Planner Cover Hybrid Project
Hello hybrid crafters and wanna be hybrid crafters! Today I’m going to tell you about creating a fun cover for my planner and I hope to get your mind spinning about what you might want to create! First, we must give a shout out to Jen Allyson for The Project Girl Weekly Planner 2013. I think this baby is going to change my life! And because I’m going to be using it every day, I wanted it to be a bit more “me” and pretty. Enter hybrid project. I’m going to give you the steps I used to create a personalized cover for my planner. Here is our end product:
Here is how I got it done:
- I opened a 12 by 12 document in Photoshop so I had plenty of space to work with to design the shape of my cover. The planner prints onto 8.5×11 inch paper. This project and similar projects can also be done in Elements. Other graphics/photo editing software will likely work also.
- I used my guides to measure off exactly the size of the daily planner pages so I would make sure my cover was at least that big. I designed the shape I liked and made sure to cover this area and a little extra. You can use a shape from your shape tool library, merge shapes, or use your pen tool to create your own!
- Since I also wanted a cover for the back of the planner pages, I created a new document and pulled my shape into it. Then I flipped it on the horizontal axis.
- I looked for some pretty papers from my digi stash and clipped them to my shapes. (See Diane’s recent blog post on clipping papers here) I also wanted papers on the inside of my covers so I pulled those into my files to clip to my shape layers for my second round of printing. I used several papers from my kit Be Bold. (i.e.: the back cover is also the front inside cover and vice versa)
- Next it’s time to think about embellishment! Since I wanted my cover to be able to fold over to the back, I kept it flat. If you want some dimension to yours, you may want to drag the elements alongside the cover in your document so you can cut them out after printing.
- I printed my covers and cut them out. I printed them onto plain white cardstock. If you do not have a color printer or a printer that will print in large format, check out your local office supply store or copy center. You can bring in your files and have them do this for you.
- I wanted my front cover to be a bit sturdier so I placed some chip board in between the two papers. I generally use a cereal or cracker box for this, but this time I snagged the cover of one of my cardstock paper packs. For my back cover, I just glued the two papers together. Because I don’t love the white edge that you sometimes see after you put the paper together, I just used a Distress Ink pad by Jim Holtz to add a little finish to the edges.
- I used The Cinch to bind everything together but you certainly don’t need any fancy equipment! Your local office supply store/copy center may offer binding services. Or you could use a three hole punch and rings. Or put it in a binder. Or use ribbon. There are a lot of possibilities!
- To finish it off, I added a bit of decorative ribbon and one piece that I could use as a bookmark in my planner.
So there you have it! A simple little project that has dressed up my daily planner. Now it will look beautiful sitting on my desk each and every day as I check off my to-dos!
