November 16, 2012
How to Make a Planner + FREE 2013 Cover Page
You’ve seen oodles of planners all over, you’ve probably tried out a few. But they were probably missing something or didn’t work exactly how you’d wanted it to. If only you could just make your own, right? Well you can! It’s so easy and you don’t even have to leave your house (unless you want to).
Follow these steps and you’ll have a planner pronto:
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Decide on what you want in your planner – it can be super simple, calendar style OR you can make it homekeeping binder style.
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Write down the pages you want and what order you’d like them in
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Make/source/purchase printables for your planner – print or send to be printed and bound
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You can print your printables and bring them to a local copy shop (Staples, Office Max, OR have them printed at your local copy shop)- you can also send your printables via email to these copy shops as well), OR you can send them to an online copy shop and they’ll arrive at your door in a couple days
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Just to see what the process was like and because it’s a lot cheaper, I uploaded the following three documents (make sure that you have saved the documents that you are going to use to your computer so you can easily upload them) to bestvaluecopy.com (if you ‘google’ cheap color copies, you can find color copies for around 5-10 cents/page)
FREEBIE Cover Page – 2013 Planner (1 page)
go HERE to grab your FREE cover page
2013 Calendar (12 pages – print back to back)
brights version – in my shop
Brights Weekly Docket (52 copies/pages for 52 weeks – print back to back)
brights version – in my shop
- Then I chose the binding, paper type, front and back cover, and chose back to back printing.
 And here’s how it turned out…..
the cover
the calendar – printed back to back
the weekly dockets – printed back to back
I kept this simple – my 2013 calendar and weekly docket – you could easily do an entire homekeeping binder this way or break down smaller ‘subjects’ like Christmas, Menu Planning, Cleaning, Addresses, Daily Dockets, etc. The great thing is that by ordering and having this bound creates a ready-made book. And it will probably cost you less than $20. How’s that for a planner for 2013?
What will you put in your planner?
(my printables are used in this how-to – you can find my shop here, oodles of free printables here and I also have a freebie perpetual calendar (with chevron) if you become a Facebook Fan.
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Martha Says
Very cool! I love making little booklets!
Heather Says
Hi Becky. I really like the idea of making my own. This year I have the Erin Condren planner but it was sooo expensive. Can you tell me about the tape in the picture? Thanks
Clean Mama Says
Hi Heather!
It’s just narrow washi tape and regular washi tape – I love it!
Valorie Says
I love your planner! Can you tell me where you got the cover for yours?
Valorie Says
I’m looking for sturdy plastic coverings to protect my planner. Not the actual awesome cover page 🙂
Becky Says
Post authorI ordered it to be printed booklet style and that’s how it came – with the binding and the clear plastic cover. Most copy shops will print them that way – but this is where I get mine printed super cheap:
https://www.bestvaluecopy.com/
xo, Becky
Myda Says
Thank you for this! I too wanted something that I can design myself and work for me and my tasks. I love the Erin Condren and Whitney English planners but they’re so expensive and they don’t have their pages suited for my liking.