My Planner

Good Morning Everyone ~ I finally have My Planner finished so I can show it to you!

Well I got  lot of my leaves raked up yesterday.  I wanted to get a good amount done as it is supposed to rain and I wanted to do it while most of them were dry.  I then worked on my Spring collage as I need to get it finished.  Pretty productive day since I had a workshop also.

Last year I took an online class to learn how to make my own planner pages.  My plan was to use our 6″ x 8″ Project Life album for the planner.  My first step was to create the dividers for each month.  I used card stock cut to the size I wanted and various designer series paper (most were retired as I wanted the paper to somewhat reflect the month it would be used for.  After I attached my dsp, I used some washi tape to put around the edges.  I determined where my holes needed to go and then punched them using the crop-a-dile.  Here is one of the monthly dividers.

It took me a while but I finally got my pages designed and then took them to Staples and had them copied onto card stock.  When I got them back I used the dividers to help punch the holes with the crop-o-dile.  I took all the pages and stacked them like I wanted them to go into my planner.  After using it, next year I will change and put the notes page before the monthly calendar and then the weekly calender after the monthly calendar.

I struggled with how to decorate the album.  Then at Christmas Diana Eichfeld shared her December Daily album and I knew what I wanted to do.  I used a stencil and some white craft ink to sponge on the design.  Since the cover is larger than the stencil you had to sponge it in sections.  To avoid small pieces that could not be matched up, I used post-it notes to mask them off.

After you have the whole cover stenciled and it has dried, I went back and marked where there were holes in the stenciling and marked it with post-its.  I then used the stencil to find the right size and direction of the shape and sponged the shape.

Once I had the front and back covers sponged and they were dry, I wanted to add some paper to the spine.  I created a template for the spine with an opening for the plaque.  I then cut my paper and cut out for the plaque.  I applied it with mod podge to seal it.  Since I wanted to add some extra protection, I covered the paper with a layer of mod podge.  I did not want to have the spine shiny and the cover and back matt finish so I used mod podge over the stenciling.  A couple of things I learned were that the paper for the spine should have been longer to wrap around better.  My corners are ripping as it does not have enough paper.  I also should have probably used acrylic paint as when I added the mod podge, the craft ink smeared.  Next year I will remember some of this tips!

I added a swirl from a die I had.  I also used our Butterflies Thinlits and some Blushing Bride card stock to add a butterfly to the front.  I used another die I had to cut out a die for the back cover.  It took me a while to find the ribbon since I wanted to use Blushing Bride.  A fellow demo came to my rescue.  I added some Blushing Bride sequin trim when I tied the ribbon.  Here is my finished planner

back cover

Stampin’ Up supplies used to make my planner

Thanks for visiting me today.  I hope you did not mind the long post but I wanted to let you know about some of the things I learned in making my planner in case you want to tackle one for yourself.  Have a Super Saturday and make sure you let me know what you think of my planner!

Robbie