Regardless of how I am going to use them, I am planning to move forward and make my monthly planners myself. 

I am planning to use my stash of old Little Golden Books (LGBs) as covers.  I think I must go with a Coptic binding- it will give me more room to add things in (basically), like various tip-ins and whatnot.  I am planning to create regular A5 pages…and the covers will provide enough space that my tabs will be inside the covers and I won’t have to worried about them getting bent up or the words not being readable/legible.

From what I have seen, especially in my December journal here, I need about 200 blank pages to start with, before tipping anything in or the rest of it.  That would be about 50 sheets of paper (each piece being 4 pages once done.) I could do ten signatures of five folios each—or five signatures of ten folios each.  That depends on do I want all the pages to line up evenly on the outer edges or do I not care?

I shall be rounding all the corners on these pages…although I do have a paper…roughener? tool.  You draw it along the edge of the paper and it creates a hand-torn look.  I haven’t used it all that much yet, although I have had it for quite a while.  I found it on sale … somewhere.  I am not at all good at remembering some things, like where the heck I bought this thing from – or exactly when.  I know it has sat in the bowl on my desk with my chalk and my charcoal and various other arty sundries for … all of this year at least.  This is one reason, the not having used it, that I want to use it.  I have it; I need to use it, right?

I already have my stash of fifteen (yes, fifteen, not twelve, don’t ask why because I am not all that sure) LGBs all picked out and sitting there in a pile.  Forgot the 20 or so old Readers Digest covers that are stuck into a couple different bags waiting to be turned into journals. I think they are too small/short for what I need. I love my A5 size. it is just perfect for me.

Given how many pages are going into these LBG planner journals, I have been debating paper.  I have a roll of kraft paper.  I have an even bigger role of mixed media paper.  I have a ream of watercolor paper.  I have various shades of cardstock, and that is about the easiest thing for me to get more of.

I need to decide if I am going to coordinate the entire collection in any way.  For example, any sort of spine decoration, like binding thread or charms or beads or floofy things to make it look cute.  Will I use the same sort of thing—since I make my own paper beads…or will I use the same colors…or will I just let the month – or even just the journal itself – to tell me what it wants?  I sort of like that idea better myself.

Shall I include pockets inside the books themselves, since the LGBs are a strange size?  Not that I can’t (or won’t) make myself a cover for these journals, but that’s later on down the road.  Will I need pockets now?  All I can tell you for certain is that pen loops are a mandatory thing for and with me.  If I lose another Blen pen (NOT an affiliate link, just a link to a product I love so you can see what it is) because I don’t have a pen loop connected to my journal and I have put my pen somewhere ‘safe’ and forgotten where that is…I might go mad… There are pens all over this house…that go into hiding the second I need one…and the one I want is inevitably off in a far-off land having some sort of adventure without me, laughing the whole time, knowing I am going crazy looking for it…and then it will randomly turn up in some odd place out of nowhere when no one is looking for it…of course.

I can and will make more if you are interested.  Just drop me a comment below.  Also, if you have any other questions or comments, feel free to leave them below as well.