My Ransom Note Dayplanner

Over the summer I suffered a technological mishap that resulted in quite a few lost files.  One would think I'd have learned to back up things by now--and I have--just not as frequently as I should.  My previous back up was a couple years old.  So...a lot of things just disappeared.  Like our most up-to-date Scrabble stats, say, or the template for my homespun, recycled dayplanner.

And it is the time of year where I need a new planner.  (I am lost without my planner to guide me.)  I found myself jotting down a growing list on the last page of December 2016 of concerts, meetings, dental appointments, etc.  that are, somehow, scheduled for a 2017 that is astonishingly close.  But, my old template was gone, a casualty of the mishap.  It was just something basic I'd pulled off the web and so that was where I went to find a replacement.

As I was scrolling through different free options I realized that I could seize this opportunity to get creative and make my own.  And a cooler one at that.  So, I did.

I don't know where the ransom note idea came from, but I really like it.  It is playful and bright, quirky and still easy to read.  I enjoyed hunting out the letters and laying them out in an attractive arrangement.  Johnny made herself quite a pest trying to help me with all these scraps of paper, but I persevered.  The birds I clipped from a renewal reminder for Audubon magazine, but everything else came from an outdated issue of Time.  All cast off things, destined for the recycle bin at the library where I work.

I sketched out the boxes and pasted down the letters, making one master copy.  I then printed out copies on (the gazillion) pages that students have left behind in the printer at the library.  This not only makes the dayplanner more eco-savvy, but frequently provides interesting things to look at from aviation traffic signals to English papers.  Often enough though the backside is just gobbledygook.

I have a smallish (9 inches x 7 inches) three ring binder which I use for containing my planner pages.  It is something I picked up secondhand and it has served me at least three years now.

I like it.  I like it a lot.  Maybe there was at least one upside to the digital malfunction.