Beyond the Books ~ My Planner, a Funny Story

Welcome to Beyond the Books. This post was inspired by Lexxie @Unconventional Bookviews' Up Close and (Un)conventional, who was inspired by Cuddlebuggery. It's meant to be a way for y'all to get to know me better on a personal level ~ Beyond the Books. ;)

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Sometime back in 2015, Michelle @Because Reading did a post (Task It Tuesday, I believe) on getting organized and planners. She was lamenting the fact that finding a planner that meets all a mom's/blogger's needs is pretty darn difficult. So she'd taken matters into her own hands and created her own. She shared a prototype and it looked like something that would work for me as well. I decided to make my own. Problem? Michelle is a graphic designer by trade. Me? Not so much. But I do have some papercrafting skills so I set out to craft my own planner.

My original plan was was to create ONE page and then have it copied and bound. Easy, right?

I sat down and decided how I wanted my page to look, what colors I'd use, what design elements, etc. Then, on a weekend where my crafting girlfriends were getting together, I set about implementing my plan. Once I completed my masterpiece, one of my friends *cough*Denise*cough* said, "Wouldn't it be cool if you did a different design for every month?" I had to agree and went back to the drawing board again, so to speak. Here is a sample of my different months I crafted:

A few weeks later, we all got together again and I once again set about creating my 12 pages (one per month). I'd gotten to May when Denise asked an ominous question. See, I'd left a margin on my pages to allow for binding. Denise asked if I was printing front and back, which I was planning on because who wants a planner that's 365 pages thick? We flipped the pages trying to figure out the layout and realized my margin wouldn't work on the backside of a page. SO, I had to go back and do the backsides of all my calendar pages - in reverse - sort of.

This project had now taken about 3 days of my time - and some of Denise's. I've cut ribbon and paper, hand-drawn lines, chosen and written the headings for the different sections. But once I got my pages all finished, I was so happy with the results. I couldn't wait to take it to the print shop. While James was off for the Christmas break, we went to our local print shop to have my planner printed. We roll up into the parking lot and I was floating I was so excited. Then I completely deflated when they tell me it'll cost $182 to print and bind my planner. Aaaaahhhh!!!!

In the end, James had the print shop scan my pages and then he bought extra ink for our inkjet and a heavier weight paper and he printed, front and back, 183 pages (actually a few more than that with the printer hiccups). He also wrote in all the dates and circled the days of the week for those dates. He said there were times when he was thinking maybe the $182 would have been worth it, but he said it was a Christmas gift from him to me. And I love it! 

Here is the final product:

I'm really enjoying it so far. There are some things I'd like to tweak but I don't know how difficult that would be so we'll see if they're things I can live with. It may have been a very pricey experiment. But I'm hoping to use it for years to come since I write in the date and circle the day of the week. Only time will tell, I guess. Eh, it was fun doing the crafting anyway.