I recently made a planner for my daughter - bought the little binder and tiny sheet protectors, cut and punched holes in different types of drawing paper, turned a notepad/mousepad into a week at a glance calendar, and voila! A little thing to call her own, with a lot more flexibility than the ones you can buy. This process started me thinking about doing one for myself, but I would really like to include an element of pocket scrapping, as well as art journaling, and some elements of a planner (i'm not big on planning, so this one is not as big for me). I also tend to way overthink things and get stuck in analysis paralysis. I'm stuck somewhat because of the varying sizes of things. I could go with the planner sizes, but that would make it harder to use the project life pages. I've also never actually bought any project life anything, only drooled over it at the craft store. Any suggestions? Any videos out there on incorporating project life pieces into other projects? I don't like to be tied to one particular style or brand, and I imagine this as a combo of a smash book, art journal, and scrapbook. I am mostly perplexed on what to choose for the "housing" and how to make sure i can add mixed media or watercolor weight paper to whatever it is that I choose, as well as adding pocket pages. This might be a dumb question - your answer might be, buy an 8x8 pocket life album and the corresponding pages and supplement at will. If it is, i'm sorry - the craft store here never has the PL albums in stock, only the little cards. Are the albums standard ring binders?
Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Personally, I'd recommend just going with a standard letter-size 1.5" or 2" D-ring view binder (so you can put your own cover on it) and these pocket sheet protectors from Jo-Ann. It'd be semi-limited to 4x6 cards, but you could paste two 3x4 cards to a 4x6 sheet of paper to use them. Then you would be able to do the pocket scrapping, punch an art-journal page or stick it in a regular (full-pocket) sheet protector, and add in a freebie monthly calendar page if you want to as well.
I've done a few 6x8 project life albums, and they would be a good size for use as a planner. Not too big, but still with a few pocket varieties you could add.
Thanks to both of you for the ideas!
I would stay away from the spiral bound type planners. They are more difficult to customize.
I have the Happy Planner which is a discbound system. Although I don't think that would be a good choice for what you want, it is more customizable.
You may want to go with the binder system. There are several types. But have you thought about the 3-ring binder from Target dollar spot? They seem all the rage for people who want planners plus something more. They are small (can fit into your purse) and extremely customizable. You may want to check out this YouTube video: VIDEO
Most planner systems have sheet protectors with varying pocket sizes; so that should not be a limitation. Also you can make your own using the fuse tool.