In 2016 I lived by my monthly planner from Kmart that resided on my fridge. It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but it was cheap and practical and after glueing a couple of magnets to the back it was a bit of a lifesaver in our busy lives, telling me what what I had on when at a quick glance.
Towards the end of December I started feeling at a bit of a loss trying to organise my busy January ahead without any monthly planner to write everything down on. Up until yesterday I actually didn’t even know when the boys went back to school and creche as I hadn’t been able to write those dates down anywhere! I am such a visual person – always have been. To learn I need to see things. I could sit in a class and listen to an hour lecture and not take anything away from it, but if I read it or especially wrote it down and saw it in front of me it will stay with me. Even my shopping lists! I write a shopping list, take it to the shops and not even pull it out my bag. I know everything I need as I have a visual memory and writing and seeing the list was enough to make me remember whats on it (even though I always forget something!!)
Anyway so basically I hunted high and low for a new 2017 monthly planner, and the only one I managed to find was a star wars one and I was not going to be staring at star wars characters on my fridge everyday! I only found ONE!! I searched everywhere and only ONE monthly planner!
I gave up my search in the shops and went about searching online for one…still nothing!!
Now with school starting in a few weeks, weddings and hens parties piling up along with all the kids activities, my work meetings and deadlines I needed a planner ASAP!
So I did what I do best, when I can’t find something I like I just do it myself!
You know the saying “if you want something done properly just do it yourself”? I seem to live by it with my perfectionism gene.
So now not only do I have a monthly planner, I have a pretty one at that! I did it in black and white to save on printing costs – and to keep things visually simple so that it would just blend in on my fridge and not stand out like a sore thumb!
I was so happy with how it turned out when I had finalised the design and then even happier to see it in real life all printed. Then I ran into the issue of how I was going to hang it all up together so that it was practical and still looked good. The best part about my Kmart one was that it was a tearaway one so each month I could just tear off that month and have the next one ready. I wanted the same sort of thing with this one so I got thinking and after coming up with a few options I thought I would have a crack at binding it myself.
Now don’t take my word for it…I have bound mine with this method and so far so good but I haven’t experimented with it before and I haven’t had to tear away January yet to check if it works! Im just sitting here crossing fingers and toes and will cross that bridge when I get to it!
- I trimmed my calendar slightly before starting. It printed with a small white border around the smokey background so I trimmed that away as it wasn’t how I wanted it to look.
- I simply used glue! yup I glued them together!! I planned on using PVA but I ended up just using what was in the kids craft box as it was a similar style glue (maybe even the same but it didn’t say PVA on the bottle)
Please excuse the photos for this post – I seem to have missed the focus on every shot and it was too late to go back and reshoot by the time I realised! I would blame it on the summer holiday drinking but since we back to normal routine I can’t really use that excuse…I guess my one excuse for some of them was that I was shooting with one hand while using the other. I really need to train one of the kids up as my little mini photographer!!
- It was quite simple to do. All I did was line up my pages so that they were all square and in line. I placed them on a hard surface wth the edges hanging over the edge slightly, then I added a heavy weight to the top of them to keep them in place. This left the exposed edges of the 13 pages which I wanted to bind facing me. I then used a small paintbrush and painted on the glue to them. That easy!!
- I did one coat, waited for it to dry and then did another. I ended up doing 4 coats to be sure they were all well bonded together.
- Then I double sided taped the last page to a backing board and voila!! Having the trimmed calendar on the black A3 backing board gives it a bit of depth and frames it up beautifully! I couldn’t be happier!
Anyway if you are anything like me and thrive on organisation and planning ahead then I hope you enjoy…or at least I hope it gives you a bit of a helping hand in these chaotic lives we lead!
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PRINTABLE MONTHLY PLANNER
DISCLAIMER
This free printable monthly planner is for personal use only. You can print and reproduce for personal use in any amount you wish. The physical product resulting from printing the files is not allowed to be sold in any way or form. The original digital files or edits of it are not allowed to redistributed and sold.
I hope that you enjoy and have a happy and organized 2017
Love Tarryn
xxx
2 Comments
love the monthly planner … I also have great difficulty finding one here in Sydney. The one I use is an A5 sized booklet one – each page opens up to a month. I love this format as it’s small enough to carry around in my handbag. The shop that I buy it from has just closed down so I may hv to use your sheets to make up my own! Please do create one for 2019! And yes I start needing mine around Oct!
oh I would love to see an example of your one and see if I can make one like that! I am always caught out without mine out and about with me.