My girlfriend likes it when I make a covered Dollar Tree planner for her every year. This year, I could only find a two year planner, and even though it’s larger than previous calendars, I went with it.

To begin, I found some Stampin’ Up retired 12 x 12″ designer papers that I liked in black and white. The designer paper was larger than I needed, so I cut about 2″ off the top, so it’s 10″ tall by 12″ wide. I put the planner inside one of the papers and folded the top of the paper down to meet the top of the planner. Then I folded the bottom up to meet the calendar and removed the calendar to create a better fold. If you line one edge of the paper up with your fold, you should always end up with a straight fold. I don’t use a ruler or score tool, as this paper is pretty easy to fold without any tools. Then I folded the left side of the paper to about 1/4″ from the left side of the planner and folded it, and then did the same to the right side. You’ll want a little extra room (thus the 1/4″ extra) so the book doesn’t bulge when closed. Once the folds are done, you can lay the planner into the paper and using the side folds as flaps, put the planner into the flaps so it stays inside without any glue. If the book bulges when closed, make the side folds loose.

I then took a strip of the designer paper that was 12″ long by 3″ wide and scored it at 1″ and 2″ on the 12″ length, then folded the two folds to end up with a 1″ wide strip. I put tear tape inside one fold to make sure it would stay closed and then wrapped the belly band around the outside of the planner and hot glued the left end of the band to the front of the planner then wrapped the band around the back of the planner, hot gluing it in place. The right end I folded over and hot glued it shut, then put velcro under it so I could close the planner and it will stay closed with the velcro. I made sure the belly band wasn’t tightly closed with velcro, as you’ll need room for the planner to grow. I took two pieces of matching designer paper that I measured to fit inside the left side of the front cover and inside the right side of the back cover of the planner. You’ll want to make sure you leave a little space between the paper and the fold of the binding, otherwise you’ll end up with a bulge. I made the mistake of not leaving room when I did the first paper, and had to use my Xacto knife to cut a small strip of paper away from the seam.

I used tear tape to adhere these pages in place. I took three small pads of post-it-notes from the Dollar Tree and wrapped the designer paper around them and hot glued the back of the pad to the designer paper and hot glued a strip of glue to the top of the pad, making sure not to let any glue seep out of the top. If glue seeps out of the top, you’ll want to wipe off the excess glue before you lay the front of the paper onto the pad.

To decorate the planner, I had bought some matching embellishments from the Dollar Tree and I glued some to the front of the post it note pads as well as some to the belly band.

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