You know, I am a notebook and planner lover. But I don’t like planners, which come complete with tables, and numbers on the pages, and especially – God forbid! – with the days and dates already set! I prefer pure white pages, which inspire me to write, to draw, to make plans in the way I want to. There is not only one way to organize our days and life. Everyone has his or her own way and attitude.
So now I will show you how easy it is to create your own planner, even though if you don’t have any special instruments such as these wonderful book binding machines.
The preparations
First you have to consider the style of your planner. I decided mine to be “very girly”, so the cover and the separators had to be with flowers. The design I chose was a printable Be Brave, Girl Planner paper pack + planner stickers from Etsy, and I printed it in the nearest stationery shop…
Second, still in the stationery shop, I cut up the parts which I didn’t want to be laminated and laminated the ones which I decided to use as covers and page separators.
The thing that I like in this design is that you receive not only stickers with inspirational quotes, but also simple clear ones to make your own notes in the same style.
Then I cut out the unnecessary parts of the lamination and the paper…
…and rounded the edges. If I am honest, I prefer angled, not round edges, as a design. But they are very uncomfortable and sharp when the paper is laminated.
Making the Girly planner covers
If you have an old spiral notebook, which you don’t want to keep, use it! The only important thing is the wire spiral of your notebook to not be an infinity style, but like this:
So, open it and take out the paper sheets.
But keep the cover, because it will be your template for all the holes you will have to make over the next maybe hour or two? If I have to be honest, maybe this Planner project would possibly still not be finished, if my husband hadn’t helped me. God bless his strong hands!
To be sure that everything will be perfect, fix the old cover to the new one with some masking tape. You know – laminated surfaces are slippery…
After marking the places of the holes…
… to make symmetric holes in both covers, fix them together “face to face”.
Making the pages
Before the best part – putting the planner together, there is a bit of a heavy work. Making the pages. Of course, you can buy a page pack from the shop but if you truly want to DIY your Girly planner from scratch, you have to make the pages too…
I did it by folding in half A4 (almost a letter size) office paper sheets, cutting off the unnecessary parts, marking the places for the holes and punching the holes.
I am really very thankful for my husband’s help, because otherwise I would maybe still be making holes…
Putting the Girly planner together
Now comes the time for the biggest pleasure – deciding where will be the white pages and where will be the coloured pages.
After putting the parts together and closing the spiral,
…it is time to make the bookmarks. For this step I used all the small pieces from the laminated paper, which I cut when making the covers and coloured pages.
First mark again where the holes will be and how much the bookmarks will show above the pages.
Then make the holes and cut a simple line with the scissors. This will make the bookmarks movable.
Then put them in their places.
See how it looks? Great! I like it!
Something extra
I didn’t want all the inspirational words and free note stickers to disappear somewhere in my workspace. So, I decided to make an envelope pocket to keep them together inside the planner body.
For this I decorated the bottom of an envelope with a piece of the paper and made some holes. Actually, the envelope was a bit bigger, so I cut the bottom, but didn’t glue it. The spiral is enough to hold all the notes and stickers
Then I decorated a bit the pages with the inspirational stickers and… my Girly planner was ready!
Hope you will find this idea helpful and will use the stay-at-home-time to create wonderful planners to change your life for better.
Be safe and create!
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Thank you for helping me! ♥
If you like paper flowers, why not to see this article about How to make Iceland poppies… More detailed instructions – in my Etsy shop:
