Project: Holiday Planners

December 20, 2008

Project: Holiday Planners

This is the project that our MOPS group did in November.  We took a composition book, wrapped it in wrapping paper, added endpaper and tabs for dividing sections, and voila, a planner that moms can use for shopping lists, meal planning, keeping track of holiday travel plans, and more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found the cutest notepad in a local stationery and paper crafts store, www.paperzone.com: it’s a checklist entitled, “Things you must do for the holidays.”  It lists probably over a hundred tongue-in-cheek items you can choose to do — or not.  I thought it was so-so-so funny, and at 6″ x 9″ it fits perfectly mounted on the inside cover of the planner.  I provided photo corners to set it off against the red endpapers.

 

 

 

This project takes about 1/2 hour.  Enjoy!

Supplies:

• Composition books - 1 per mom
• Cardstock (I used Astrobright) – 2 sheets per mom
• What You Must Do For The Holidays checklist by Knock Knock (www.knockknock.biz) – 1 sheet per mom (it comes in a 60 sheet pad)
• Photo corners – 4 or 8 per mom (these can be used to frame the front cover label and/or the checklist
• Cardboard or tagboard (I recycled cereal boxes — they’re the perfect weight)
• 24″-minimum-width wrapping paper roll(s)– each 18″ length will be enough for covering 2 books
• Printed sheets of holiday-planner-cover-labels and holiday-planner-tab-labels, enough for all the books plus some extra.  Note that I’ve provided 4 fonts to choose from, and each document has cover labels and tab labels in matching fonts.
• A 1 1/2″ or 2″ circular hole punch
• A paper cutter
• Glue sticks
• Scissors

Prep:

• Cut the wrapping paper into 12″ x 18″ sheets — one per mom.
• Punch enough cardboard circles — these will be the foundations for the tabs — for 5 per mom. 
• Punch enough circles of wrapping paper — these will cover both sides of the cardboard tabs — for 10 per mom.
• Use a paper cutter to cut the tab labels into strips, and cut the cover labels into individual labels.
• Use a paper cutter to cut the cardstock to size, 1/2″ shorter and 1/4″ narrower than the composition book dimensions.  Example: for a 9 1/2 x 7″ composition book, cut the card stock to 9″ x 6 3/4″.  Cut 2 sheets per mom.

Instructions:

1. Center a composition book on a wrapping paper sheet.  Right by the book’s spine, make 2 parallel cuts in the middle of each long side of the paper, about 1/4″ apart, stopping  at the edge of the book, to make a 1/4″ wide flap right where the spine of the book is.  Fold these flaps in.  Lay the wrapping paper pretty-side-down on your work surface/table.
2. Use a glue stick to cover the back cover of the book.  Center the book on the wrapping paper (so the spine meets the gaps where you folded down the flaps in the prior step) and lay it down so the back cover meets the right side of the wrapping paper.  Press the book down so it sticks; turn it over so the paper is on top, and smooth the paper down. 
3. Turn the book over again, so the wrapping paper is again pretty-side-down.  Use a glue stick to cover the front cover of the book.  Take the left side of the wrapping paper and fold it around the closed book, then smooth the paper down.  (Note: If you don’t fold the paper around the book while it’s closed, it will not have enough give to let the book close fully.)
4. Open the front cover of the book.  Fold the corners of the wrapping paper in and glue them down.  Fold the top, bottom, and side edges of the wrapping paper in and glue them down.  Do the same on the back cover.
5. Cover a piece of the card stock with glue stick glue and smooth it down on the inside front cover.  Repeat for the back cover.
6. Decide how many and which tabs you want (the tab labels have repeats such as “Food” and “Menus”) and where you want the divider tabs to go (how many pages for each section), and where you want them positioned vertically along the edge (do you want them to overlap, or be spaced evenly?).  Apply glue-stick glue to one half (semicircle half, that is) of a cardboard circle and glue it to the backside of the page where you want the first tab, so half the circle is hidden by the paper and half sticks out over the edge of the book.  Repeat for the other tabs/sections. 
7. Cover the front and back of each tab circle with the wrapping paper circles, gluing them on with the glue stick. Cut out the tabs you want and glue them on.
8. Apply glue to the back of the cover label.  If you want photo corners on your cover label, put them on and lick them.  Apply the cover label to the cover of the planner (or you could choose to put it on the “title page” like the one in the photo below).  
9. Decide if you want the checklist inside the front cover of the planner.  If so, apply glue (and photo corners if you want them, as described above) and apply it, centered, to the front inside cover.

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