School Year Planner

Whew! This week I have been dreaming about school every night and I still have at least 3 weeks of vacation! It's no surprise that I was super excited to start creating a new planner/calendar for the school year. It isn't completely finished...I still have to add a larger sized o-ring for the binding (should arrive via UPS today or Monday) and I want to add eyelets and an elastic cord to hold it closed but I will show you the basic steps I used to create this planner.





1. Found an old book and cut off the front and back cover. I could've used chipboard, but this was cheaper and sorry in advance for the first few pics, I seriously took these while I was making the book....at night, in my craft room.


2. Recovered the book with patterned paper. I used this really cool paper from Paper House Productions called Impressionists. I can't find it anywhere online...so if you find it somewhere, let me know because I bought it at a close out store and I would love to have more!

Also, I used those big sheets of sticky dots, they are perfect for this sort of project...I've learned not to use liquid glue or tape runners after lots of trial and error with this sort of thing.


Here, I scored the edges and creased them to make a nice cover.


Then I put some vintage patterned paper on the inside covers of the book.



3. Printed calendar months onto colored cardstock. I printed mine so that the months would be similar to the color wheel rather than in rainbow order...August is yellow...and December is Red...and by the end of the school year I am using greens etc. Anyway, I downloaded and customized the calendar pages from this site.

To elaborate a bit on what I did to each calendar month...I punched the edges with a scalloped punch or my lace punch.

I added a piece of the patterned paper on the back just because it was pretty and I wanted it to be a bit more decorative.


4. I drew up my daily planning guide based on Geninne's Art Blog that inspired me (Scroll down to see her journal pages. Isn't she fabulous??? I just love her blog, it is so beautiful!). I made copies of these (front and back) to use for the entire year. I wanted them to be blank so I could draw pictures or write out instructions and since I rarely plan my weekends on those pages, I left the spot where Saturday and Sunday would be blank for sketches or lists.



5. I made a little pocket for the back of the planner to hold notes etc. and I cut some of my favorite Hambly clear overlays to put in the planner at various points for visual interest.



6. Okay, I went to Hobby Lobby to buy a metal binding o-ring and I took it to school with me to use on the binding machine we have there. I used my 40% off coupon on a new 3-ring binder scrapbook album while I was at Hobby Lobby.

After attempting to use the binding machine at school with the zutter o-rings, I realized that I would have to have a Bind-It-All in order to finish the book. I called both scrapbooking stores within a 50 mile radius to see if they had one customers could use...or pay to use...no luck. So I made a phone call to a friend that gets the news paper and asked for her Sunday Hobby Lobby coupon since I already used mine from the online coupon site. I went to her house, picked it up, went back to Hobby Lobby, bought the darn BIA and took it home. In my attempt to bind the book, I made a few mistakes...but I am sure that no one will notice...also, Hobby Lobby only carried a 1/2" o-wire or a 3/4" o-wire and I really need to use a 1 1/4" so I had to order those from the website.



The finished calendar is 6" X 9" and the inside pages are 8 1/2" X 5" 1/4 which is basically a sheet of 8 1/2 X 11 cut in half, this made copying the pages really easy.



And for the record, this calendar is awesome in person! Now that I have figured out the ins and outs, I really want to make a few of these to sell in my Etsy store to make up the cost of the BIA....I hadn't planned to spend $40 buck on that this week. Do you think you would want to buy something like this or do you know someone that would? It would be perfect for a college student because it is set up in school-year order.
Thanks for reading!