Tuesday 13 January 2009

A gorgeous diary for... zero (just some time needed)

OK, I have to confess to you all that I am addicted to organisers / diaries / lists and so on ;o)

For me, ambling around a stationery store is a hobby, seeing different diaries, checking different paper and the different covers on notebooks etc... the colours, the textures, what content they have - it's all just a pleasure! But the ones for me have to be a certain way, I'm way too fussy...

So you can imagine that December/January is the time I make the huge decision of what pretty diary I will have for the year ahead... and well, they were never quite 'it'. So I discovered DIYPlanner.com which has loads of templates to create your own 'book' whether it be for a diary, tasks, notes etc etc.

BUT I found it all... embarassingly confusing because I don't work in US sizes! So I feebly searched and then found:


Amanda's Site (thank you Amanda)

Which presented me with the option of having something custom made by her, that I could freely use.

All I did was 'save as' the images I wanted on her site, then pasted them into Word. I then changed them to the size I wanted each page to be (by right clicking on the image and going to the size tab).

Then after figuring out how to place 2 images on the page (to save paper), I printed lots of pages - around 28 as each one covers 1 week and I had 2 per page. I also managed to print some other 'Notes' pages on the back of each 'Week' one (lots of lining up and testing for this but it worked). In addition, also printed some 'Task' pages, because lists are the only way my befuddled head gets things done.





The design I preferred was this one as it suits me for each week. But there are lots to choose from.

Doing this gives me the option to print onto say scrap paper that I had at home, and use the 'good' side for another year's worth of stuff. As the template has no year or month, I have kept the Word document on my pc so it's just a case of pressing 'print' x 25 next year...

So for the sake of a couple of hours printing and cutting, I have my own thing which is cheaper and greener, and will do the same next year...

Another good site is Printable Paper for free paper download templates...

Saving: Around £6 plus keeps me away from the alluring stationery shelves spending money!

4 comments:

oh.amanda said...

Wonderful!!! I'm glad the templates worked out so great for you. And thanks for the link love. :)

Sophie Gist said...

Thanks Amanda, it's a small saving but a great start to the year and I love that it's more personalised than a shop bought one!

No Longer 25 said...

This is a good idea, but I have to admit I'm totally addicted to my filofax, now if you could print off filofax sized diaries that would work for me. I've already got the hole punch so I'm sure I can find this somewhere - will need to do some searching!

Sophie Gist said...

Jade - see Oh.Amanda's link in my article - I just 'saved as' the items I wanted (as images), put them into Word, changed the size to what I wanted (ie: to be like my Filofax) and printed lots...