D.I.Y. Daily Planner

I've been disappointed before with different kinds of planners. I'm never able to find a daily planner that would suit my needs. There are thick leather bound diaries with terrible printing and usually available only at the beginning of the calendar year. They're either too big and don't fit in my bag or too small that you cant write anything substantial. 

Last week, I found a DIY post with downloadable daily planner cards. The best thing, to me, about these cards is that you can enter your own date in the boxes given and keep printing them out for as long as you want and not have to start the planner midway leaving so many pages empty. 

Well, that solves the planner pages problem. That was a mouthful. Now, for the planner. If you're alright with a A5 cardboard binder, then you just need to cover it, print the pages and you have your planner! 

Since the A5 binder file was a bit too big for me, I made my own planner! How, you ask? I took an old hardcover book of the size I wanted and ripped out the pages inside to make my planner. 

What you'll need for your planner:

1. Hard cover of a book

2. Daily-planner sheets cut slightly smaller than the size of the book.

3. Your choice of wrapping paper

4. Scissors

5. Binder clips 

6. Glue-stick

7. Ribbon (Color of your choice)

To make your planner:

Pick a hard cover book of the size that you like and slowly but carefully rip out the pages of the book. I used one of the pages to cover and hide the ripped portion inside the cover. Push the folded page down so that it covers the ripped portion and comes up to the edges of the cover. Glue the sides of the folded page to the cover leaving 2 inches at the bottom and the top of the folded page. You'll need that space later when you're covering your folder using wrapping paper.



Place the binder clip in the center of the folded page punch two holes (I just used a pen), through the holes on either side of the binder clip.

Place the binder clip back on top of the holes and draw the ribbon through the holes to tie a knot on the outside.

Tie the knot really tightly so that the binder clip doesn't keep moving, which will create problems when you stick the pages in. Cut off the ends so that the ribbon doesn't extend over to the front and back covers. 

Cut the wrapping paper keeping the hard book cover in the center with at least 2 inches to spare on each side. We left two inches at the top and the bottom to fold in the wrapping paper. Fold each side over the cover to create dents in the paper which will be folded in. Cut along the ends of the folded paper that we stuck on half-way earlier. Once you've folded in the wrapping paper beneath the folder page, stick it on top of the wrapping paper and to secure it in place. Start folding the paper along the dents and stick on using glue-stick. While folding the top and bottom sides, make sure while folding that you leave some space towards the middle of the cover (near the binder clip). If the paper is  stuck on too tightly then it creates waves in the finished product.

Make sure the daily-planner pages have been cut slightly smaller than the cover so that they dont hang out. Punch holes in the pages using a puncher all the while measuring the placement of the binder clip in the cover. Stick them in and you have a daily planner!Enjoy your new planner!Photo Credits and Copyright: All photos have been taken by Gayatri Kumar and belong to Look who's Wearing (LwW)