Project Calendar Notebook

Hello!  We are in the middle of another week and heading towards the end of another month.  I swear - the time just goes by so fast!

I don't know about you, but I'm a list maker.  I love to make lists and feel good when I can cross something off of it.  But, the most important thing is that lists remind me of what I need to do or buy.  Because my memory majorly sucks!  I have a "house book" that has all my lists of projects to do and also includes measurements of rooms and different things for the house, lists of paints or supplies I've used.  Anything house-related goes in the book!  Last year, when I started getting serious about getting projects done, I needed a better way to make sure I actually got them done.  The lists were working well as a reminder of what needed to be done, but the problem was managing my time to get the projects done.  So, I got the idea to print out a calendar by month and in each day's box, I would write down things I wanted or needed to get done for the day.  I tried it out and it works so well for me.  I've been using this process ever since!  I didn't really have a place for my project calendar - I would just slip the piece of paper into my house book or paperclip it to the front, but I ended up accumulating a bunch of papers in the last year.  So, I decided to turn them into a notebook and will be doing this for each year.  Here is a quick tutorial on how to make one for yourself.

 Supplies needed:
*Cardboard
*Adhesive
*Scrapbook paper
*Print-outs of calendar by month (of course, you can always do this by week or even by day, but it will just be a thicker notebook.  Monthly seems to work just fine for me)

1)  Print out the calendar by month for a total of 12 pages.  I just opened up the iCal on my Macbook and printed it out by the month view (you could also do it by day or week).  Fold each paper in half. 

 2)  Take your cardboard and just hold it up against the paper and make a mark where you want to cut (you'll need enough to cover the paper).  Then cut the cardboard to size - you will need 2 pieces (one for the front & one for the back).  I happened to have a large-ish Shutterfly envelope which was a thin piece of cardboard and made it the exact size of the folded piece of paper.

 3)  Adhere the first month to the first piece of cardboard.  Remember - since you folded the month in half, you will only be gluing half of the piece of paper to the cardboard.  This will form the front cover of your booklet.

4)  You will then need to adhere the months to each other.   You will take the backside of the other half of the month and adhere it to the backside of the first half of the other month.  What's that?   It doesn't make sense?  Example:  After you have adhered the backside of the 1st half of January to the cardboard, adhere the backside of the 2nd half of January to the backside of the 1st half of February.  Then adhere the backside of the 2nd half of February to the backside of the 1st half of March and so on.  Hmmm...maybe the picture below will help.

Wow, that was kind of hard to describe in words.  :)

5)  Once you've connected all the months together, adhere the last half of December to the other piece of cardboard to make the back cover.

You'll then be able to open up all the pages just like a book!

6)  Take some scrapbook paper and cut enough to cover the front & back covers of the book.  You can really get creative and do anything you want here.  I kept it pretty simple.  I just cut the scrapbook paper to fit the exact size of the cover and glued it on.  I then took a plain piece of colored paper and used decorative scissors to cut out a label and just hand wrote on it.  Since I had 2 notebooks I was making, I used scraps from the opposite book and glued them on the edges to make a binding and hide the folded part of the papers. 

Ta da!  A cute little project calendar book to keep track of what projects/crafts (big or small) I need to do each day.

Sometimes I write things down ahead of time, but most of the time, I just write things down the day before - it just depends on what I'm in the mood for or how much I get done in that day.  The boxes are kind of small, but you can fit several things in one box if needed.  I don't always get everything done and if I don't, it's ok - I can just move it to another day.  What I love about this is that it allows me to manage my time efficiently.  Some projects will need to be done in more than one day - I can break down the project in parts and assign them to different days and still feel accomplished even if I don't finish a project all in one day because I get to cross them off when done!  Ha!  Also, if I have a project that needs to be done by a certain day, I can assign particular days ahead of time to make sure it gets done by the deadline.

Thanks for taking a look - hope this helps with your list of projects too!

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