I don't know about you, but I have the hardest time finding the perfect planner.  I tried several different planners, yet none really lived up to my expectations. I don't need anything fancy but my ideal planner needs to have pages that are useful for my daily life. The other day I found a great DIY organizer notebook made by the Heart of Light blog here,  and I was inspired to try one of my own.

Here is my finished product! Below is a tutorial of how I made this notebook and a printable if you would like to make your own.  

To make my version of this notebook, you will need the following supplies:

- white copy paper

- twine

- 1/4 inch hole punch

- decorative file folder
- ribbon (with finished edges)

- hot glue & glue gun

I began designing my notebook in PowerPoint. I started thinking about the different sections of a planner that are important to me and I decided to use: Meal Plan, Shopping List, To Do, Prayers, Blog Inspiration, & Sketches. I changed the Page Set Up on PowerPoint to 5.5x7 inches and started adding content. The two images that I used were from the Graphics Fairy....I just love her blog. 

Here are pictures of two of my finished pages:

After completing the six page designs, I printed about 20 copies (120 pages total) and sorted them by topic. Then I cut the pages using a paper cutter so they were all the same size. After this step I punched five holes very close to the left edge of the paper. In order to create the cover and back, I used an old file folder that I bought from Francesca's. I simply cut a rectangular shape that was the same size as the pages and added 5 hole punches to each.  Using twine, I created a tight binding. The final step was to hot glue the ribbon to the inside of the cover and back to create a nice closure. 

Below are more pictures of the finished product. You can also download the PDF version of my notebook here if you want to create your own. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you had a fabulous weekend!

This week I am linking up at these parties!