Last year I made my first agenda and I really liked it! After using this agenda for almost a year, I realised it didn’t quite fit all my needs. There were parts of the agenda I almost didn’t use and parts that weren’t big enough for everything I wanted to put in them. So, for the 2016 agenda I made a brand new design!

I already put the how to for the Midori Traveler’s Notebook styled cover online yesterday and I also talked a bit about how the Midori Notebook worked, but today I’m going to show you!

The agenda contains of six folders of each eight sheets of double folded A4 sized paper (= 32 pages in a folder). Each folder has two months in it. You can find the files somewhere down bellow in this post. There you can also find some extra information on printing the files.

Folding the pages

After you’ve printed all the inserts, it’s time to start finishing them! The files are designed in such a way that you don’t have to trim them, you just have to fold all of you printed pages double. You can use a bone folder to make an extra nice, flat, crease.

When all the pages are folded, start making the folders. Each folder contains two months printed on eight sheets of paper. You have to put the double folded page into each other, making a small booklet.

When you’re done, you have six neatly creased folders. You can leave them like this, but I decided I wanted to make my folders stayed together firmly, so should they ever slip out the cover the lose pages wouldn’t be all over the place.

Sewing the folders

I decided sewing them together would be the best way to go. You can either sew them by hand or, if you have a sewing machine, put them under the machine.

I picked a nice colourful thread, as there is no colour in the original prints. Sewing them together with my sewing machine was  very easy! I wasn’t sure the folders weren’t too thick, but my sewing machine didn’t complain. Afterwards you’ll have to change your needle though, because sewing paper makes it dull.

Arranging the 2016 agenda

When the preparation of your folders is finished, it’s time to put them in the cover. As I’ve explained in the how to of making the cover I’ve chosen to put three elastic bands in my cover. Each elastic band can easily hold three booklets with the help of some extra elastic bands. You can either use simple household elastic bands or make some of your own using the extra elastic band left over from making the cover of the agenda.

I’ve started by putting the last three folders of my agenda on the middle elastic band. With your booklet in the right order, you put the middle booklet (in this case ‘September’) under you elastic band by folding it open and putting it under the band.

You put the other two folders in the correct order before and after the already attached folder. Open them both up in the middle and sandwich the middle folder in between. Take your extra elastic bands and put an elastic band around the two halves of the unattached folders.

After putting the first three folders in the cover, you can go on and put the other ones on the first elastic band in your cover in the same way. The last elastic band in the cover remains empty, because that one is going to be used for adding some extras!

Adding extra’s

I put three elastic bands on my Midori styled cover. This means I can put at least 9 different folders in the cover (probably even more, if I use more elastic bands or binder clips). The agenda consists only of six folders, so I had some extra space to fiddle around with. I made some quick extras for my agenda, but I’m sure the content of these extras might change during the year, depending on what I need most in my agenda.

I found an old lined notebook (from when my mom was little) I thought would fit inside the cover. I also folded some drawing paper (180g/m²) into a booklet  and I also made a quick double envelope (based on this tutorial) for filing extra papers and lose things like tickets or cards.

I fitted all these things into the notebook in the same way as I’ve put the agenda folders in. I’ve put the sketchbook paper on the third elastic band in the cover and next added the double envelope and the old notebook using and elastic band.

The 2016 agenda printables

Bellow are the printables for the agenda, but first, let me give you a small overview of the different pages you can find in the agenda. When you click on the images you’ll be able to see a larger version.

Each month starts of with a title pages, containing hand drawn illustrations. I wanted to put some colour in my agenda, put I also wanted to be able to print it cheaply. Printing full colour pages isn’t cheap at all, that’s why I decided to add colouring pages to my agenda. This way it’s cheap to print, you have some relaxing colouring work you can do when you feel like it and you’ll have a super personal and colourful agenda.

Next you’ll find a monthly overview, followed by a spread where you can add a to do list, make plans, jot down ideas and notes and plan you meals for each week of the month. Oh, and where you can keep track of your to-be-read books for that month.

The actual day planner consists of a weekly overview, which has lots of space for taking notes and putting down appointments and which has also a small space for a daily ‘to-do’ list.

Some months will also have an extra spread where you can write down more to-do’s, put your wishlists, random notes, blog ideas, happy thoughts, long-term goals and make a sketch if you should feel like it.

Some technical information about size and printing options

Using double folded A4 paper means the agenda is a bit larger than A5 (148mm x 210mm) size, which makes this a fairly large agenda. I wanted a lot of space in my agenda to write down to do lists and to put down ideas and appointments. When I’m on the go I don’t always take my agenda with me, it stays on my desk a lot of the time, where it lies open. I know the size will be too big for some people, so I’ve made two different sets of downloadable files.

I’ve printed my agenda on 80g/m² paper in a copy centre. The copiers where a bit crap, so I got some distortion on my illustrations. Make sure you use standard/high settings when printing for the best results. You should enable double sided printing. I’m not sure if this would be universally correct, but I enabled “flip on short side”. The only way to find out is to test print a couple of pages before printing everything.

The A5 files (without crop marks)

The 2016 agenda consists of six .pdf files that you’ll have to print double sided. I’ve put them into a .zip file, so make sure you have a program to extract the files. The files without crop marks are to be printed full sized. There is no need to trim them. This version of the agenda will be, cover included, 175mm x 235mm.

Depending on your printer or copier you’ll be able to print them without resizing them to fit the page. My printer at home can print to the edge of the page, the printer in the copy centre couldn’t and took out bits of the illustrations. You’ll have to make a test print to see what fits your printer best.

 The scalable files (with crop marks)

This set is resized to 90% and has crop marks (but no bleed), so you can resize the file further when you print it to any size you want (smaller than an A4 sized paper) and you can nicely trim the pages.

These files with crop marks can be printed full size on A4 paper. In that case they’re 90% of the original and you’ll have to trim them. You can also resize the files further, but note that I haven’t designed the files for printing them smaller, so I’m not sure how small you can go. I tried printing these at 80% and they still looked OK. Make some test prints first!

The complete 2016 agenda

Because I love my new agenda/fauxdori notebook so much, I took way too many pictures (cursing heavily, because the weather wasn’t helping at all) and I did my best to make a selection, but I’m not sure I succeeded…

So, what do you think about the 2016 planner? I’m very happy with the final result and I can’t wait to start using it (I already started colouring a couple of pages)!