DIY 2014 Planner

Hello everybody!

I am back from my holiday and it seems ages since I've touched my laptop. 

With just a few days left before we welcome the New Year, some of you may be looking for a planner. It is always hard to find that perfect planner be it the design, font or pages. So, this year I decided to make one for myself. Just a few months back, I did a personalized planner for a friend of mine and I was so excited to do one for myself when my holidays started.

After much planning, I decided to have a instagram inspired minimalist theme. I invested about 5-7 days to complete the whole planner, from designing all the way to putting the whole thing together. The design was done in Microsoft Publisher and Adobe Photoshop. Let me take you through what I have in my planner.

To stay true to my theme, I first decided to make the shape of my planner square. For the cover, I used a thick cardboard and covered it with floral embossed paper. To add a girly touch, I pasted floral fabric tape on the sides. Then, I took some of my favourite pictures from Tumblr and cropped it to square images. I printed the pictures in sticker paper so that it is easier to stick on the cover. If I can say so myself, I really love that the cover gives me a soft and feminine feel.

For the front page, I added a binding cover sheet. This is for me to stock up my post-it notes. I am always scribbling notes and errands. I wanted to carry around the post-its with my planner and I thought that this was a good idea.

Year at a Glance.

Birthdays/Dates to Remember. 

2 years ago I had a planner where I had this page to take down birthdays and important dates and it was really useful as it gave me more space to take down information on my monthly pages. I tried squeezing in 2 months per page but due to the size and space I could only only put one month per page.

I used a cardstock paper as a divider for each section.

For each month, I printed pictures of my family and friends in square. Again, I printed this in sticker paper.

2-page monthly calendar.

Weekly calendar.

I like to be organized and I usually write down the things that needs to be completed that particular week. 

Budget sheet.

I like keeping track of my savings and expenses. Having a budget sheet at the end of each month would be really useful.

I am the type of person who loves using post-it notes for some reason. So at the end of each month I added a transparent sheet to paste my post-its.

Schedule Page.

While I was browsing through planners and pinterest for inspiration, I never fail to see schedule pages. Initially I thought I would have no use for it. After contemplating, I decided to add one page and laminate it. The reason for this is to maximise usage. I can write it using a marker and erase it so that I can use that page another day.

Task Page.

Similar to the schedule page, I laminated this for multiple usage.

Meal Plan.

Instead of eating school food, prefer packing home cooked food to school. As I usually plan my meals ahead, this will help me when it comes to grocery shopping.

Period log.

Hahaha, please don't judge. This keeps me prepared. Ladies, I'm sure you would understand. *winks*

Notes Page.

I wanted to keep this as simple as possible. I wanted the empty pages to paste cut outs and pictures.

I made a folder using leftover craft paper to slot in pictures and stickers.

I also added an envelope to store my movie tickets and receipts.

Definitely there were problems when I engaged in this project.

1. I wanted my planner to have so many sections that I forgot to keep track of the number of pages.

2. I used a 120gsm paper instead of 100gsm paper. This caused the planner to be really thick.

3. I should have done my research way earlier as the printing shops do not support hard cover binding. Plus it was too thick for wire binding.

I thought of making my own binder but I couldn't find the right resources and I did not want my efforts to go to a waste so I just used ring binders. This was not a bad idea as I could use it as a scrapbook also. The only problem is that it does not stay as well as most planners but it gives the self-made feel. Despite the challenges, the best part is that it was really cheap to make!

I had a few requests for personalised planners but due to time constraint I did not take any orders. Plus my toner was running low and my laptop needs to be reformatted. I made my planner in such a way that it has almost everything so that if I'm taking orders in the future I have a template to work with.

I am not sure if I will have the time to do another one next year but I am open to ideas and making printables instead.

If you are still wondering if you should get a planner, I will be making another post on how I use my planner. There are many printables you can purchase online if you plan to make one for yourself. Some bloggers are so generous that they provide free printables for their readers.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post! Feel free to comment if you have any queries!

Let's enjoy the last few days of 2013!

∞