Week #3 of Thrifty Gift Fridays is This purse friendly, no or low cost pocket planner. It is made from a 10 cent paper folder from the back to school sales and some scrapbooking paper. It'll take you less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Perfect for yourself or as a gift for a friend. This would be a great gift with coupons tucked inside, along with some printed shopping list pages and a cute mini-pen!
I was in desperate need of a way to hold and organize my receipts in my purse. I need to sort them by by business and personal for tax purposes, but I also wanted a spot for shopping lists and coupons.
The original idea came from Organized Christmas to make each pocket into different planning sections for the holidays such as : Gift list, Menu/baking list, budget, etc. They include super cute printable pages that fit perfectly in this planner! They have a ton of options to fit this pocket planner!
What I love about this planner is how adaptable it is to individual needs and also how inexpensive,yet portable it is. Toss it in your bag and go! No bulky binder to tote around. So mine is not a holiday themed planner and you can make yours for anything you want.
Here's how:
Supplies:
One Paper Pocket Folder (like for school)
Scrapbooking papers
glue stick
Scissors
2 self stick magnets or velcro dots (see update on this at bottom of post!)
Directions:
1) On a flat work surface open up folder.
2) Fold in both long outside edges to the middle fold
It should look like this now:
:
4) Take the original center fold and crease it the opposite direction so the folder is now inside out:
5) re-fold the long outside edge back in to the center fold:
6) Holding the folded parts together flip the folder over and re-fold the remaining outside edge
in towards the center fold:
7) The pocket planner is now accordion folded and should look like this when it's open
8) Cut your planner down to the size of a legal envelope. (Keep the strip you cut off, you're going to use it.)
8) Now, is decorating time: I covered my front and back covers with scrapbooking paper and also did some on the inside as well. This is not necessary, but a little prettier to look at. Just play around with it.
Also I didn't label each pocket till after the entire project was completed. I needed just a bit extra to decide what I wanted/needed most. Here's a look at mine again:
10) Your strip from the top of the folder should have 4 folded sections. Cut off one of the sections so it is now 3 sections long. Cover the strip in scrapbooking paper, and refold the strip at the two folds.
Jan's tip: You may notice that your strip/tab is slightly longer than a 12x12 scrap booking paper. That's ok, cover all that you can and just cut off the part of the strip that isn't covered if it's only an inch or two you'll be fine. See in the picture below, you'll see the side on the left is slightly shorter than the side on the right, as long as the two side, as long as the two sides that wrap around the front of the planner overlap you'll be fine. (see picture at step number 13 for reference if necessary) 11) Turn your pocket folder face down and glue the middle section of the strip down across the middle of the folder:
Here's what the front of the pocket folder looks like now:
12) Fold the long strip over the front of the pocket folder. Stick your self stick magnet or velcro on the inside end of the other, shorter remaining flap. Now put the second magnet or velcro on top of the first magnet or velcro as if they were ready to do their job, and the sticky side of the second piece is face up.
13) Fold the second flap over the top of the first flap and press down where the magnet or velcro is to attach the sticky side of the magnet or velcro to the correct spot on the flap:
Ok, just label your individual pockets, print off any planner pages from the link above or create your own, and you are ready to go!
(I had the magnets already and they do work just fine, but I'm wondering if the velcro dots would be even better? Let me know if you find out!)
Jan's Tip: UPDATE: I've been using this for a few weeks, and I am super rough on my purses. The magnet did not hold up and I switched it for an adhesived back velcro dot. Holds much better now!
