m looking forward to building that more! From a product standpoint, I would also love to offer more things to help with stenciling–like brushes, inks, and maybe even a notebook one day. I hope you’ll come along on the journey with me, join a live,follow me on social media (@ootpstencils), message me and ask a question, and step outside the sticker box to stencil with me in your planners too!
Thanks for taking the time to get to know me!
♥
Courtney
My shop has a variety of events going on for Cyber Weekend! If you’d like to check us out, head over to ootpstencils.com and use these special codes to save all weekend long!
Every order all weekend will receive a special sample stencil! I will also combine orders all weekend as I’m able to–but please put a note if you’re able to so I notice it!
*Friday, November 25 (Black Friday) you can use code BF2023 for 30% off the whole shop! There will also be some new releases!
*Saturday & Sunday (Nov 26-27) you can use code CyberWeekend for 20% off the whole shop. There will also be a vault opening of past wizarding and disney inspired stencils for saturday and sunday only!
*Monday Nov 28, you can use code CM23 for 15% off the whole shop. I will also be releasing new items and holding a few special Power Hours & Events! Be sure to follow my social media for more details!
You can also follow us on social media @ootpstencils on Instagram, Tik Tok, Youtube, and Facebook (Links can all be found here: ootpstencils’s Campsite.bio
