Personalized Planner

A while back, I bought a kit for a scrapbook. I didn't know exactly what I would do with it, but it was on clearance, so what could I do? The kit consisted of two decorated covers, blank white tagboard pages, ribbons for tabs and binder rings. It languished for some time, until I thought I'd try turning it into a planner. One of these days, I hope to have a phone/pda combo, but for now I need a way to keep track of "stuff".
The covers were great as is: clear plastic with a design in shades of orange. The white pages (so boring) I decided to cover with decorative paper and use as dividers. I cut office waste paper to the correct size and punched holes to put in the sections for notes, shopping lists, etc. I also created a calendar with Excel (my daughter will be so proud) for one of the sections.

To cover the divider pages, I decided to use Yes! paste. I think this works well for this type of project. It gives good coverage over the entire piece of paper, provides a good bond, and does not wrinkle. Wrinkling is very problematic with paper because of the moisture in the glue.

Here's how I apply it:
(You'll need waste paper, waxed paper, glue of your choice, tool for scraping/spreading adhesive, damp cloth)

Place paper which will receive the glue face down on a waste piece of paper. Waste paper from the office or your home printer is great for this; keep a stack on hand. Use tool of your choice to scoop some paste from the jar & deposit it on the paper. I used a palette knife.
Holding the paper firmly near the top, scrape the paste down the paper. I keep those fake plastic credit cards that come in the mail for this (my husband likes them for bookmarks). Scrape the paste off the edges of your decorative paper, onto the waste paper. Continue to keep a firm grip on the top of the paper! Move your gripping hand out of the way to work on the top of the page or turn the waste paper around to finish spreading the paste. You don't need a thick coating, but you do need enough to see the dampness of the paste all over the paper. I stress holding on to your paper because I know from personal experience what a mess can be created if the paper slips; you can end up with paste where you do not want it, on the front of your good paper. This did happen to me a couple of times; I used my damp cloth to wipe it off after securing it to the divider page. You might want to practice with a couple of pieces you don't care about to get the hang of it. If your paper does slip, immediately pick it up, move the waste paper out of the way and bring over a fresh sheet of waste paper.
When you've got the paste spread completely, pick up your glued paper and imediately move that waste paper to a safe distance! Trust me, you won't be sorry if you make this a habit. Put a piece of waxed paper under the surface which will receive the glued paper. At this point, I transfer the glued paper from my non-dominant hand to my dominant hand; I then use my damp cloth to clean the fingers of the non-dominant hand. Line up as best you can the glued paper and smooth it down. You may need to clean your fingers again at this point. Depending on the paper, you may have a few seconds grace time to reposition. If you don't get it exactly the way you want, be willing to embrace some imperfection or think of a creative way to cover up the mistake. I use the side of my fist to smooth the paper down, working from the center outwards. Then I rub my fingers firmly over the edges.
Fold the waxed paper over your glued pieces so that waxed paper is now on both sides. Place under a heavy book to weight down while drying. This keeps your paper nice and flat. I have a stack of old phone books I use for this purpose. Leave for several hours or overnight to dry. Any excess paste on your waste paper can be scraped off and put back in the jar. I continued this same process with the remaining divider pages. As a way to cut down on the amount of waste paper needed, once you've used a couple of sheets, place the gluey sides together. This way, you can use both sides of some of that waste paper. I ended up with a stack of paper, glued together.

Now, back to the planner project. After I glued all the paper to one side of the divider pages, I left them to dry for several hours. I pulled them out, and punched the holes, using the holes in the divider pages a guides. I also trimmed any excess paper from the edges. I then repeated the gluing process for the other side. I let them dry overnight, but they still seemed a little damp the next morning. I decided to stack them again, but this time between sheets of waste paper, in hopes that the waste paper would draw out any remaining moisture.

More next time...

Immi