Hello Pinterest lovers! Just FYI – Throughout October 2013, I am hosting a 31 day blog series, Build A Family Binder in 31 Days, complete with FREE Daily Printables! Go to the home page for details!
Christmas is behind us, and now we look forward to a new year. Start your new year off by getting organized!
***UPDATE: Some people have had problems downloading the documents. Please try the following links for the Google Docs version. Please let me know if you continue to have issues. Sorry for the inconvenience!!!***
Revised Links for Docs
Weekly Pages 1
Weekly Pages 2
Back in September 2011, I showed you my Family Binder. Since that time, that tutorial has had 1,580 page views! Shut the front door!
Well, I’m the kinda girl who likes to keep my planners with me at all times, and it’s a little hard to carry around that big ol’ family binder…plus, it’s made to sit on the counter to be easily accessible by the whole family.
Soooo…. I made a mini! 🙂 And I’m really excited to show you how – you’re welcome!
Here’s what I bought:
All of these products were purchased on Amazon – I’ve included links in the list below:
I made new calendar pages to fit my mini binder. When I made my Family Binder, I shared links to download all of the monthly calendar pages. So for the mini, I simply edited the page size to 8.5 x 5.5. Right now I only have Januray, February and March to share with you. I’ll only be keeping 3 months at a time in my mini personal binder.
Here are the monthly pages for January – March:

January download HERE

February download HERE
March download HERE
I also made new weekly planner pages – here ya go:
Now keep in mind that all of these printables are formatted for 8.5 x 5.5 paper. So you have to make that size paper to print on.
It’s easy – get out your trimmer and cut a regular sheet of paper in half. A normal size sheet of paper is 8.5 x 11, so cutting it in half makes it 8.5 x 5.5. Easy peasy!
(Or you could do what I did and be stupid. I didn’t use my brain at first and ended up cutting the long side to 8.5 and the short side to 5.5. Then I realized, DUH, cut it in half and it’s the same thing!)
I used white cardstock (cut in half) to make my cute little cover:
Oh yea – you need to punch holes in your paper to put it in your binder. You can buy a hole puncher on Amazon that fits 8.5 x 5.5 paper, or you can do what I did.
Use one of the tabbed dividers as a guide and use a standard one-hole punch to punch holes, like this:
You only need 3 holes, not six, for this particular binder.
So there you have it! A nice new handy dandy mini personal binder – way easier to carry around than that big family binder.
Whatcha think? Like it? I love it so very much! Looking forward to putting it to good use in 2012!
UPDATE: I finally made the rest of the calendar pages – download them all HERE.
21 Responses
It should keep things organized for sure! Thanks for sharing this at my Kiss and Tell linky party!!
By the way: your word verification is on. You’ll get more interaction with it off. See more tips at my Blog Tips and Resolutions party to unlock blogging’s potential.
Thanks for all this! I often print things half-paged by simply changing my printer’s properties to “paper saving”. Perhaps that would allow you to print things without changing the formatting?
Hmmm…never tried that. I’ll have to give it a shot! Thanks!
I already got my planner this year for Christmas, but I love this idea! I saved it in my favorites so I can make this if I don’t get a new planner next year. =]
I have been using this size, homemade binder for a couple of years now. I love the size! Your printables are great, thanks so much!
Thanks for sharing this. I may just have to try it!
so wish i would have seen this before i just bought one!!! Oh well, saving this for next year! What a great idea and thank you so much for sharing with us!!!
I have a question…do you use only a paper planner or do you also have some kind of calendar app (Cozi, etc.) on your smartphone or iPod? I REALLY want to get more organized this year, and I love this idea! I’m going to attempt Flying (FlyLady) again this year, so something miniature like this would be great to have along with a control journal (aka Family Binder).
When I find forms I want to use in my half-size planner, I change the paper size on my printer and decrease the size of the subject to 70%. I had to create a custom “half sheet” for my printer. The preview shows whether it will work or not.
HI! I just got done downloading the pages to print and as I went to try and print them it’s formatted in 8.5×11. What do I do? HELP! (Oh and I only have Acrobat reader and am not an expert at all with Adobe programs. Thanks
The easiest way to do it is like this: click “print” and in the drop-down menu that says “page scaling”, select “none” and un-check “auto-rotate and center”. You can print and trim the pages that way. Hope this helps!
Beyond awesome! I was just sitting here trying to figure out whether I wanted to use my family binder as a daily planner or my purse-sized planner… I love my family binder, because it has EVERYTHING I might need, but it’s BIG. And I love my little planner, but I can’t add pages into it.
Viola! Problem solved! =D
I just found your site with these GREAT mini printables!! Its hard to find them for the half size and I have two of them I use.. I LOVE THESE!!Thank you for these.. going to take a look around your blog = )
I just went and bought a mini binder to do this. Thanks for the idea!
Thank you, One Tough Mother. I was having problems printing out the calendars, too. This helped a bunch.
I love this! Your weekly planner pages are so cute. Thanks for the shopping list, too, I’ve never seen those binders before.
I really love the look of this, and am hoping to do myself a folder.
Unfortunately Scribed expects me to pay for a subscription before I can download anything you have available there 🙁
I noticed this too 🙁 I’m already so grateful for all your ideas, so I hate to ask for anything, but can you post those mini printables in a pdf version? That way those of us who don’t have a subscription for Scribd can utilize them too!? …just a thought
Hey there! I’m so sorry! I’ve just revised the posting with new links to the calendar pages and weekly pages. Let me know if these new links work for you – I apologize for the inconvenience!
Still love this! Your binders are what originally brought me to your blog;)