Hello and welcome to my special Christmas post. My name is Katrina Rollings I'm from England and I am a member of the Creative Crew. I love my mixed media and using digital kits for all kinds of creative things.

I love planners but I don't really have a life that needs a planner. There are a couple of exceptions though, holidays - I always make a themed journal for each holiday, which I write each day and collect all those little bits and bobs you pick up on your travels and of course Christmas!

I have used a Christmas planner for many years now, bringing it out year after year and adding to the lists. I thought it was such a useful thing I would make myself a new one and share it with you.

Tangie has so many wonderful Christmas kits it was so hard to pick. In the end I chose 

Artist Trading Cards Super Saver {Bundle No. 2} - hundreds of beautifully vintage images, perfect to use in your planner.

Letter Size Paper Pack No. 1 - how did I miss this one! Full of wonderful papers for the whole year. An absolute must.

Quickity Split Refill {Joyous Noel Collection} - Wonderful print and use papers for Christmas projects.

To make your planner you will need -

* stiff card for your planner covers cut to the size you want your journal to be. Mine is A5 which is British A4 cut in half but feel free to make yours which ever size you want.

* Printable card and paper

* Coloured card to make your dividers.

* Ribbon for your closure.

* 3 book rings to hold the planner together. I like to use book rings here as you can open them and move things around or add things to your planner when you want to.

* An envelope template or an old envelope you can take apart and use as a template.

* Copy paper for your pages cut to size.

* Ribbon, bells, buttons, trims or any other embellishments you want to add to your planner.

* Wet glue, scissors and hole punch

So now we have everything to hand let's make our planner.....

To start with you need to decide how many parts you want your planner to have, I have decided on 3, Christmas card list, present list and Christmas recipes.

The next decision is which papers you want to print. You will need-

  * A front and back cover

  * 2 others for the  inside of the planner covers

  * 3 printed onto printable card for the envelopes and 2 more for the pockets on the dividers.

I printed out the papers I liked 

Before you cover your planner covers with your paper you need to attach your ribbon to the cover base's. I used a strong double sided tape. Line up the covers next to each other to make sure you put the ribbon in the same place on the front and back cover. The ribbon needs to go on the outside of each cover.

  Then I covered the cover's of my planner on both sides with the papers.

Use a wet glue to do this as it will give you a little wriggle room to get your papers in the right place. Don't use too much glue or this will wrinkle your papers, if you can see it on the base you have too much.

If you want to have a particular part of the paper on your cover, like the stockings on my cover, hold it up to the light and you will be able to see the cover through the paper. That will help you position it.

Once the paper is stuck down trim the paper to size. This is much easier than cutting the paper to size first, believe me that always leads to disaster. 

I then used some red paint to colour the edges.

I then cut the coloured card to the size of my planner to make the dividers.

I used the leftover strips of paper from covering my planner covers to make pockets on the dividers. I also used one of my cutting dies to make tabs for my dividers.

On the other side of my dividers I made some envelopes using the printed card sheets. I had an envelope template but if you don't have one of these you could unstick an envelope you have and draw around it of just draw one free hand yourself.

Keeping the envelope theme going I also made some more envelopes to go in each section. After all you can never have too many pockets!!

I used off cuts again to put a small piece of contrasting paper on the inside of the envelope to cover up the white that was showing.

 

Then I needed to punch the holes for the book rings to go through to hold my planner together. All the holes need to be in the same place on all the sections for the planner to look nice and square.

I have a trick to help with this...

Cut a piece of scrap paper so it is the same height as your planner.

Fold your piece of paper as shown in the photo. This will be your punching template. Then draw a line vertically on the out side of the template to make sure all the holes are the same distance from the side of the planner. Punch 3 holes on the crossing of the lines.

I then placed my template on the covers and punched the holes  through the holes on the template. 

If you find it hard to hold the template onto the cover you can use a peg or bulldog clip to hold it onto the cover or draw a dot with a pen through the template and the punch your holes.

I then did the same with my dividers and my envelopes.

For the paper pages I used the same template but held the papers together with clips to make it easier.

When I put my planner together all the holes lined up.

I could then add my book rings to hold it all together.

 Now for the fun part, decorating your planner.

The kit I chose, Artist Trading Cards super saver has lots and lots of beautiful vintage Christmas images. I went through and chose the ones I liked, re-sized them and printed them and cut them out. 

 This is how I decorated mine -

My cover, I used die cut letters for my planner name and then decorated my book rings with ribbons and bells. 

The buttons are attached to the book rings with wire and I also used a button on the cover too. I have added some sparkle using a Sakura clear glitter pen.

Tip don't put anything too bulky on your planner cover. This will be used year after year and you don't want things being knocked off over the years. 

 The first page - I loved this happy Father Christmas so I put him right at the front so he was the first thing you see. 

Also the wonderful bow! I added a tag to it so I could add the date that I made my planner.

My first divider - I added the beautiful tree adding some of the glitter pen.

Dont forget to use you tapes too.

This will be my Christmas card list section. Here in the U.K. we send lots of cards that we display around our homes. Your list doesn't tend to change much over the years but it's nice to know you have remembered everyone.

The other side of the divider - Those bells look so real on the pocket there. I also added some Washi tape.

Divider 2 -  This will be for my present lists each year. Here I just added some tape as I liked the busy paper pattern.

For the reverse, I added this very full stocking and bell images as well as a word cut with one of my dies. This pocket will be a great place to keep all those precious gift receipts, just in case!

My second envelope - This is decorated with this wonderful vintage image along with the word strip. Perhaps the place to keep those handmade tags you have left over each year?

Divider 3 - This will be my Christmas recipe section. I love to cook and bake and have lots of recipes I use each year but they are all in different books or on pieces of paper. So now I can put then all in one place, here.

I love this bulldog clip holding the papers, all from the Tangie's bumper ATC kit. I also decorated the back of the envelope.

The reverse of the divider - I added some more of my die cuts and some sweet  little flowers also from the ATC kit. Perhaps a pocket for recipes people have written out for you and you want to keep the original safe?

 The last envelope - The beautiful bow is from the ATC kit with the leaping deer which is a die cut

The back cover - I added the Christmas stocking, again from the ATC kit.  The fun bobbly trim I added to the front and back covers.

 Then finally the back cover.

Well thank you so much for staying with me to the end, that was a long tutorial but I do hope you will make a Christmas planner of your own. They really are handy and it is lovely looking back over the lists of Christmas presents you have bought in the past.

Of course this could be a planner for anything really, just decorate appropriately. One would also make a lovely Christmas gift too.

This is something that you can use year after year but just one last tip - don't put it away with the Christmas decorations, keep it in a safe place ready to go each year so you can be really organised year after year!!

Thank you again for reading my tutorial, if you have any questions or queries about the planner tutorial please ask below and I will try and help.

Until my next post, enjoy the build up to Christmas.

                                                        Love Katrina